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@Tamamo
Alisia,
The paladin sympathized with your plight. Was it simple respect, considering your angelic history? Or was he sincerely empathetic to the situation? You sense that he too has been parted from someone he loves, and he affirms this when he says his heart belongs to his wife, even if dimensions keep them apart.
You admire his strength in an unbearable situation and wonder if you should change your plans.
Sancireph draws his blades and approaches the barmaid. You reach out to him with your mind and tell him to wait. He is not backing down.
You feel Navine's body is directing its energy towards that stump on her right shoulder. It is growing; this situation is giving Lilith strength. Perhaps if the tension were extended she might be able to be amputated. You decide to push the matter further to make such an option viable, but you are suddenly interrupted by the harsh rocking of the ship. Something has slammed into the hull. The others run towards the deck, but Navine does not.
Lilith opens up to you.
"Poor little wounded bird, longing for your plundered egg."
You ask how she could know such things.
"You should play your cards closer to the vest. All those telepathic manifestations let me read you like a book. The valkyrie a mother? Hilarious! No wonder they stole it away."
You are overwhelmed with rage. You manifest your sword in Alisia's hand and hold it to her neck.
"Don't be dramatic. She dies, you die, I die. But you don't have the heart to do it. You don't have the DARKNESS. At least... not yet."
You ask what Lilith wants.
"I want what anyone wants in this world. Form. A body to call my own. This little witch is a fine halfway house but she's no four-star hotel. I need a form which I can shape in my own image."
You offer yourself.
"That's sweet, but you aren't exactly in any shape to make such a deal. You're in the same boat I am. You too require form, form which you lack. But I've been watching, and I know what we can do."
You ask what Lilith means.
"That bump on the left shoulder... I can't touch it. I can feel it, though, faintly. The light inside of it tingles, like acid eating away. It's a wing."
A wing?
"I've got one too. The lump that's just me. And that little scuffle with the fighter made it bigger."
You ask where she's going with this.
"I heard your little thought to amputate me. If you want to plot, you need to quell your emotions before you do it. Especially when you're sharing a body."
You tell her that you hate her and you won't hear any more of this.
"Oh, you will. It's really quite brilliant. We'll go ahead and let me be amputated. You as well. Just not yet."
She takes control of Navine's hands and makes a shadowpuppet butterfly on the wall.
"As the darkness passes through this hapless witch, it gives me strength to grow. When there is enough mass, I can separate from her body and take my own form, independent of a mortal's pestering conscience."
She depicts one wing of the butterfly being ripped off.
"You can benefit too. With enough mass you could gain a physical form. And such a form here would be of unimaginable power back home. Have this witch grow you a body and then take your vengeance."
You ask what Lilith wants.
"Easy. Encourage the darkness while you encourage the light. We'll both grow strong, we can leave the witch in peace, and then we'll part ways. It's a win for everybody."
The sound of combat rings from the deck above. You guide Navine up the stairs to see what is going on.
Granberia,
Thinking back on your capture, you recall that the BLUE MAGE was puzzled as you spoke of your hunt for the CRIMSON DRAGON OF FLAME. You can read his lips muttering as he adds numbers in his head. Your statement of a two-year hunt doesn't seem to agree with him.
In a fit of rage and feeling trapped, you begin to lash out at the crew, painfully disarming them in sprays of blood and leaving them as crumpled heaps on the floor. The heat of your rage grows as you fight, until you are interrupted by a blinding flash of light. You see a VALKYRIE standing before you, ethereal. Your instinct is to stab at her, but as your mighty WYRMKILLER touches her form she grabs it, and great waves of green flame burst forth from the blade. These rings of fire envelop the injured crew and seal their wounds, leaving only slight marks where the sword had maimed them.
You nod to the figure, exclaiming that you understand the meaning of her appearance. Fire need not always be a force of destruction.
Knowing your task, you proceed to craft giant stakes. D'ARSONIUS is currently infesting CECETTE with his undead presence. From the feel of the two stones in your hand, you suspect the third is the manifestation of his BODY. Working the wood with your flaming blade and ignoring the crew gathering around you, you manage to craft SEVEN giant stakes. If you can use the wild energy of the wood to kill D'Arsonius' body, perhaps Cecette can be salvaged.
Rose,
You've been sailing with this pack of charmed hobgoblins for about a week now and the limitations of the fishing boat are starting to get the best of you. Glaciers are constantly bombarding the sides of the vessel and it is only a matter of time until the damage sinks the ship. You decide it is probably best if you switch vessels; these little monsters should be strong enough to take any merchant cruiser you happen across. To your advantage you see one ahead of you. It looks a little better armed than you'd like, but you should be able to take it with the element of surprise.
You take the form of mist, surrounding the fishing boat as you approach and creating a smoke screen. As you draw near, though, your form is broken when a two-headed dragon erupts from the water. It seems set on attacking the vessel you were going to steal.
You're close enough to climb to the deck of the ship, though you doubt the hobgoblins will be able to scale the hull like you can. As such, you leave them behind to sink in their clunker and you board the deck.
=====
@mrz84
Zataka,
Recalling the conversation with the angel residing inside the barmaid, you begin to wonder what triggered her fall. She spoke of her mistake, but you sense something else. She is desperate; a piece of her has been stolen away and she is straining to acquire the power to retrieve it. What did she lose? Not her light... even now you can feel it despite her presence as an inhabiting spirit. What could be more important than that to a valkyrie? Then you think of your wife, and you finally understand. The thing she lost wasn't some component of her angelic self, it was someone she loves.
You then think back to Granberia's change of heart and your conversation with her. She was making unusually large stakes, for D'ARSONIUS THE CRIMSON FLAME. She describes the sacking of a kingdom by a two-headed chimera of RED AND GREEN, the fall of a princess and the incineration of a palace. Some of the details seem askew... you wonder if perhaps she has combined a memory of the past with a vision of the future.
Putting that thought aside, you ask the crew if they've seen a veridian stone.
"Well, I haven't heard of anything like that, but the treasure's always divvied out by the captain. You should ask her. I think she's on deck right now."
You make your way to the deck, but as you reach the top of the stairs the boat shakes violently. Something seems to have struck the hull. An iceberg? You rush on deck to see what is going on.
=====
@TheDarkOne
Goldleaf,
When the stowaway spoke of the dragon D'ARSONIUS, she mentioned she'd been hunting him for two years. You swear you heard one of the crew mention that the dragon was sealed by a cabinet of archmagisters... but that can't be possible. Perhaps your magic is bleeding into your senses, because the RITE OF DRAGON DISSOLUTION is not common knowledge. What's even stranger is that the subject being referenced--D'ARSONIUS OF THE FLAME--is a literary figure. He's mentioned in children's stories but you've never encountered any evidence he actually exists. Even if he did, the stories are very old, it would have had to have been centuries ago.
Later she shared her own origins, of a draconic CHIMERA attacking her home and destroying the kingdom. The tale is almost identical to the children's story, but more detailed and with a different ending. You try to recall the fable.
There once was a woman said to be so beautiful that simply looking upon her would bend the fabric of reality. Good things always happened to those around her, and so her mother brought her before the people and on the site of a single blooming rose they built a great nation. The princess was placed in a towering spire, where her beauty could settle like morning dew over the land. But beauty has its price, and the princess caught the attention of a terrible monster. D'ARSONIUS. He saw her from afar and coveted her power. Three times he came to the great city. The first time he offered his great hoard of wealth for the princess, but the Queen refused. The second, he offered to destroy all of the nation's enemies, but the Queen refused. Finally, on the third visit he resolved to simply take what he wanted. He wreathed the kingdom in a barrier of flames which would incinerate everything they touched. With the citizens as his prisoners he demanded the princess in exchange for their release.
The princess climbed to the roof of her spire and stood before the mighty dragon, facing him for the first time. When he saw her beauty directly he was so stunned he could not speak. Closing his eyes, he kindly asked if she would come away with him.
The princess said nothing. Instead, she raised her hands to the sky. A great storm formed above her, putting out the flames around her kingdom. Black smoke filled the sky, obscuring the spire. The kingdom looked up on their princess with hope that she had defeated the monster, but when the smoke cleared there was no one there. No princess. No dragon. They had vanished without a trace.
When you learned the fable in your training, you recognized it as a warning about the great risk of PROBABILITY, the wrath of math magic spiraling out of control. Yet the stowaway spoke of the matter as if she was there. The kingdom had not been spared the wrath of the monster, and the princess had died in her arms. Does that mean Granberia is herself centuries old? But she spoke as if the event was a fresh wound. How could such a thing be possible?
You shake away such contradictory ideas and focus on the task at hand. Sancireph and Zataka seem to be focusing on the barmaid, so you decide your energy is best directed towards the threat of the dragon. Using a pail of water to form a mirror, you scry on the location of CECETTE.
She's submerged, the salt is burning her skin and she is moving towards a light source. Wait, there's an object in the way. What is that? It's made of wood. Oh... oh no.
Your vision shatters as the boat is violently bashed by a large mass. The dragon is here already. You can hear fighting from the deck, so you rush to their aid.
Sancireph,
While your focus had been on the stowaway Granberia, the approach of the barmaid draws your attention. You feel the flash of celestial light and infernal darkness as she approaches. You ask what they're doing here, but before Zataka can answer you have a vision of a VALKYRIE. You immediately identify this as the celestial presence, but something is very wrong. She is wreathed in flames, the wrath of vengeance is about her. You fret what she might do. Still, she tells you that the intent is to extract the evil from the barmaid and then banish it. You cannot trust that she has not been corrupted by the dark force within the body, though, so you raise your blades as if to strike, calling her out for her infernal intentions. You hear an unfamiliar voice escape through the barmaid's lips: "Kill me and she dies too".
The ship suddenly shakes violently and you can hear shouting from above. The fallen angel will have to wait. You hurry to the deck.
=============================================
@Everyone
On deck, you see the pirates fighting the VERIDIAN DRAGON CECETTE. Half of her scales have turned red and she is now sporting a second head, which is munching on one of the crew. The captain draws her new enchanted sword and speaks the word of power, setting it ablaze with holy light. She tries to slash at the dragon but it knocks her overboard into the icy water.
The green head launches a bolt of lightning, tearing down the mast. Meanwhile, the red head swallows its meal and sets the deck ablaze. The green head bites at the neck of the red head, as if trying to dislodge it, but the red head rams its with its horns and the green head falls limp.
You note that the red head is missing its left eye. It looks like it has a fairly significant blindspot.
What do you do?
(Characters Present:
Navine
Granberia
Rose
Zataka
Goldleaf
Sancireph
So... essentially everybody)