Scion - Petro Campaign - Session 98
So, we've made progress in tracking down the scions kidnapped from Synn's eugenics facility (which still gives me the creeps). We've found them, anyway. But nothing's ever easy, and there are....complications. Unfortunately, I've been a bit distracted over the past few hours.
C'mon Erika, get your head back in the game!
[Private Entry - T-Bone's Strange Behavior]
So what's been distracting me, you ask? Well, a few things, all triggered by T-Bone's apparent interest in me when he was under the effects of the satyr's music. See, I'm used to people wanting me. I guess I should feel a little guilty that I sorta revel in that sort of attention, actually. But I sensed that there was something more going on with T-Bone's advances than simple lust. I may not be the most perceptive member of our group, but I have a good sense of what others are feeling, and in the moment when T-Bone's carefully crafted facade collapsed under the pan pipe's influence, I think I detected a hint of pent up desperation, or something like it, in T-Bone.
I'm not sure exactly what that might mean or even if I was necessarily reading him right. But the way T-Bone disappeared after the fact and didn't reappear until some time later makes me think that he considered the slip-up pretty meaningful too, and didn't want to face it.
I'm kinda anxious about what that might mean. If T-Bone is in love with me - and I mean really, truly in love with me, and not just infatuated with me like most people - then that could be really, really awkward. >_< Poor Dahlia's already having a hard enough time with their relationship right now. She's one of my best friends, and if her husband is in love with me, that's not going to be good. And I love T-Bone dearly as a close friend, but I'm not in love with him. It's like what happened with Keiko all over again...
Maybe this is all just my vanity rearing its ugly head, and I'm reading too much into it. I hope I'm wrong about all this. But if not, at least T-Bone seems to understand that loving me is a problem and, if I read the desperation in his advances right, he's kept it a secret for a while at least. He's good at that.
Of course, when I start worrying about something like this, I start worrying about other things too. Being so close, even if only momentarily, to T-Bone's shadow-bodied silhouette made me think of Erebus. And thoughts of Erebus led to thoughts of Melanthea and how much I miss her. And all of that led me to thinking about Yi.
I think the distance between us is mostly my fault. Well, I mean, her demand for my punishment started it, and I'm still having a lot of trouble getting over that. But she really has been doing all she can to show how much she loves me since then. I'm the one who has been cold toward her, not the other way around. Echo's not happy about it, but she's practically had Yi to herself over the past few months, and I sometimes get the feeling that she enjoys the exclusivity. I can't really blame her. I've felt the same way about some of the closeness I once shared with Yi.
Anyway, I gotta get over this. I still love Yi, so why can't I express it the way I once did? Right now, I want nothing more than to take Yi in my arms and hold her tightly and kiss her until all the bad blood between us just evaporates! But would I still feel this way if she were standing right here in front of me?
[End Private Entry]
So, I think the last thing I covered was the way we dealt with the satyrs and moon beasts beneath the hospital. After that, we left Synn behind and moved on deeper into the tunnels, following the trail Elisa was tracking. We eventually got to a doorway marked with a magical effect that would trap anyone who went through it in a fate prison. >_< Not cool. But we got around that by phasing through the wall, courtesy of Charles and Adam. I stayed behind to watch the door in case anything tried to come through and find its way back into the hospital zone. I mean, if something were to come along, there's no way I'd be able to kick its ass, but I could probably enchant it until the others got back from their scouting expedition, and I've got enough presence of mind to resist tricks like the pan pipes and the taotie masks' chaos powers. And if the others needed me, Charles could either teleport back to grab me or I could use my earth powers to slide right through the wall.
So, I wasn't around for the initial exploration. But the others tell me the place was awash with traps. There were tons of khaibit traps (which most of us, except for T-Bone, are immune to since we've anointed ourselves in gyuki blood before). They fought several creatures along the way, including sun-hating humanoid beasts with massive, vertical maws for heads (Adam says they're called gugs - like from Lovecraft's dream cycle! I've always wondered if Lovecraft's work was inspired by reality. Knowing that it was probably would have frightened me a lot more before my divine awakening than it does now). There were also creatures made of electricity that are capable of consuming magical effects, including some Taiyi, Heku and Samsara powers. Charles didn't seem happy about that. And of course there were satyrs. I think the others used ear plugs to defend against the pan pipes' effects.
Eventually, the group came to a window in the tunnels that opened onto a vast chamber below, in which the moon beasts and their servants were congregating. The place was literally packed with our enemies, including sixty-some satyrs, four gugs, four taotie masks, four magic-eaters, and almost thirty moon beasts. O_O Our missing scions were there too...but Adam astutely observed that their minds had been switched with those of three of the satyrs.
Wonderful. Things just couldn't be easy, could they?
So...at this point the others contacted me and I began to make my way back to them. Meanwhile, they searched the tunnels for munitions. After all, a lot of the passages beneath Strasbourg are bunkers, and there are plenty of ammo dumps down there. They eventually found a big aircraft bomb and Pierre carried it back to another chamber where he used his earth sculpting powers to hide it beneath the concrete floors and to reshape the passages in a way that would channel our enemies into the trap.
Then T-Bone crept into the main chamber, covered by an illusion that mimicked the powers of the sun, drew the attention of our enemies (especially the gugs, who, as I said, hate sunlight. Sigh. Just because you are a creature of darkness doesn't mean you have to hate the sunlight, right? >_< Just look at me! ^_^). He managed to lure out about twelves satyrs, six moon beasts, a taotie mask, and all four gugs, who chased him back to the room where the bomb was hidden. The trap worked like a charm, and the explosive force of the bomb tore through the chamber and the surrounding passages, completely annihilating the enemies chasing T-Bone. I had almost reached the others by this point, and the earth-shattering explosion would have knocked me off my feet if I weren't so graceful. ^_^
I made it back to the others shortly thereafter, and now we're trying to figure out how to deal with the room full of baddies without endangering the captured scions.
More later! ^_^
C'mon Erika, get your head back in the game!
[Private Entry - T-Bone's Strange Behavior]
So what's been distracting me, you ask? Well, a few things, all triggered by T-Bone's apparent interest in me when he was under the effects of the satyr's music. See, I'm used to people wanting me. I guess I should feel a little guilty that I sorta revel in that sort of attention, actually. But I sensed that there was something more going on with T-Bone's advances than simple lust. I may not be the most perceptive member of our group, but I have a good sense of what others are feeling, and in the moment when T-Bone's carefully crafted facade collapsed under the pan pipe's influence, I think I detected a hint of pent up desperation, or something like it, in T-Bone.
I'm not sure exactly what that might mean or even if I was necessarily reading him right. But the way T-Bone disappeared after the fact and didn't reappear until some time later makes me think that he considered the slip-up pretty meaningful too, and didn't want to face it.
I'm kinda anxious about what that might mean. If T-Bone is in love with me - and I mean really, truly in love with me, and not just infatuated with me like most people - then that could be really, really awkward. >_< Poor Dahlia's already having a hard enough time with their relationship right now. She's one of my best friends, and if her husband is in love with me, that's not going to be good. And I love T-Bone dearly as a close friend, but I'm not in love with him. It's like what happened with Keiko all over again...
Maybe this is all just my vanity rearing its ugly head, and I'm reading too much into it. I hope I'm wrong about all this. But if not, at least T-Bone seems to understand that loving me is a problem and, if I read the desperation in his advances right, he's kept it a secret for a while at least. He's good at that.
Of course, when I start worrying about something like this, I start worrying about other things too. Being so close, even if only momentarily, to T-Bone's shadow-bodied silhouette made me think of Erebus. And thoughts of Erebus led to thoughts of Melanthea and how much I miss her. And all of that led me to thinking about Yi.
I think the distance between us is mostly my fault. Well, I mean, her demand for my punishment started it, and I'm still having a lot of trouble getting over that. But she really has been doing all she can to show how much she loves me since then. I'm the one who has been cold toward her, not the other way around. Echo's not happy about it, but she's practically had Yi to herself over the past few months, and I sometimes get the feeling that she enjoys the exclusivity. I can't really blame her. I've felt the same way about some of the closeness I once shared with Yi.
Anyway, I gotta get over this. I still love Yi, so why can't I express it the way I once did? Right now, I want nothing more than to take Yi in my arms and hold her tightly and kiss her until all the bad blood between us just evaporates! But would I still feel this way if she were standing right here in front of me?
[End Private Entry]
So, I think the last thing I covered was the way we dealt with the satyrs and moon beasts beneath the hospital. After that, we left Synn behind and moved on deeper into the tunnels, following the trail Elisa was tracking. We eventually got to a doorway marked with a magical effect that would trap anyone who went through it in a fate prison. >_< Not cool. But we got around that by phasing through the wall, courtesy of Charles and Adam. I stayed behind to watch the door in case anything tried to come through and find its way back into the hospital zone. I mean, if something were to come along, there's no way I'd be able to kick its ass, but I could probably enchant it until the others got back from their scouting expedition, and I've got enough presence of mind to resist tricks like the pan pipes and the taotie masks' chaos powers. And if the others needed me, Charles could either teleport back to grab me or I could use my earth powers to slide right through the wall.
So, I wasn't around for the initial exploration. But the others tell me the place was awash with traps. There were tons of khaibit traps (which most of us, except for T-Bone, are immune to since we've anointed ourselves in gyuki blood before). They fought several creatures along the way, including sun-hating humanoid beasts with massive, vertical maws for heads (Adam says they're called gugs - like from Lovecraft's dream cycle! I've always wondered if Lovecraft's work was inspired by reality. Knowing that it was probably would have frightened me a lot more before my divine awakening than it does now). There were also creatures made of electricity that are capable of consuming magical effects, including some Taiyi, Heku and Samsara powers. Charles didn't seem happy about that. And of course there were satyrs. I think the others used ear plugs to defend against the pan pipes' effects.
Eventually, the group came to a window in the tunnels that opened onto a vast chamber below, in which the moon beasts and their servants were congregating. The place was literally packed with our enemies, including sixty-some satyrs, four gugs, four taotie masks, four magic-eaters, and almost thirty moon beasts. O_O Our missing scions were there too...but Adam astutely observed that their minds had been switched with those of three of the satyrs.
Wonderful. Things just couldn't be easy, could they?
So...at this point the others contacted me and I began to make my way back to them. Meanwhile, they searched the tunnels for munitions. After all, a lot of the passages beneath Strasbourg are bunkers, and there are plenty of ammo dumps down there. They eventually found a big aircraft bomb and Pierre carried it back to another chamber where he used his earth sculpting powers to hide it beneath the concrete floors and to reshape the passages in a way that would channel our enemies into the trap.
Then T-Bone crept into the main chamber, covered by an illusion that mimicked the powers of the sun, drew the attention of our enemies (especially the gugs, who, as I said, hate sunlight. Sigh. Just because you are a creature of darkness doesn't mean you have to hate the sunlight, right? >_< Just look at me! ^_^). He managed to lure out about twelves satyrs, six moon beasts, a taotie mask, and all four gugs, who chased him back to the room where the bomb was hidden. The trap worked like a charm, and the explosive force of the bomb tore through the chamber and the surrounding passages, completely annihilating the enemies chasing T-Bone. I had almost reached the others by this point, and the earth-shattering explosion would have knocked me off my feet if I weren't so graceful. ^_^
I made it back to the others shortly thereafter, and now we're trying to figure out how to deal with the room full of baddies without endangering the captured scions.
More later! ^_^