WaiyaddoNoDan/YouZhaoSession11

YOU ZHAO

Eleventh Game Session

The PCs

WaiyaddoNoDan/RebornVermillionHavoc
WaiyaddoNoDan/Traveler
WaiyaddoNoDan/WuGoMaXa
WaiyaddoNoDan/KaksuaHino

The Guest NPCs

WaiyaddoNoDan/Qienzhiahi, Fair Folk
A creepy messenger from theWaiyaddoNoDan/SilverPrince
WaiyaddoNoDan/Sakgyu, aka Larkrim, "son" of Mebla Dul
A bear

Episode Summary

Guest narrated by Grandmasta

This episode picks up shortly after the last episode left off, as the team interrogates Qienzhiahi, who they had just saved from destruction at the hands of a group of her own kind.

Qienzhiahi, eager to ingratiate herself to her "friends," reveals that there's a Fair Folk invasion lead by a "Prince Balor" coming in four or five centuries. She dodges questions regarding why exactly the Fair Folk hate her, although apparantly it has something to do with the Fair Folk Yichirumin that Qienzhiahi had killed some time before (an event that the team had been present for). She pleads for asylum, and is met with skepticism. She eventually convinces them (or at least persuades them to hold off on kicking her out), and it is decided that she will stay at Havoc's dojo, much to his chagrin. She expresses interest in attending some of Havoc's classes, which he quickly and sternly refuses. Hino has Qienzhiahi sit for a guest lecture, where she goes into disturbing detail on the process of picking apart and devouring a person's Essence. Havoc, too, allows her to sit in on a class for his Sidereal students; she ends up sparring with Easton. Havoc in particular is shocked, then, to see Qienzhiahi activate Autumn Wind Song Form before the fight. Despite some help from Wu-Go-Ma-Xa, though, the fledgling Exalt is eventually defeated by the Fair Folk.

Havoc confronts Qienzhiahi about where she learned Autumn Wind Song Style. Qienzhiahi looks slightly confused and tells him exactly what he doesn't want to hear: she learned it from him, of course.

Later, the team recieves a message from the Bodhissatva Annointed By Dark Water in the form of a foul-smelling messenger carrying a foul-smelling parchment. It directs the team to an island where a dangerous creature "birthed" by the Solars lurks, and needs to be eliminated. The team heads out to the island. Upon landing, Traveller promptly gets entangled in poison oak, while Havoc notes - majestically - that there's a bush path leading away from the beach. The team follows the path, which eventually comes to a fork. Havoc and Hino take one path, Traveller and Wu-Go take the other. Traveller and Wu-Go come to a cave with clawed tracks on the ground around it, while Havoc and Hino come upon a grass hut. Hino investigates the inside of the yurt while Havoc converses with the owner, Larkram, on the outside.

Wu-Go and Traveller find a bear. It snarls as Traveller sighs and makes it his familiar. He is then knocked over by his new, overly-eager to please pet bear.

Upon investigating the hut, Hino discovers an unmarked book. It appears to contain some sort of code. While Havoc distracts the man on the outside, Hino discovers various demonic references, lengthy studies on the process of harnessing a demense, an examination of jungle feng shui, and vague references to honoring...or defaming...his parents. It does, however, mention the author's name: Sakgyu. He also manages to uncover the name of one of the man's parents: Mebla Dul!

Meanwhile, Havoc gets fed up with the scholarly man's sass and levels him with a gaze that would petrify a tyrant lizard. The scholar is unphased.

"You're no scholar," spits Havoc, thumbing the hilt of his blade just out of the sheath.
"I am a scholar of many things," Sakyu replies, summoning a blade of essence to his hand.
Just then, a chain wraps around the scholar: "Tell us your true plan, son of Mebla Dul," Hino sneers.
Havoc blinks behind his visor.

And a fight ensues.

Havoc and Hino, to their surprise, quickly find their hands full with Sakgyu. Traveller and Wu-Go arrive on the scene, Traveller astride the bear, just in time to see Sakgyu's forhead burst forth with light from where a castemark might emanate as he is enveloped in a pillar of green and bronze light. Hino, noticing them, calls out to Traveller and Wu-Go and tells them that the man they're fighting must be getting power from the demense -- one of them should go and attempt to disrupt it somehow. Wu-Go comes to take Hino's place in the fight as Hino and Traveller rush off to the demense. As Wu-Go approaches, Sakgyu takes a step back and begins meditating, as though casting sorcery. Havoc takes the moment to peel his mask off, wrap a prayer strip around his eyes, and activate Perfection of the Visionary Warrior. Hino takes the moment, before leaving, to break the man's sword arm.

While he concentrates, Havoc, Hino and Wu-Go viciously cut into the defenseless man, although he takes the damage amazingly well. He struggles with his spell as he is cut into, and as the casting drags on it quickly becomes apparant to the team that he is forming an Adamant Circle spell. Wa-Go and Havoc finally manage to subdue him, though, just before the spell is completed. The spell comes undone, Wu-Go grabbing him and ducking between the threads of fate to avoid the blast and Havoc simply knocking it aside.

Having defeated the sorcerer, Havoc and Wu-Go travel to the demense to meet up with Hino and Traveller. They find mutilated bodies strewn about in ritual patterns, blood staining the ground. Hino proceeds to cremate the bodies, and discerns that Sakyu was attempting to harness the demense for use in a summoning ritual of some sort. The bodies were merely secondary to this purpose.

The bodies spell out a poem.

...

The team returns to the boat. Hino reads the book he found in the hut a bit deeper. He unearths the fact that the man's father was a Third Circle demon, though not in the traditional sense. It suggests that he was not born naturally, even by the standards of a Solar-Demon liason. Finally, the ritual he had been working on with the demense was, in fact, a ritual to summon his father; while he was possessed of some of the powers of a Solar Exalt, he did not possess the Solar mandate to summon demons.

There is a quiet deliberation amongst the team on the topic of what to do with the man they've captured. Havoc, in particular, wrestles with this topic. Finally, though, convinced it would be the safest option (and faced with making a tiebreaker vote), Havoc takes the initiative and removes the man's head from his body.

They travel back to Seafoam in relative silence.

Quotes!

Dan: "You think you might be getting a tinge of ... shame."
Justin: "I parry it."
Dan: "Spend a willpower and five motes."
Justin: "Done."
Dan: "All right then."
Justin: "...Wait, did I actually parry something?"

...

Traveller: "All right, who's up for a joyride on my ship?"
Wu-Go: "Your ship?"
Hino: "Your ship?"
Havoc: "Your ship?"
Creepy Messenger: "Your...ship?"

...

Shanna: "What's my father talking about?"
Havoc: "Sometimes he says things, and we really can't stop him."

...

Justin: "Havoc asks the island if it's a demon."
Dan the ST: "'No,' the island says sullenly."
Justin (as Havoc): "Okay."
Island: "But I might be lying."
Havoc: "Would you do that to me?"
Island: "No...Unless I'm lying now."
Havoc: "Why don't you just shut up, island."
Jason: "I get three successes to find out if the island's lying."
Dan the ST: "Islands don't talk."
Justin: "...Shit!"

...

Dan: "I don't care about your 'real-world zoological knowledge.' It's a fuckin' mythical Chinese kung fu bear."

...

Justin: "Fourteen successes."
Dan the ST: "BING!"
Justin: "...Eh?"
Dan the ST: "Let me rephrase: [makes parry motion] Whu-psssh!"
Jason: "He used a perfect defense?"
Justin: "What the fuck?"
Dan the ST: "And he counterattacks!"
Justin: "WHAT the FUCK?"
Dan the ST: "All while clinched."
Justin: "One more time for the kids at home!"
Everybody: "WHAT THE FUCK?"

Comments

Commentary on the commentary, indeed. ~ G

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