Level Up (Again?!)
- Mizzle - Traveling Cook - collecting ingredients!
- Saraid - Level of Consume - get back MP when spellcasting
- TBs - Tinkerer > Emergency Item - when in crisis, free Inventory extra action (for, like, potions) (or a new Magi-Cannon!)
Moar FP!
Let’s Roll
Cut Scene!
Back inside the Airship … Dr Armin and Lady Ambra … examining her. She looks a little … softer? Fondness toward Dr A?
Just as I feared. Examined all the others, but never got the chance to check you.
You can help, right?
Could innoculate the others except Zeal … but he’s strong. That was years ago. Not sure how much as progressed. Will do what I can.
I believe that you will.
“Now arriving at Durandel’s Fort, landing shortly.”
Will have to go see him as well. Don’t worry – won’t let anything happen to you. Can I call you “Father” as well?
Sure.
Or “Papa”?
Okay.
Meanwhile, back with us …
Snowy forests outside Trishenko. Saved folk from the Lacosta, strange metallic insect creatures.
Sending the folk, couple dozen … to the Elf Settlement on the coast. Lumber worker speaks up - Trish, a Porcupine: we can try, but hiding has been fraught.
(So, okay, they follow us …)
TBs - head to town, to see if anyone is left.
Saraid - making sure folk are fed
Mizzle - better way to detect. Letting TBs run things.
TBs - Will run things, driven by anxiety.
Saraid - will try to make folk more comfortable.
Snowier and grimmer and colder than when we left.
Mizzle hears grumbling from bag.
Surdak. Cursing disloyalty … Helped him when he was alive. Gave her what she asked for.
Questioning himself, but only certainty has kept him alive all this time.
Books disagree. Question yourself – if you can’t, why are you so certain? If you ascended to godhood, what would you have done?
Destroyed all life. Because … thought everyone deserved to die. I was afraid to die.
What’s the moral basis for saying everyone deserves to die?
Gnashing of teeth. Why am I so uncertain, why might you have let me live?
That’s the question. You ahve to feel it to understand.
Need to help villagers. Everyone can help each other out.
Off on the Road to Trishenko
Travel check. Discovery! (plus Mizzle finds foodstuff)
Crossing the bridge - TBs
Wood-carved Great Blue Owl statue …
… to keep kids from wandering.
… see where the carver included some words … “great Zenith, watch over our meager village and protect our homes, from atop your keep far to the north.”
Hmmmm. Lady Zenith mentioned back in Golden Valley, and her mountain home.
Journal: years of information and his own notes. Old ruin from before the Dolvain family took over. Some older families still visit. Built into the highest hill in the valley. (Matches with Zenith, goddess of the night sky and high places.
So … once, people from Trishenko visited a shrine up in the mountains.
Storm crow lands on statue wing … does a little bow (bob?), then flies to the north., to where that shrine should be.
Most important thing in town. The Great Well (does not freeze over).
Can suddenly feel a chill wind … and then snow.
Look back … don’t see any of the rescuees … or each other!!
Challenge!
Snowstorm has befuddled us. Natural or unnatural?
Separated from one another.
Exploration Obstacle!
10-space clock. At 6 something happens.
Rush, Observe, Steel Nerves, Shout Out, Attune to the Magic, Get Bearings.
Prelims
- TBs - find / get onto road. Get Bearings. Success (by 3!) … and Push with Trishenko bond, so 3 checks!
Round 1
- TBs - shoot into the air. Fail! Hard to keep the clank moving. Slow!
- Mizzle - trying to understand how we got so much separated. Fail. Slow!
- Saraid - mutate
Round 2
TBs … can see someone?
Mizzle … stumble over something … er, a Lacosta, frozen.
- TBs – wave around Star Fragment and yell. Nope. Fail. And fail. And Shiny begins to drift off … frost accumulating around his eyes. And it’s affecting them. Cannot take actions; awakened if reunited.
- Saraid - now strong and furry. Talking to animals and plants for help – none (hunkering down). MGT+WLP = success! 3 checks! Invoke bond to push – with Trimaldis. 4 left … find some of the refugees and the TBs in their clank, “side of the road.” Use the club, heat up, try to wam up the clank. The TBs awaken!
** Fitful sleep, as if running from a great predator, hunting us, keeping at bay … change Theme! And the face of the hunter … a slim being, wearing deer horns and a spear … and as we protect … eventually nods, and fades into the distance … Theme changed to Protector. - Mizzle - In Treshenko. Shout defiance, here to help, not fight, why doing this? WLP+WLP. Success! Getting to whatever is causing all this.
Round 3
- Saraid - circling the group, get a sense of direction, pack the snow down … MGT+INS - Fail, reroll (digging into unknown bkgrd) … and still fail. Ice clings to her even harder.
- TBs - does that thing Mizzle was shouting at … feel like what I was dreaming?
. Sense that there’s something here. We are here to protect the this town and my friends, so … back off!
… the snow stops … right around us, like in the eye of the tornado.
Tall, imposing figure steps out, gaunt frame, Same as in dream.
“Prove the mettle of your heart!”
“Bring it on!”
It’s Khyrrsz.
A Battle!
Swapping out.
TBs pre-game – great roll! Slow, Shake, Weak!
Round 1
- Mizzle studies: invoke bond with TBs … what special abilities?
- Khyrrsz - Primal Strength = undoes conditions, Plus strong.
- Saraid - Bone Crusher - damage.
- K - Targeting TBs and S - Storm Collar! Miss!
- TBs - swap to Air, take an effective shot.
- K - Guard
Round 2
- TBs - Soul Steal!
- K - Cloak in Rime!
- M - Can do Air Damage, to The Storm Crow! All-Seekng Sky - Air and Bolt dmg. Cracking Rime.
- K - Call the Storm on TBs and S.
- S - He’s attacking with Bolt, Phys, Ice. Attack with Copper Club. Weaken!
- K - vs Mizzle. Walking Stick -
Round 3
- TBs - Pow!
- K - Steps forward … nods … low growl (“You too are Protector!”)
After the Battle
And thanks for watching after my people.
Grunt. (“Protected travellers along the Old Road. But some who could not be grabbed.”) Point at building. Little ones, Bring them to me.
Pat on the shoulder – Blessing! get Frost Rime Armor.
Points behind us … icy spear … they are off to defend against some other creature.
Kits in the building. Brimalfi kits (with blue sashes). “Another big metal monster!”
(Pop open the head) Here to rescue you!
Grab onto clank’s legs. Explain, on the road, got separated, big threw us in here.
Take you back to the grown-ups. Yay!
Area still under K’s protection.
- TBs poke nose into the house (anything there?)
- Other refugees can search. their homes, too.
Stay overnight.
Mizzle - Grimoire question - where are the metal monsters coming from?
Vision - ruins - Elonians blew open some crypts and let the metal monsters out.
Rest (and magic in the morning)
Next Morning
Meet at the Well. TBs and Saraid with Mizzle, but everyone else clusters around.
Shadowlight Halo. Summoninng Zirnitra, the Dragon! 5 stories tall!
Ritual magic!
Wide Area Search.
TBs support – Mizzle succeeds!
Focus on the well, magic in the water table, outpouring of magic through the region. Water spouts out of the well, freezing into a map, highlighting certain areas.
4 groups
- Foresters …
- Kids
- The Trimaldis/Cave
- Folk at the Elven Landing Site
Also camp mostly to the Elven Landing Site, of a settlement to the east … some at a camp
… some (worst off) at the ruins of Lost Thule, where the monsters came from.
Trimaldis - Primal Hunter’s Spear … gains back IP! (sublimate use, vs. the current Kraken’s Lash which allows an Equipment action for free.
Before next time
The sites are all one trip away. Where do we want to go? (Lost Thule)
TBs want to go to the cave. So … there we go!
(Also … we can drop off a radio there, and build another one)
XP … were 2, earned 7, so 9. No level! 