Scion - Petro Campaign - Session 79
Deeper and deeper into Red Mountain we go...but still no sign of Oiwa. Of course, we haven't quite entered Soku-no-Kumi yet. But it won't be long now. I'm anxious about Echo and Oiwa, but at least we've cleared most of the titanspawn from our homes and the mines.
Last entry things were a bit tense because I shared my plans for Erebus and Mikaboshi with everyone. I guess things are still a bit tense because of that, but on the surface everything is back to normal, which is good. Or it would be if Echo wasn't still in danger of being irrevocably corrupted and Oiwa wasn't still trapped in Soku-no-Kumi.
Anyway, I left off last time with all of us gathered in Tanith's cave, plotting our next move.
Our main objective is to purify Red Mountain to end the effect and cut off Soku-no-Kumi. This would cut through all Mikaboshi's crap and end his assault on our home pretty quickly, but it would leave Oiwa trapped, so while we will need to do this eventually in order to save Red Mountain and Echo, none of us were willing to do so before rescuing my ghost-daughter. On top of that, every titanspawn in the area would attack us in a concentrated wave if we tried that before thinning their numbers a bit first, and realistically, we can't handle that. Not with shinigami on the prowl. O_O
That being the case, we decided to clear out the titanspawn lurking around out homes first. I also wanted to make sure they hadn't found Ama-no-Zaku's mask. Once that was done, we'd head into the mines to clean them out as well while searching for Oiwa. Of course, we all knew this meant we might be running headlong into Soku-no-Kumi. I was willing to do so to save Oiwa. And to my friends' credit, so were they. ^_^
Before we headed out to take care of things, Tanith blessed us all with the powers of her pantheon, granting us a bit of an edge. She's such a sweetie! ^_^ I wish I hadn't been so dismissive of her when I was trying to seduce Adam in Lanka. I wasn't exactly in my right mind...but she's never forgiven me for that. >_<
As we emerged from the cave, Elisa tried one last time to reach Charles, hoping that he was okay or could come to help us. It turns out he could. In fact, he was already on Red Mountain, and had been the whole time. When the titanspawn attacked, he realized that he couldn't fight them off on his own, so he allowed them to capture him, knowing that he could easily escape once an opportunity arose for him to rendezvous with us. He was being held just outside his estate on the mountain, and when he got Elisa's call, he slipped his bonds to answer his phone.
Charles remained concealed until we arrived. His house was guarded by three black-flamed gashadokuro and ten shitidama. Knowing that just exorcising the shitidama might not prevent them from returning to harm us later when we were performing the purification ritual, I decided to take a more direct approach to fighting them and gently encouraged the kami of my pistol to give me a bit of help with some good old-fashioned gunplay.
The fight was actually kinda fun for me. For one thing, it was nice to blow off some steam with so real violence, especially after all my worries about Echo and Oiwa. Putting a few bullets through some shitidama's heads was just what the doctor ordered. The shitidama were all materialized in this case, so between Adam, T-Bone, and me, they didn't last long. Meanwhile, Elisa blasted through one of the gashadokuro like it was made of matchsticks. I finished off a gashadokuro after T-Bone shattered several of its bones by flinging a shitidama into it, which became entangled in the skeleton's monstrous ribs. And while we assaulted our enemies from the front, Charles pulled off a surprise attack, emerging from his hiding place behind them and blowing away several shitidama like someone from a John Woo film. Seriously. I saw the doves flutter by as he walked out with guns blazing. ^_^
It was nice to be reunited with Charles. I've been worried about him! ^_^ He told us that in addition to the titanspawn, he'd also seen a small, greenish man in a robe or kimono wandering around. The titanspawn hadn't attacked him, but didn't really seem to know what to think of him either. After questioning Charles a bit about the guy's appearance, I realized it must be Togo, our azuki-arai friend! What was he doing on Red Mountain?
Then it hit me. He's always been there with his magical beans to help us out when we face an incursion of Soku-no-Kumi. He was there for us in Shikoku and when we killed Daitokuji. I guess he's fatebound to us now. We decided to keep an eye open for him as we continued clearing our houses of titanspawn.
Next up was my place. When we arrived, we discovered that there were no guards, just a few gashadokuro skulls lying on the ground. Since gashadokuro tend to leave their skulls as minor relics when they are destroyed, it appeared that someone had already done some of our work for us. I wondered if Ray was nearby.
Inside, my house had been ransacked: drawers thrown around, cabinets emptied, furniture overturned. >_< But it didn't look like much was actually damaged or missing, just searched. From the upstairs theater room, however, we heard sounds. My TV was on and...it was playing a recording from one of my concerts. I went up to check it out, with the others watching my back. And what did we find but Togo, kicking back and enjoying the concert footage while munching on some beans. ^_^
He was glad to see us. And it turns out he was the one who wiped out the guards outside. He offered us eight beans, the same sort he used to kill the guards. When thrown, they explode and do massive damage, but only to creatures of darkness or tainted by Mikaboshi. They were excellent weapons against the titanspawn we were going to face in the mines. Unfortunately for me, I'm tainted enough that they'll hurt me too...so I just had to make sure to remain outside of the explosion.
Togo also gave us each a bean that would return some of our spiritual energy when eaten. T-Bone and several other others ate theirs immediately, but I decided to save mine, just in case someone else needs it more than I do once we enter Soku-no-Kumi.
Thanking Togo for the beans, we left him watching my concert while we finished searcing my house. I ventured downstairs to my wall of stone and melded through the earth into Echo's subterranean bower (it really belongs to Yi and me too now, but calling it "Echo, Yi and Erika's bower" is a bit cumbersome ^_^) to check on the Ama-no-Zaku summoning mask. I was relieved to find it safe and sound. I briefly toyed with the idea of summoning Ama-no-Zaku and requesting her help against Soku-no-Kumi, but realized how foolish that would be at this point. She's still solidly in Mikaboshi's grip despite our success in convincing her to allow the Daimyo to join us in Night Haven.
While I was doing that, Adam used his magic to lay an Ariadne's Thread on my house so that, should we becoming horribly lost in the mines or in Soku-no-Kumi, we could hopefully follow its mystical pull to find our way back.
Then it was on to our last stop before heading into the mines: Pierre and Elisa's plantation home. The titanspawn there were a bit better prepared for us that the ones at Charles' estate, and greeted us with a volley of rockets from a couple of Elisa's rocket launchers. We weathered the explosions, though, and Adam and Elisa took out the gashadokuro who fired the rockets. then we moved into the house and fought door to door against shitidama, many of which remained incorporeal, forcing Adam, Pierre and I to deal with them. Pierre must have been pretty pissed off at the way they'd taken over his house (understandably so!), because he did something I've never seen him do before: he turned into a living statue of bloodstone (Elisa's favorite stone; was there ever any doubt? ^_^). The fight was over soon enough, and I got to shoot more shitidama! ^_^
Hmmm. Maybe I should actually improve my marksmanship. Then again, there's no way I'll ever be perceptive enough to lay down the hurt like Elisa or Adam. ^_^
With the surface more-or-less clear, we took Togo to where Tanith and the others were hiding. She worked her Celtic magic on us again and then we headed into the mines, hiking through the abandoned town to reach the entrance. I've spent a lot of time in the town with my shikome (mostly hunting errant zombies), and something was definitely different. The encroachment of Soku-no-Kumi weighed heavily on the place, but with the fires extinguished in the mines below, it felt like the beating heart of the place had stopped, to be replaced only by a slow and steady exhalation that made me think of someone's dying breath. It was pretty cool. ^_^
Things were much harder in the mines. The darkness, which would normally be inviting, was oppressive, and the lingering heat and smoke from the extinguished flames made the cloying, choking atmosphere almost unbearable. To make matters worse, we could all feel a familiar, uncomfortable tingle in our flesh and knew that the aura of the mines would summon fresh shitidama from our spilled blood. It was the same thing we'd faced atop Daitokuji's tower when I was nearly killed by an unending swarm of shitidama. *shudder* I'm still traumatized by that. I didn't want to meet a premature end or become a liability again, so I let my appearance decay into zombie Erika so that my horrifying visage would help keep the shitidama at bay.
It wasn't long before we ran into a titanspawn ambush. The tunnel branched, and Adam and Elisa could sense that down one branch several titanspawn lay in wait for us. Elisa threw one of Togo's beans down the tunnel, incinerating several of our enemies and leaving the rest badly wounded. Then we attacked and found ourselves face to face with a shinigami (O_O) and a couple of gyuki.
I hung back, which was fortunate, because several incorporeal shitidama moved in to flank us. I blew them away as fast as I could while the others fought the shinigami, trying to destroy it before it could find an opening to attack with its deadly scythe. I could only do so much, though, and the shitidama descended upon Elisa and Charles, ravaging them with their claws. Fortunately, since the shitidama weren't material, Charles was unaware of their attack and his solipsistic consciousness kept him from being harmed, while Elisa was able to shed her skin. In the end, we emerged from the fight no worse for the wear, even though at one point I did move to defend Elisa from her attackers as best I could (it helped that none of the enemies wanted to stray too close to my leering skeletal zombie face and bony, clawed zombie hands ^_^).
Deeper into the mines we went, until we eventually encountered sounds of a battle ahead, punctuated now and then with a deep, booming "Grundy smash!!" Yay! We found Solomon Grundy! He was fighting some gyuki and a few shinigami in a large, open chamber that looked like it had been hollowed out by the fires that raged for so long in the mines. The shinigami couldn't kill Grundy (it was too early in the week for that!), but they were still doing their worst, so we decided to help. Figuring that Grundy was tough enough to take a couple of Togo's explosive beans, Adam tossed two into the room, while Elisa watched with glee (she loves her explosions!)
Maybe the mines helped channel the explosions or something, because they were awfully effective! Even Adam seemed surprised. When the fire and smoke cleared, the titanspawn were dead. Unfortunately, Grundy had been hurt in the explosion, and he whirled around to glare at Adam with murder in his eyes and began stomping our way, saying "You hurt Grundy!?"
I chose then to intervene. I stepped between Adam and Grundy, turned on the charm (Grundy doesn't mind a little zombie charm, right? ^_^) and did my best to calm him down. I reminded him that he's here to save his bride, Oiwa, and convinced him that were were there to do the same thing. When I told him that I was basically Oiwa's mother, he accepted it like it was something he already knew. After a minute or so of talking, I made Grundy forget about Adam and the explosions and he agreed to help us find and rescue Oiwa. *whew*
We delved deeper into the tunnels, trudging alongside Grundy. As we sensed ourselves nearing Soku-no-Kumi, we came face to face with a final group of shinigami and shitidama supported by a few of Daitokuji's robots, all lurking in another hollowed-out chamber cloaked in Mikaboshi's misty darkness. Grundy charged one of the shinigami while Elisa took aim at the other, barely dodging its attacks. One of the robots opened fire on me (it wasn't freaked out by my horrifying visage) and would have put a few holes in me if I hadn't shed my corpse. The last thing I needed was for my blood to summon more shitidama! >_<
In response, I whipped out a stick of incense and lit it with a bullet fired from my gun right into the face of one of the robots, using the smoke to confuse and disorient the robot's kami and shutting it down. T-Bone, Charles, and Adam took out the others while Grundy finished off his shinigami and Pierre crushed the other's masked face with a brutal punch.
And now we're on the threshold of Soku-no-Kumi. We took a few moments to encourage each other, knowing that this could be most dangerous challenge we've ever faced. I'm scared, but also determined. Echo and Oiwa are at stake here. And if I'm going to defeat Mikaboshi, it's time I really learned what I'm up against.
Last entry things were a bit tense because I shared my plans for Erebus and Mikaboshi with everyone. I guess things are still a bit tense because of that, but on the surface everything is back to normal, which is good. Or it would be if Echo wasn't still in danger of being irrevocably corrupted and Oiwa wasn't still trapped in Soku-no-Kumi.
Anyway, I left off last time with all of us gathered in Tanith's cave, plotting our next move.
Our main objective is to purify Red Mountain to end the effect and cut off Soku-no-Kumi. This would cut through all Mikaboshi's crap and end his assault on our home pretty quickly, but it would leave Oiwa trapped, so while we will need to do this eventually in order to save Red Mountain and Echo, none of us were willing to do so before rescuing my ghost-daughter. On top of that, every titanspawn in the area would attack us in a concentrated wave if we tried that before thinning their numbers a bit first, and realistically, we can't handle that. Not with shinigami on the prowl. O_O
That being the case, we decided to clear out the titanspawn lurking around out homes first. I also wanted to make sure they hadn't found Ama-no-Zaku's mask. Once that was done, we'd head into the mines to clean them out as well while searching for Oiwa. Of course, we all knew this meant we might be running headlong into Soku-no-Kumi. I was willing to do so to save Oiwa. And to my friends' credit, so were they. ^_^
Before we headed out to take care of things, Tanith blessed us all with the powers of her pantheon, granting us a bit of an edge. She's such a sweetie! ^_^ I wish I hadn't been so dismissive of her when I was trying to seduce Adam in Lanka. I wasn't exactly in my right mind...but she's never forgiven me for that. >_<
As we emerged from the cave, Elisa tried one last time to reach Charles, hoping that he was okay or could come to help us. It turns out he could. In fact, he was already on Red Mountain, and had been the whole time. When the titanspawn attacked, he realized that he couldn't fight them off on his own, so he allowed them to capture him, knowing that he could easily escape once an opportunity arose for him to rendezvous with us. He was being held just outside his estate on the mountain, and when he got Elisa's call, he slipped his bonds to answer his phone.
Charles remained concealed until we arrived. His house was guarded by three black-flamed gashadokuro and ten shitidama. Knowing that just exorcising the shitidama might not prevent them from returning to harm us later when we were performing the purification ritual, I decided to take a more direct approach to fighting them and gently encouraged the kami of my pistol to give me a bit of help with some good old-fashioned gunplay.
The fight was actually kinda fun for me. For one thing, it was nice to blow off some steam with so real violence, especially after all my worries about Echo and Oiwa. Putting a few bullets through some shitidama's heads was just what the doctor ordered. The shitidama were all materialized in this case, so between Adam, T-Bone, and me, they didn't last long. Meanwhile, Elisa blasted through one of the gashadokuro like it was made of matchsticks. I finished off a gashadokuro after T-Bone shattered several of its bones by flinging a shitidama into it, which became entangled in the skeleton's monstrous ribs. And while we assaulted our enemies from the front, Charles pulled off a surprise attack, emerging from his hiding place behind them and blowing away several shitidama like someone from a John Woo film. Seriously. I saw the doves flutter by as he walked out with guns blazing. ^_^
It was nice to be reunited with Charles. I've been worried about him! ^_^ He told us that in addition to the titanspawn, he'd also seen a small, greenish man in a robe or kimono wandering around. The titanspawn hadn't attacked him, but didn't really seem to know what to think of him either. After questioning Charles a bit about the guy's appearance, I realized it must be Togo, our azuki-arai friend! What was he doing on Red Mountain?
Then it hit me. He's always been there with his magical beans to help us out when we face an incursion of Soku-no-Kumi. He was there for us in Shikoku and when we killed Daitokuji. I guess he's fatebound to us now. We decided to keep an eye open for him as we continued clearing our houses of titanspawn.
Next up was my place. When we arrived, we discovered that there were no guards, just a few gashadokuro skulls lying on the ground. Since gashadokuro tend to leave their skulls as minor relics when they are destroyed, it appeared that someone had already done some of our work for us. I wondered if Ray was nearby.
Inside, my house had been ransacked: drawers thrown around, cabinets emptied, furniture overturned. >_< But it didn't look like much was actually damaged or missing, just searched. From the upstairs theater room, however, we heard sounds. My TV was on and...it was playing a recording from one of my concerts. I went up to check it out, with the others watching my back. And what did we find but Togo, kicking back and enjoying the concert footage while munching on some beans. ^_^
He was glad to see us. And it turns out he was the one who wiped out the guards outside. He offered us eight beans, the same sort he used to kill the guards. When thrown, they explode and do massive damage, but only to creatures of darkness or tainted by Mikaboshi. They were excellent weapons against the titanspawn we were going to face in the mines. Unfortunately for me, I'm tainted enough that they'll hurt me too...so I just had to make sure to remain outside of the explosion.
Togo also gave us each a bean that would return some of our spiritual energy when eaten. T-Bone and several other others ate theirs immediately, but I decided to save mine, just in case someone else needs it more than I do once we enter Soku-no-Kumi.
Thanking Togo for the beans, we left him watching my concert while we finished searcing my house. I ventured downstairs to my wall of stone and melded through the earth into Echo's subterranean bower (it really belongs to Yi and me too now, but calling it "Echo, Yi and Erika's bower" is a bit cumbersome ^_^) to check on the Ama-no-Zaku summoning mask. I was relieved to find it safe and sound. I briefly toyed with the idea of summoning Ama-no-Zaku and requesting her help against Soku-no-Kumi, but realized how foolish that would be at this point. She's still solidly in Mikaboshi's grip despite our success in convincing her to allow the Daimyo to join us in Night Haven.
While I was doing that, Adam used his magic to lay an Ariadne's Thread on my house so that, should we becoming horribly lost in the mines or in Soku-no-Kumi, we could hopefully follow its mystical pull to find our way back.
Then it was on to our last stop before heading into the mines: Pierre and Elisa's plantation home. The titanspawn there were a bit better prepared for us that the ones at Charles' estate, and greeted us with a volley of rockets from a couple of Elisa's rocket launchers. We weathered the explosions, though, and Adam and Elisa took out the gashadokuro who fired the rockets. then we moved into the house and fought door to door against shitidama, many of which remained incorporeal, forcing Adam, Pierre and I to deal with them. Pierre must have been pretty pissed off at the way they'd taken over his house (understandably so!), because he did something I've never seen him do before: he turned into a living statue of bloodstone (Elisa's favorite stone; was there ever any doubt? ^_^). The fight was over soon enough, and I got to shoot more shitidama! ^_^
Hmmm. Maybe I should actually improve my marksmanship. Then again, there's no way I'll ever be perceptive enough to lay down the hurt like Elisa or Adam. ^_^
With the surface more-or-less clear, we took Togo to where Tanith and the others were hiding. She worked her Celtic magic on us again and then we headed into the mines, hiking through the abandoned town to reach the entrance. I've spent a lot of time in the town with my shikome (mostly hunting errant zombies), and something was definitely different. The encroachment of Soku-no-Kumi weighed heavily on the place, but with the fires extinguished in the mines below, it felt like the beating heart of the place had stopped, to be replaced only by a slow and steady exhalation that made me think of someone's dying breath. It was pretty cool. ^_^
Things were much harder in the mines. The darkness, which would normally be inviting, was oppressive, and the lingering heat and smoke from the extinguished flames made the cloying, choking atmosphere almost unbearable. To make matters worse, we could all feel a familiar, uncomfortable tingle in our flesh and knew that the aura of the mines would summon fresh shitidama from our spilled blood. It was the same thing we'd faced atop Daitokuji's tower when I was nearly killed by an unending swarm of shitidama. *shudder* I'm still traumatized by that. I didn't want to meet a premature end or become a liability again, so I let my appearance decay into zombie Erika so that my horrifying visage would help keep the shitidama at bay.
It wasn't long before we ran into a titanspawn ambush. The tunnel branched, and Adam and Elisa could sense that down one branch several titanspawn lay in wait for us. Elisa threw one of Togo's beans down the tunnel, incinerating several of our enemies and leaving the rest badly wounded. Then we attacked and found ourselves face to face with a shinigami (O_O) and a couple of gyuki.
I hung back, which was fortunate, because several incorporeal shitidama moved in to flank us. I blew them away as fast as I could while the others fought the shinigami, trying to destroy it before it could find an opening to attack with its deadly scythe. I could only do so much, though, and the shitidama descended upon Elisa and Charles, ravaging them with their claws. Fortunately, since the shitidama weren't material, Charles was unaware of their attack and his solipsistic consciousness kept him from being harmed, while Elisa was able to shed her skin. In the end, we emerged from the fight no worse for the wear, even though at one point I did move to defend Elisa from her attackers as best I could (it helped that none of the enemies wanted to stray too close to my leering skeletal zombie face and bony, clawed zombie hands ^_^).
Deeper into the mines we went, until we eventually encountered sounds of a battle ahead, punctuated now and then with a deep, booming "Grundy smash!!" Yay! We found Solomon Grundy! He was fighting some gyuki and a few shinigami in a large, open chamber that looked like it had been hollowed out by the fires that raged for so long in the mines. The shinigami couldn't kill Grundy (it was too early in the week for that!), but they were still doing their worst, so we decided to help. Figuring that Grundy was tough enough to take a couple of Togo's explosive beans, Adam tossed two into the room, while Elisa watched with glee (she loves her explosions!)
Maybe the mines helped channel the explosions or something, because they were awfully effective! Even Adam seemed surprised. When the fire and smoke cleared, the titanspawn were dead. Unfortunately, Grundy had been hurt in the explosion, and he whirled around to glare at Adam with murder in his eyes and began stomping our way, saying "You hurt Grundy!?"
I chose then to intervene. I stepped between Adam and Grundy, turned on the charm (Grundy doesn't mind a little zombie charm, right? ^_^) and did my best to calm him down. I reminded him that he's here to save his bride, Oiwa, and convinced him that were were there to do the same thing. When I told him that I was basically Oiwa's mother, he accepted it like it was something he already knew. After a minute or so of talking, I made Grundy forget about Adam and the explosions and he agreed to help us find and rescue Oiwa. *whew*
We delved deeper into the tunnels, trudging alongside Grundy. As we sensed ourselves nearing Soku-no-Kumi, we came face to face with a final group of shinigami and shitidama supported by a few of Daitokuji's robots, all lurking in another hollowed-out chamber cloaked in Mikaboshi's misty darkness. Grundy charged one of the shinigami while Elisa took aim at the other, barely dodging its attacks. One of the robots opened fire on me (it wasn't freaked out by my horrifying visage) and would have put a few holes in me if I hadn't shed my corpse. The last thing I needed was for my blood to summon more shitidama! >_<
In response, I whipped out a stick of incense and lit it with a bullet fired from my gun right into the face of one of the robots, using the smoke to confuse and disorient the robot's kami and shutting it down. T-Bone, Charles, and Adam took out the others while Grundy finished off his shinigami and Pierre crushed the other's masked face with a brutal punch.
And now we're on the threshold of Soku-no-Kumi. We took a few moments to encourage each other, knowing that this could be most dangerous challenge we've ever faced. I'm scared, but also determined. Echo and Oiwa are at stake here. And if I'm going to defeat Mikaboshi, it's time I really learned what I'm up against.