12-2-13 Post Discussion

Today's events, I feel, are difficult to properly summarize but involved the total annihilation of all life down to the cellular level in a 40 mile diameter and a Goblin woman who had lost everything, twice, committing suicide.

Very unfortunate that it happened. I struggled quite a bit between deciding to metagame or let it play out. Snarg hadn't really encountered anything like this before so I didn't think he would have presence of mind and know and prevent what was happening.

Sorry I was so snappy and out of it this session. Was super tired after ~2 hours of sleep and extremely grumpy from work and after-work shenanigans. Not an excuse, just letting you know it wasn't personal.

You looked tired, yet you didn't seem to take it out on us. Don't worry.

From what you said Arch, unless there is an obvious plot hook laying around, I'm going to the Light Temple. Going to ask those without mana if they want to come to see if that resolve the problem.

EDIT : Kolson did a little summary for me. Damn, that got really dark all of a sudden. -_-

And we are surrounded by fallout.

Wait, she killed herself!? When did this happen?

Oh good, I was worried we were talking about Tia that whole time. Still sad though.

Zeiss, it might be pertinent for you to know that while everyone was deliberating on what to do and phoning Central, Rory got drunk and started wandering around. He first kicked the door, then punched it(and struck a nerve really hard in his knuckles), then wandered over to your First Aspect and started vulgarly dictating that it get back inside you, started shoving it at you, and since you weren't there to cause a scene with he stopped and started wandering again.

Then he met an Olthoi who gave him some tea, and then some potent alcohol, and then the rest of said alcohol, which he took and was going to share with everybody when he heard the news about what happened outside. Concluding from the fact that they were describing it firsthand(we decided Hig would have said something to the effect of having been outside and seeing what was out there), he decided it was safe to leave the "bunker".

Once outside(and he had to make a roll, as did everyone else), he was standing at the edge of a 40-mile diameter crater, the epicenter of which was too far away to see anything marking it. Imagine brown wasteland is not brown, but grey. Anything that could be described as "color" or "colorful" is gone, like it was drained from whatever was left in the wake of the disaster.

That cut clear through his inebriated mind, but it didn't make him think any clearer for it. He went back inside, and you can see the emotion building inside him, not quite coming out, but you can tell he's furious and that he's containing it, but that he's slowly letting go of his composure, saving the outburst, so to speak, for when he's within range of the Naverre ship that just went down. Where we left off, he was beginning his attempt to rally the party to go charging toward the southeast, where the ship must be.

Ok, if it's not too much trouble, i'd really "like" to know when and how Sally died, since i should probably write up me Hig's reaction to it, which will not be pretty.

It will be in the summary, when I re-write it.

Sorry for the lost post. That REALLY sucks.

As for Zeiss, Rory, he is indisposed for the moment. His hardware short circuited.

EDIT : If anyone wonders how Zeiss is reacting to all these events, since I wasn't there to play him, here it is. His face is blank and pale. The destruction and especially the suicide left him silent and unresponsive. If the Aspect hasn't left yet (there is a time limit after all) , he will immediately go back to Zeiss' side and watch over him.

Establishing a mental link with him and discussing things won't really help. So when his time his up, Advoc will ask this of a nearby Olthoi :

"Look over him while I'm gone. He is extremely unstable and could be a danger to himself."

Disclaimer:

Hearing the ruckus, Higaide makes his way to the restroom. The commotion catches his eye first, but out of the corner of his view pops a figure that should be familiar, but in a state he does not immediately recognize. His eyes freeze on it, the sound of angry wailing and Skittish-ish Common increasingly drowning out as he processes for 1, 2 seconds... His eyes snap into focus, fighting off the horror, as he unconsciously scrambles forward to check the pulse on her neck before he notices the blood. He takes it in for an instant, before denial disguised as pragmatism frantically takes his hand to her wrist. Nothing. With one last unthinking impulse, he takes his hands right over her heart, preparing to bear down, but when the slightest pressure causes the blood on her neck to flow just a slight more profusely, he knows.


"......................................................................................................."


His eyes rest wide as his breath becomes shaky and irregular, barely exhaling at all until it runs out, then barely inhaling back again. The final look on her face slowly burning itself into his half-dazed mind.

mind peek:

Barely aware of doing so, he slumps back against the wall, not so much sitting as just discarding himself like a ragdoll. His hands twitch from time to time. A bit more coherent now, his mind jumps to and from actual ideas, instead of just junk brain code.

mind peek:

His hand clenches into a fist and flies into the wall behind him.

mind peek:

Then the haze clears, and his eyes come again into focus. And back into focus along comes the body still lying on the floor, still bleeding as it was. She was still dead.

Yeah, next session isn't going to be a joyful one for our characters.

Much as I always hate to ask this question, the party once again finds themselves in a question of where to go and what to do.  I don't suppose you guys have any ideas?

Z and Gwydo (and the Olithai?) are hoping to meet with Lady Lightmane. After that I assume we'll be heading back to Marblebush.
I may want to make a stop off in Janwall to speak to that Lord Elf and let him know about what happened...

There's the incoming scion ship in 3 days, with Fier, Kez and Rekarg onboard, plus, we wanted to take it to Vaseyan and get the people out, but seeing what the knowledge of ONE of these things already caused, i'm very hesitant to go dig out another, and that's assuming no one will spy on and rat the party out this time.

Side note, very much questioning the wisdom of the engineers who made those magicite cores.

i wonder if professor blah made it

As soon as Zeiss leaves that radioactive zone, he is going to the Light Temple, with or without the party.

Marblebush is gone. Maybe the Order group at the ruins had a way to seal it off, we won't know for sure unless we go take a look. If not, we're still thousands in debt.

There's the Naverre airship. What are they going to do when they make it operational again? Continue persecuting the refugees, finish what they started in Stonehold? I'm not gonna let that happen.

I think we should take a breather and wait for the Olthoi to return with the airship, and fly that airship on the offense against the Naverre airship crew while they're still licking their wounds. Then, once we figure out how the mine's holding up and whether we can still claim it, we should claim it if we can, and then we can go to whatever temple you like.

I think we all agreed that someone was behind this war, and behind the forming of the Naverre and the Sho alliance against Stonehold, the failing of the Undermarket(directly vital to Stonehold), and taking advantage of Stonehold's pariah status to get all of this done. And to top it all off, they're snatching people. The rest of the nations aren't going to miss Stonehold, whoever's masterminding this knows that. I don't think they're snatching these refugees out of the goodness of their hearts, they want people for something, and it's not good, and the possibility that looms the biggest and loudest in my thoughts is experimentation.

Temple, or finish off Doom ship in critical condition? Which do you think is more urgent? We can march through the Dryreach Zone and through the Sho territory and visit the Earth temple, but how about we get our priorities straight, eh? Ship first.

I'm going to the temple with Zeiss. I don't know what I will do after that but I know I'm going to need my mana if I'm going to able to do anything about recent events.

I find myself actively avoiding thinking about the campaign right now. Recent events in-game hit rather close to home this time and I don't know how much use I'm going to be in planning till I can come to terms with that.

Found out something about where the mana is going. In short, it's all going south-east right now. Going to the temple may recharge it for now (probably), but I don't know if the problem is going to go away in time, with distance, or we need to do something about it quickly.

Uh, I'll tell you more about that when I get dug out of the ground.

Snarg's got a bit of ... justice stuff to take care of right now. There's also the matter of checking on Irondell and Janwall to make sure they're doing okay; we've got people there after all. Snarg will volunteer to do that. Got some tracking to do in that direction anyhow for, eh, hunting related reasons. Getting the Skyclaw back and doing stuff after the shakedown would be good, but I think waiting in the facility would be counter-productive when there's stuff we could be doing within those several days.

But, I have a proposition of something to do before we take off for something: how about a memorial and monument in remembrance what just happened? I believe the Olthoi and other members would be willing to contribute to this.

Rory, unless I misunderstood you, the Naverre airship has been decimated, along with its crew. Nothing remain of them.

As for Zeiss, he is going to the Light Temple, splitting up from the party if need be. OOC, I would only miss a couple of sessions. And I am going to be available from January for the whole session again, not just half of it.

Then, back to holtburg to take care of the Bonebreaker matter, with diplomacy if possible.

No Zeiss, they're just too far away to see, at least that was what Arch told me when when I had Rory step out and look for himself.

Snarg, I don't really think that's pertinent, time spent constructing a monument can be take care of after urgent matters are dealt with.

In case the Pinnacle is still in Janwall, anybody going there to check up might need to have good Stealth or Deception in case they run into them, so if you like I could go cross-country to Irondell, and you could hunt on the way to Janwall. I imagine "making sure they're doing okay" simply entails finding out whether or not they've been hit by the event, while for Janwall it'd mean checking up on their rebuilding progress. They've likely found all the people living in the city and healed/rezzed them properly.

The absence of mana is probably localized. If the Ley Lines are involved in any way, they'll likely be pushing mana towards the areas lacking it. Unless we could get some discount/free mana stones from the Olthoi, heading to a temple might be a good idea before storming the ship after all. Still, the longer it's left alone, the quicker the crew will either abandon it or fix it.

From the Elsewhere post Arch made, it doesn't look like the Naverre ship is fine at all. In character, Zeiss knows the airship was probably in that explosion, so no reason for him to try to locate it.

As for contacting Raddnald, an agent of the Exchange could do it.But I'm just telling you OOC.

Go if you want, but providing some sort of closure and acknowledgement of what happened is needed right now. Even the Olthoi are shell-shocked from what I can tell. I think you misunderstand when I say a monument. Stuff like this is what I mean: link, not something like this: link. Admittedly, for strictly OOC reasons, I also want to ask about the weavers trying to use the landscape to help with it to see how it reacts to weaving. That could potentially be very important.

Going to the other areas is not just to check to see if they've been hit. Although checking and providing aid is one thing, showing faces and encouraging everyone is needed. Aside from being humane, it's important as far as a leadership role goes; positive reputation is needed.

The hunting's not game hunting. It's hunting like tracking a person's whereabouts.

Even if the airship somehow survived ground-zero and if somehow the crew is still there in any capacity, I don't think rushing in to finish them off is really a good idea. Aside from not wanting to mess with anyone or anything that actually survived the explosion, there's no reason to just go in and do that, especially after we went through the whole thing with not fighting them.

Oh. I didn't read that.

So...not that Rory knows any of this, but...the mine is gone. The airship(s) are gone. The people are gone, the crew are probably gone. I don't have a word for this feeling. I wonder if Fierneceal and Kezrinthka noticed this from their current whereabouts.

Maybe. The scionic scanner can go for miles.

I am not going to discuss what Zeiss wants to do, or why. Just want to say OOC that maybe we should focus on what we can do instead of what should be done. Right now, we can't do much. It is my opinion that we need power and influence if we want to help on a large scale. And the only thing through which we can achieve that is the Exchange, unless the party wants to join forces with a bigger organization.

The only other plot point we could pursue at the moment is the rescue of the people on Vessayen Lassel with the Skyclaw. But everything depends on the Olthoi since it is theirs right now.

So yeah, I think the Exchange is still the best way to help everyone. Not that I expect the party to agree.

Well, Higgy is... not very able to agree or disagree right now (not that he's ever been much of a decision making force to begin with).

I'd like to get that ship and recue the Vessayens, but at this jucture that would probably involve outright begging the Olthoi. That said, we may not even have to say a word, since Fier seems to be on their very good side, being who and what she is, and she will definitely want to save her people.

There's also the mater that, if we acted now, we could maybe still get a leg up on everyone else and secure our own ship, provided the Olthoi haven't found out what Rekarg knows by now. Radnall did promise us an airship crew, and we did sort of deliver on his terms. I just really worry what doing something like that will do to the continent, given on how much of a stupid mad rush everyone involved got into to get one of these things, and the results thereafter. My better judgement would say leave those things alone and never mention them again, but i think that'll be out of our hands pretty soon anyways, if it isn't already. So it may become a question of do we want one of those other 149 pieces of the pie, or do we not.

About Snarg's idea of a memorial, i don't disagree with it (i'd thought of paying my respects myself), but right now it just seems... too soon, somehow. The evil dust has barely settled yet. To do that now would just seem mechanical; almost disrespectful in a way. I know my char would want some closure first, even if i have no idea what that would entail.

I agree with K on the memorial matter (what a surprise, heh?). It would be like holding a funeral for someone you cared about the same day they died. As a side note, Rory, you may want to check on your character's siblings if you learn about the Aluvian airship which got destroyed. What if they were on it?

As for the other scionic airships, we'll see. It depends on whether Rekkarg is willing to transport us to them. And we would still need a big crew for only one of them, which we would have to pay. And the mine isn't an option anymore.

I think the "Rescue Vessayen Lassel people" plan is on hold too. We can't really make a decision about it. Not to mention that we don't know if we can take on the Tumeroks at our level.

The way I see it, we can "win" this campaign only by allying ourselves with a big organization, or create one from scratch. So? Who do we have?

-The Dericost/Coordinate : only seem to be interested in the Gaerlan matter. For now at least. I also suspect they have their own problems on their side of the continent, from what Rekkarg said when the Wei Jhou subject was brought up. Which would prevent them from spreading their resources too thin.

• Conclusion : Rekkarg is helping us as their representative, as long as we are doing something that will help us against Gaerlan. Like... conquering Irondell for the Exchange. -_- From his point of view, I suppose he thinks we will grow strong enough to fight Gaerlan if we fight in these kind of battles.
  

-The Order : controlled by the Pinnacle which is experimenting on people to achieve "Discord".

• Conclusion : we already joined them and got ourselves a "terrorist" status. And their members seem to be on the side of the bad guys, without their knowledge. Cannot join them again.
  

-The four nations : Naverre and Sho have the Directorate, which is abducting refugees. Osteth is neutral for now, but may join Aluvia. Aluvia is going to attack Naverre by using the refugees as cannon fodder. They let the Order take care of the problems that are happening in their own backyard. And I know that Snarg and Rory doesn't like Aluvia military.

• Conclusion : the likelihood that we join one of them seems pretty null.
  

-The Eleven : a group of wise and advanced people who call us "organics". They feel like a bunch of HK-47, but only more serious and on the light side of the Force.

• Conclusion : they cut their ties to us. Would probably consider giving us their support if we were able to "stand together". Which isn't the case.
  

-The Olthoi : peaceful insectoid people who are really mysterious. But they seem to consider Gaerlan and the Tumeroks as enemies. But they requested help from a branch of the Order. And all Olthoi left the Order when Kez was accused of incitement of war. It is unsure whether they know about the Pinnacle or not.

• Conclusion : they might give us their support if we prove to be trustworthy. But I have a feeling they are like the Eleven and won't help us if we bicker too much among us.
  

Individuals of note?

-Radnaald of Highspring : a Lord elf who seem kin to save his "people". The founder of the Dragoon order. Agreed to make the Runners join the Exchange and let our group in charge of the new Undermarket since we share ultimately the same goal.

• Conclusion : despite the fight in Janwall, he seems to be of a good sort. As of now, he is the leader of the Runners, which is now linked to the Exchange.
  

-Lady Lightmane : the Lord of Holtburg. Has agreed to clear our names and provide unofficial support to the Exchange.

• Conclusion : while she has been helpful, our alliance until now has been only of a political nature. If we keep expanding the Exchange, she will most likely leave us alone and give us some help if it benefits herself.
  

Big conclusion : keep the Exchange growing so that we can fight the Directorate, the Pinnacle and the Tumeroks while getting the Olthoi on our side. Doing so would also make us strong enough to fight Gaerlan, which I see more and more as the Final Boss of Disc 1...

Damn, that's a lot of text. I did it mainly to exercise my brain and to flesh out our possibilities, but still...