Scion - Petro Campaign - Session 96
[Erika's Journal - Jacob's Fury]
So, I visited Jacob recently, and we chatted about a lot of things. For two gods from opposite ends of the sub-culture spectrum, we sure have a lot in common. Anyway, he's still expressing his gratitude for the way we saved Hel and Hrimsa a few months ago during our search for the bone coins. I don't know if I mentioned it, but shortly after that, once he returned to Helheim and learned what had happened, he sent me a roomful of flowers to say thanks! ^_^ He's so sweet.
But he's also pretty vengeful, apparently. He has it out for Mikaboshi now, and wants to kill the titan with his own hands. Given my own plans for Mikaboshi, I'm afraid Jacob's wrath might cause some problems for me, so I discussed his plans with him (not that he really has a plan, other than "I want to kill him with my own hands") and though I didn't share any details, I told him that I was working on my own schemes to defeat Mikaboshi. I promised to let Jacob know when the time came to strike the killing blow, though I don't actually plan to kill Mikaboshi like he does. Without the aspects of darkness that Mikaboshi represents, a lot of art and literature would lose its meaning... Star Wars wouldn't make sense any more! >_< Hell, for that matter my whole divine purpose wouldn't make as much sense. And we can't have that, now can we?
We just need to beat Mikaboshi down enough that he never gets up again...
[End Entry]
[Erika's Journal - WWII, Here I Come]
Okay, the crew's getting ready for another big ordeal. Unlike our last foray as a team, which was more-or-less a self-serving quest to gain control of some sweet death relics ^_^, this time we're actually serving the Greater Good by fixing a titan's attempts to screw around with the past.
Yup, that means we're time traveling. ^_^ I know, OMG, right?
So, here's the deal. Charles invited us to a meeting with Marishiten, Sarasvati, Nu Wa and Shen Nog, who had all detected some weird anomalies in time at several key points across the globe. This was enough to tip them off to the fact that something was up, so they did a little poking around and discovered that Zvran, the time titan, is apparently screwing around with the past by means of his avatar Ahriman. I think Storm's group had to deal with a similar situation some months ago.
Before I get into all of that, though, I should really mention that Charles delivered this invitation to us all in Adam's flying city sanctum while it was being assaulted by an army of giants from Muspelheim.
That got your attention, didn't it? ^_^
Don't worry, everything's okay now, though Adam has a lot to repair. I'm sure he has the place mechanized to take care of all that. But yeah, the giants stormed through his city and were only barely repelled by his defenses. Well, actually, the defenses didn't completely repel the attackers, which is why I'm glad Adam sent out a distress prayer to bring the rest of us running.
So there I was, drifting off into a contented sleep in Amaterasu's arms, cozy in our futon in my chambers in Kurayashiro, when I get a prayer from Adam, telling me that giants are attacking his city. I prayed back and asked if everything was under control, 'cause, y'know, I was in the arms of my lover and all, and he said, in his typical way, that he thought he could handle it. Of course, given the fact that he bothered to contact the whole posse, he really meant, "OMG OMG OMG I'm in some serious s**t here! Come as fast as you can!"
So I did. By the time I gave Amaterasu a one-sentence explanation, made it through the gate to Red Mountain, got the yomotsu-shikome, and then used Adam's teleporter to get to his flying city, the worst of the assault was over, and Elisa and Charles were already there helping to mop up. But the danger hadn't completely passed. There were still mechanical, spider-legged tanks crawling all over the place and giants rampaging about.
Apparently, they were looking for Hrimsa. The forces of Muspelheim want her in a major way. The giants were completely obsessed with capturing her. So much so that they abandoned all reason and concern for their own safety. I mean, Hrimsa's cute and all, but she's not that hot. Not when we're talking about legendary beings. Even Adam confessed to sensing a strong attraction to her, though the rest of us didn't feel anything special. So we decided there must be some sort of fatebound relationship between Hrimsa, the giants, and the Aesir.
We resolved to find out what was going on ASAP by asking Jacob or Hel. I mean, surely they know what's going on with their daughter, right? I have my suspicions that this whole situation is part of the reason Jacob asked Adam to mentor Hrimsa in the first place...
Anyway, it took some doing, but we managed to keep any of the giants from making off with (or making out with) Hrimsa. And it did take some doing. Fate really wanted them to kidnap her, enough that even MY divine presence was unable to lure and distract the giants once they'd gotten their meaty paws on her. that was a blow to my ego. >_<
So once the assault was turned back and things had calmed down, Charles brought up the meeting. And of course we agreed to go. The meeting wasn't for another day and half, so with Adam and his city safe, we split up to get things in order for another possible mission.
Oh, and as for Hrisma, we've hidden her away somewhere safe while we're gone. I'd like to tell you where, but it's a secret! ^_^
So I went back to Kurayashiro, where Amaterasu was still waiting for me, and told her about what had happened and the upcoming meeting. She wasn't happy to hear that Marishiten had something going on without her knowledge, but she and Marishiten aren't the fondest of friends anyway. Honestly, Marishiten and I have more in common, and even though I love my darling Amaterasu, I also respect and approve of Marishiten's little rebellions. ^_^
So, a few hours later, we gathered in Tien by way of Charles' sanctum to meet with Marishiten, Sarasvati, Nu Wa and Shen Nog. Basically, they've been detecting some odd time anomalies in four key areas of the globe, and they've discovered that servants of Zvran, the time titan, are trying to manipulate history. Normally, they can't do that on their own, unless someone else is screwing around with the timeline. Which, of course, is exactly what's going on. Some sort of strange beings connected to the moon and time are messing around in the past as well. These "moon beings" are a quadrupedal race, and though they aren't actually titnaspawn, they often enslave titanspawn to do their bidding. They came to our world eons ago, and the Pesedjet fought and defeated them, but some survived and have been causing problems lately. We don't know what these beings are up to in the past, but it can't be good. And they sound like they'll be a pain in ass the fight, should it come to that. They can pull off a lot of T-Bone's tricks, but fortunately they have a fine appreciation for beauty, which does give me an edge. ^_^
The time anomalies are all connected to a period during World War II. One is located near Strasbourg, France, in a place where the German army stockpiled munitions. Adam discovered from Synn that she was involved in the area in the past. A second is in Sarajevo, which, at the time, was more-or-less an open war zone in which Allied and Axis scions and gods openly battled and slaughtered each other with impunity. The third is in Hong Kong, which was under Japanese control at the time, but was awash with Allied agents and a sort of covert war of espionage. The fourth and final anomaly is in Hiroshima, prior to the bomb. The city was heavily guarded by the military and by Amatsukami scions and gods, and Marishiten warns us that she was unrelentingly ruthless in rooting out and destroying spies and infiltrators. My guess is that the titanspawn messing around in Hiroshima are trying to do something related to Pika Don and the atomic bomb...
So, we're supposed to go back in time to find out what the moon beings are up to at these locations and stop them, and also to stop any servants of the time titan from mucking things up. And the reason Marishiten and the others are asking US to do this is because most of the other gods were actually alive and active during that time, and they can't risk making things worse by showing up twice at that point in history. We, on the other hand, weren't even born yet, so it's safer for us to travel back and fix things. Beauty before age, bitches. ^_^
We are going to have to be careful, though. For one thing, there's a war going on, and Fate is trying to tell that war's story. As a result, fate magic is going to be spotty at best, and more importantly, those of us whose pantheon allegiance places us on opposite side in the war will have a harder time affecting each other with beneficial powers. That means I'll have to put extra effort into healing, or bolstering, or encouraging T-Bone, Pierre and Charles (the Allied members of our group) or Elisa (whose pantheon was neutral), but I can affect Adam normally, since we're both members of the Axis. That sounds so sordid. >_< Furthermore, our followers might get caught up in the roles of their alliances and could lose track of who their friends are, so it looks like I'm going to be leaving Tabby and the others behind. Its for the best, really; the fewer of use there are, the less chance we'll muck up the past.
We also have to avoid doing anything that would have a profound impact on the past. The more we affect the world of the past, the stronger our time-based foes (like the titanspawn of Zvran) will become. that's going to be tricky. And to make matters worse, we've been warned that Ahriman, an avatar of Zvran, will probably show up to cause us problems, and might try to strike a deal with us to get us to leave him to his own ends. If that's true, I have a bad feeling I know what he's going to offer me, at least, and it's going to be hard to turn down. If I could stop the Rape of Nanking, it would make everything between Yi and me better again...
But I know that making a deal with Ahriman will only make things worse in the end, so I gotta prepare myself to resist the temptation.
So, we talked it over and we'll be going to Strasbourg first to get our feet wet. It's not safe there, but it's a good place to get started. Then we'll probably go to Hong Kong. We'll leave Hiroshima and Sarajevo for last, as those are obviously the most dangerous places for us (well, I'm not sure Hiroshima's going to be so dangerous for ME, but I'm worried about the others).
After the meeting, we parted ways and agreed to meet the next morning to get started. Before I left, though, I made time to chat a bit with Sarasvati, to thank her for the wedding rings she made for Amaterasu, Echo and I. Being able to channel my taint harmlessly into Echo is a huge relief for me (and for Takamagahara too ^_^), so I'm quite grateful. She seemed...amused by my thanks. I wonder why?
I also chatted a bit with Marishiten, and warned her that Amaterasu wasn't happy to hear that she was up to something, but she just smiled and said that Amaterasu doesn't need to be trifled with every little detail. Had it not been me she was talking too, I'm sure she would have had some choice words to say about Amaterasu, but as my friend, Marishiten respects my relationship and tries not to speak ill of my spouse when she's around me.
Sera also wanted to talk to me, and I'm glad she did. You might recall that Manannan mac Lir warned us that Hun Dun would be trying to corrupt Sera and capture her children to use against the Celestial Bureacracy. Well, it's begun. >_< Sera told me that she'd been having terrible nightmares in which she watches her loved ones being raped and killed and enjoys it. That's seriously bad. I can't imagine how horrible that would be, and how terrible it would make me feel even after waking up! The nightmares initially came only when she slept alone when Charles was away, so now whenever he's gone, she has Amy stay with her, but lately the nightmares have been haunting her even when Amy's there.
Sera was worried about burdening Charles with worry, so she hadn't told him about this. I made sure that she would tell him ASAP. Charles needs to know about this, and he's not going to be burdened by it. He's going to want to help. Once I managed to convince her of that, I got down to the business of finding out what the source of the nightmares was. It sounded a lot like a haunting to me, and Sera agreed. She thought it might be the ghost of Soon Li, the Korean servant whom she'd had raped and killed back when she was evil.
So once I got back to Red Mountain, I went to my ghost-summoning chamber (yeah, I have a ghost-summonig chamber, and it's awesome!) and summoned the ghost of Soon Li. She's been turned into a specter, and I could sense the taint of Hun Dun on her. Her appearance is horrifying, with a broken jaw hanging open, twisted and bent legs, and blood covering her hands and lower body. She smelled of sex and blood. But she was also very powerful for a ghost of her age. Hun Dun must have fished her out of Yomi and infused her with greater power in order to torment Sera.
It was impossible to reason with the ghost. She is driven by an insatiable lust for vengeance against Sera. If I can purify her, then she might be convinced to forgive Sera and laid to rest, but until then, she can't be reasoned with. The purifcation ceremony will take awhile, and I didn't have time for it before meeting up with the others to visit the past. So instead I exorcised Soon Li back to the Underworld. She won't be able to return to haunt Sera for at least a couple of weeks, which at least buys us some time.
I told Sera what I'd learned. She's not really happy to have her fears confirmed, but my hope is that I'll be able to convince Soon Li to forgive Sera once she's purified, and if she does, then maybe Sera can begin to forgive herself.
[End Entry]
So, I visited Jacob recently, and we chatted about a lot of things. For two gods from opposite ends of the sub-culture spectrum, we sure have a lot in common. Anyway, he's still expressing his gratitude for the way we saved Hel and Hrimsa a few months ago during our search for the bone coins. I don't know if I mentioned it, but shortly after that, once he returned to Helheim and learned what had happened, he sent me a roomful of flowers to say thanks! ^_^ He's so sweet.
But he's also pretty vengeful, apparently. He has it out for Mikaboshi now, and wants to kill the titan with his own hands. Given my own plans for Mikaboshi, I'm afraid Jacob's wrath might cause some problems for me, so I discussed his plans with him (not that he really has a plan, other than "I want to kill him with my own hands") and though I didn't share any details, I told him that I was working on my own schemes to defeat Mikaboshi. I promised to let Jacob know when the time came to strike the killing blow, though I don't actually plan to kill Mikaboshi like he does. Without the aspects of darkness that Mikaboshi represents, a lot of art and literature would lose its meaning... Star Wars wouldn't make sense any more! >_< Hell, for that matter my whole divine purpose wouldn't make as much sense. And we can't have that, now can we?
We just need to beat Mikaboshi down enough that he never gets up again...
[End Entry]
[Erika's Journal - WWII, Here I Come]
Okay, the crew's getting ready for another big ordeal. Unlike our last foray as a team, which was more-or-less a self-serving quest to gain control of some sweet death relics ^_^, this time we're actually serving the Greater Good by fixing a titan's attempts to screw around with the past.
Yup, that means we're time traveling. ^_^ I know, OMG, right?
So, here's the deal. Charles invited us to a meeting with Marishiten, Sarasvati, Nu Wa and Shen Nog, who had all detected some weird anomalies in time at several key points across the globe. This was enough to tip them off to the fact that something was up, so they did a little poking around and discovered that Zvran, the time titan, is apparently screwing around with the past by means of his avatar Ahriman. I think Storm's group had to deal with a similar situation some months ago.
Before I get into all of that, though, I should really mention that Charles delivered this invitation to us all in Adam's flying city sanctum while it was being assaulted by an army of giants from Muspelheim.
That got your attention, didn't it? ^_^
Don't worry, everything's okay now, though Adam has a lot to repair. I'm sure he has the place mechanized to take care of all that. But yeah, the giants stormed through his city and were only barely repelled by his defenses. Well, actually, the defenses didn't completely repel the attackers, which is why I'm glad Adam sent out a distress prayer to bring the rest of us running.
So there I was, drifting off into a contented sleep in Amaterasu's arms, cozy in our futon in my chambers in Kurayashiro, when I get a prayer from Adam, telling me that giants are attacking his city. I prayed back and asked if everything was under control, 'cause, y'know, I was in the arms of my lover and all, and he said, in his typical way, that he thought he could handle it. Of course, given the fact that he bothered to contact the whole posse, he really meant, "OMG OMG OMG I'm in some serious s**t here! Come as fast as you can!"
So I did. By the time I gave Amaterasu a one-sentence explanation, made it through the gate to Red Mountain, got the yomotsu-shikome, and then used Adam's teleporter to get to his flying city, the worst of the assault was over, and Elisa and Charles were already there helping to mop up. But the danger hadn't completely passed. There were still mechanical, spider-legged tanks crawling all over the place and giants rampaging about.
Apparently, they were looking for Hrimsa. The forces of Muspelheim want her in a major way. The giants were completely obsessed with capturing her. So much so that they abandoned all reason and concern for their own safety. I mean, Hrimsa's cute and all, but she's not that hot. Not when we're talking about legendary beings. Even Adam confessed to sensing a strong attraction to her, though the rest of us didn't feel anything special. So we decided there must be some sort of fatebound relationship between Hrimsa, the giants, and the Aesir.
We resolved to find out what was going on ASAP by asking Jacob or Hel. I mean, surely they know what's going on with their daughter, right? I have my suspicions that this whole situation is part of the reason Jacob asked Adam to mentor Hrimsa in the first place...
Anyway, it took some doing, but we managed to keep any of the giants from making off with (or making out with) Hrimsa. And it did take some doing. Fate really wanted them to kidnap her, enough that even MY divine presence was unable to lure and distract the giants once they'd gotten their meaty paws on her. that was a blow to my ego. >_<
So once the assault was turned back and things had calmed down, Charles brought up the meeting. And of course we agreed to go. The meeting wasn't for another day and half, so with Adam and his city safe, we split up to get things in order for another possible mission.
Oh, and as for Hrisma, we've hidden her away somewhere safe while we're gone. I'd like to tell you where, but it's a secret! ^_^
So I went back to Kurayashiro, where Amaterasu was still waiting for me, and told her about what had happened and the upcoming meeting. She wasn't happy to hear that Marishiten had something going on without her knowledge, but she and Marishiten aren't the fondest of friends anyway. Honestly, Marishiten and I have more in common, and even though I love my darling Amaterasu, I also respect and approve of Marishiten's little rebellions. ^_^
So, a few hours later, we gathered in Tien by way of Charles' sanctum to meet with Marishiten, Sarasvati, Nu Wa and Shen Nog. Basically, they've been detecting some odd time anomalies in four key areas of the globe, and they've discovered that servants of Zvran, the time titan, are trying to manipulate history. Normally, they can't do that on their own, unless someone else is screwing around with the timeline. Which, of course, is exactly what's going on. Some sort of strange beings connected to the moon and time are messing around in the past as well. These "moon beings" are a quadrupedal race, and though they aren't actually titnaspawn, they often enslave titanspawn to do their bidding. They came to our world eons ago, and the Pesedjet fought and defeated them, but some survived and have been causing problems lately. We don't know what these beings are up to in the past, but it can't be good. And they sound like they'll be a pain in ass the fight, should it come to that. They can pull off a lot of T-Bone's tricks, but fortunately they have a fine appreciation for beauty, which does give me an edge. ^_^
The time anomalies are all connected to a period during World War II. One is located near Strasbourg, France, in a place where the German army stockpiled munitions. Adam discovered from Synn that she was involved in the area in the past. A second is in Sarajevo, which, at the time, was more-or-less an open war zone in which Allied and Axis scions and gods openly battled and slaughtered each other with impunity. The third is in Hong Kong, which was under Japanese control at the time, but was awash with Allied agents and a sort of covert war of espionage. The fourth and final anomaly is in Hiroshima, prior to the bomb. The city was heavily guarded by the military and by Amatsukami scions and gods, and Marishiten warns us that she was unrelentingly ruthless in rooting out and destroying spies and infiltrators. My guess is that the titanspawn messing around in Hiroshima are trying to do something related to Pika Don and the atomic bomb...
So, we're supposed to go back in time to find out what the moon beings are up to at these locations and stop them, and also to stop any servants of the time titan from mucking things up. And the reason Marishiten and the others are asking US to do this is because most of the other gods were actually alive and active during that time, and they can't risk making things worse by showing up twice at that point in history. We, on the other hand, weren't even born yet, so it's safer for us to travel back and fix things. Beauty before age, bitches. ^_^
We are going to have to be careful, though. For one thing, there's a war going on, and Fate is trying to tell that war's story. As a result, fate magic is going to be spotty at best, and more importantly, those of us whose pantheon allegiance places us on opposite side in the war will have a harder time affecting each other with beneficial powers. That means I'll have to put extra effort into healing, or bolstering, or encouraging T-Bone, Pierre and Charles (the Allied members of our group) or Elisa (whose pantheon was neutral), but I can affect Adam normally, since we're both members of the Axis. That sounds so sordid. >_< Furthermore, our followers might get caught up in the roles of their alliances and could lose track of who their friends are, so it looks like I'm going to be leaving Tabby and the others behind. Its for the best, really; the fewer of use there are, the less chance we'll muck up the past.
We also have to avoid doing anything that would have a profound impact on the past. The more we affect the world of the past, the stronger our time-based foes (like the titanspawn of Zvran) will become. that's going to be tricky. And to make matters worse, we've been warned that Ahriman, an avatar of Zvran, will probably show up to cause us problems, and might try to strike a deal with us to get us to leave him to his own ends. If that's true, I have a bad feeling I know what he's going to offer me, at least, and it's going to be hard to turn down. If I could stop the Rape of Nanking, it would make everything between Yi and me better again...
But I know that making a deal with Ahriman will only make things worse in the end, so I gotta prepare myself to resist the temptation.
So, we talked it over and we'll be going to Strasbourg first to get our feet wet. It's not safe there, but it's a good place to get started. Then we'll probably go to Hong Kong. We'll leave Hiroshima and Sarajevo for last, as those are obviously the most dangerous places for us (well, I'm not sure Hiroshima's going to be so dangerous for ME, but I'm worried about the others).
After the meeting, we parted ways and agreed to meet the next morning to get started. Before I left, though, I made time to chat a bit with Sarasvati, to thank her for the wedding rings she made for Amaterasu, Echo and I. Being able to channel my taint harmlessly into Echo is a huge relief for me (and for Takamagahara too ^_^), so I'm quite grateful. She seemed...amused by my thanks. I wonder why?
I also chatted a bit with Marishiten, and warned her that Amaterasu wasn't happy to hear that she was up to something, but she just smiled and said that Amaterasu doesn't need to be trifled with every little detail. Had it not been me she was talking too, I'm sure she would have had some choice words to say about Amaterasu, but as my friend, Marishiten respects my relationship and tries not to speak ill of my spouse when she's around me.
Sera also wanted to talk to me, and I'm glad she did. You might recall that Manannan mac Lir warned us that Hun Dun would be trying to corrupt Sera and capture her children to use against the Celestial Bureacracy. Well, it's begun. >_< Sera told me that she'd been having terrible nightmares in which she watches her loved ones being raped and killed and enjoys it. That's seriously bad. I can't imagine how horrible that would be, and how terrible it would make me feel even after waking up! The nightmares initially came only when she slept alone when Charles was away, so now whenever he's gone, she has Amy stay with her, but lately the nightmares have been haunting her even when Amy's there.
Sera was worried about burdening Charles with worry, so she hadn't told him about this. I made sure that she would tell him ASAP. Charles needs to know about this, and he's not going to be burdened by it. He's going to want to help. Once I managed to convince her of that, I got down to the business of finding out what the source of the nightmares was. It sounded a lot like a haunting to me, and Sera agreed. She thought it might be the ghost of Soon Li, the Korean servant whom she'd had raped and killed back when she was evil.
So once I got back to Red Mountain, I went to my ghost-summoning chamber (yeah, I have a ghost-summonig chamber, and it's awesome!) and summoned the ghost of Soon Li. She's been turned into a specter, and I could sense the taint of Hun Dun on her. Her appearance is horrifying, with a broken jaw hanging open, twisted and bent legs, and blood covering her hands and lower body. She smelled of sex and blood. But she was also very powerful for a ghost of her age. Hun Dun must have fished her out of Yomi and infused her with greater power in order to torment Sera.
It was impossible to reason with the ghost. She is driven by an insatiable lust for vengeance against Sera. If I can purify her, then she might be convinced to forgive Sera and laid to rest, but until then, she can't be reasoned with. The purifcation ceremony will take awhile, and I didn't have time for it before meeting up with the others to visit the past. So instead I exorcised Soon Li back to the Underworld. She won't be able to return to haunt Sera for at least a couple of weeks, which at least buys us some time.
I told Sera what I'd learned. She's not really happy to have her fears confirmed, but my hope is that I'll be able to convince Soon Li to forgive Sera once she's purified, and if she does, then maybe Sera can begin to forgive herself.
[End Entry]