Scion - Petro Campaign - Session 124
So, our travails throughout Tien continue. Only this time with less sex. I wrote my last entry while we were making our way through the Lungs of the Earth Dragon, the caverns that run beneath the Imperial Mountains. Well, it turns out we weren't done meeting Taoist immortals and solving their elusive koans; as we edged ever closer to General Chou's encampment we had to solve a few more riddles in order to proceed. Kuan Yin was with us, but she was exempt form the sages' challenges, of course, and remained fairly quiet even after we arrived at General Chou's camp.
First we were confronted by another river flowing through the caverns, and the rather toadish sage waiting there asked us to change the river's flow without changing its destination. I resolved the challenge by summoning the river's kami and talking it into altering its flow for a time, and the others overcame it with similarly creative solutions, like Pierre using his earth powers to adjust its course for a stretch, or Elisa vaporizing part of it with her infernal flames so that it flowed as steam instead of liquid.
Shortly thereafter, we were ambushed by a small party of black calamities and taotie masks, though in truth it wasn't much of an ambush since we saw it coming well before walking into it. The titanspawn didn't stand much of a chance against us, of course, and we easily killed them. It was, however, disturbing that they had managed to find some back doors into the caves. Is no place safe from these guys?
As we moved on, I walked along with Adam and we chatted, giving each other a hard time about things like usual, but really just enjoying each other's company. I flipped one earphone of my relic headphone so that we could both listen to my music as we walked, and at least Adam seems to enjoy a lot of the same music I do. Despite all of his faults (he really is a complete jerk), Adam is absolutely one of my best friends. (^_^)
Anyway, we had to stop our conversation when we encountered another sage, who challenged us to move some sheep through a chamber of tigers without any bloodshed. I did so rather easily by putting the tigers to sleep with my cradlesong and then leading the sheep through. Several of the others found interesting ways to create safe passageways for the sheep, while T-Bone hypnotized the tigers. Sonny just wrestled the tigers into submission and got them so drunk on his god wine that they didn't care when the sheep passed by. Sonny always comes up with the most unique solutions to problems. (^_^)
The final sage we encountered offered us a choice. We could either make a statue cry or a crow laugh. Adam rigged a contraption to make it look like the statue was crying. Elisa melted the statue's eyes with intense fire. I simply summoned the kami of the statue and then cried so convincingly myself that it couldn't help but break into tears as well. Pierre's solution was perhaps the most beautiful, for he actually created diamonds to spill from its eyes. The others managed to make the crow laugh with various trickery, though Sonny showed us all up by using Taiyi to accomplish both challenges at once.
Having passed that challenge, we neared General Chou's camp, but soon encountered the wreckage of numerous terra-cotta soldiers, no doubt the "corpses" of some of Chou's army. And just beyond them was a cavern filled with mines, presumably laid by Chou's forces to protect the approach to their camp. Sonny blasted through the minefield with a shockwave attack, clearing the way for us. Adam and Elisa disarmed and kept a few of the remaining mines, just in case. I was shocked to learn later that the mines are "powered" by spirits, which literally destroy themselves to cause fearsome explosions. I'm told by Charles that the spirits are essentially mindless and are created specifically to be used as mines, which mitigates my horror a little…but seriously, the Celestial Bureaucracy needs to work on the rights of its spirits. Something like that would never fly in Takamagahara. (>_<)
Anyway, we were then confronted by a huge, loud, misshapen man with an immense head and an arm that ended in a cannon capable of shooting deployable mines. He called himself Colonel Boom, and he was apparently created when General Chou needed a demolitions expert and transformed a psychotic duck into a soldier using Taiyi. Seriously? I thought T-Bone had the Looney Tune thing cornered, but I now see that even the austere Celestial Bureaucracy has some pretty goofy ideas. *Sigh*
Anyway, the Colonel was pissed at us for clearing his minefield, but a bit of sweet talking convinced him to take us to Chou. Within in the encampment, Chou's vast tent was guarded by five dragons, one for each of the Chinese elements. The tent itself was huge, easily the size of a circus tent, only somehow how more…formidable. The dragons standing guard wouldn't let us in, not because they feared for Chou's safety, but because they feared for ours. That sounded suspicious. (>_<)
So it turns out Chou had a visit from Da Ji a day or so ago, and whatever they talked about sent him into a frenzy of wrath, and he hasn't calmed down since. Right….so that wasn't really Da Ji who visited Chou. It looks like Abigail dropped by. Why are we always a step behind? I mean, hell, it seems like she's everywhere at once…which would be mystifying if Charles and I couldn't do exactly the same thing. (^_^) Anyway, we explained to the dragons that we feared it wasn't the real Da Ji who had visited Chou, and I offered to try and calm him down, so they reluctantly let me in to see the General, and T-Bone followed along invisibly so that he could heal any madness that Abigail might have inflicted on the honorable dragon.
Of course, the good news was that Chou was unlikely to be in league with Hundun if Abigail was pulling her tricks on him like that. Unless some twisted ruse was at work, and…well, there's only so much second-guessing a girl can do before she starts to become paranoid, so I'm just going to stop right there. (>_<)
To say that General Chou is a "celestial" dragon conveys conveys the idea of what he is, but actually seeing him was almost mind-bending. He was the cosmos, wrapped into the vague form of a dragon, and even though we stood in the finite darkness of his campaign tent, he actually filled a far greater space, and in fact the tent itself seemed to stretch on forever. How else could that place hold a dragon of such god-like magnitude that its eyes were suns and its scales the very stars of the night sky? (O_O) I felt truly humbled. It was an amazing sight, and not one I'll soon forget.
Of course, it was also quite intimidating, especially since Chou was furious that I'd been allowed in to see him, but I kept him calm with soothing words and my graceful charm. It quickly became apparent, though, that he was suffering from barely restrained madness. Fortunately, T-Bone was able to work his magic and heal Chou's tortured mind, returning him to sanity. After that, the general was quite polite, if very austere and demanding.
I discussed with Chou the idea of peace talks. I also explained that Nuwa was in charge of the rebels now, and that she was willing to make peace with the Bureaucracy along as we could negotiate her temporary ascension to the throne. Chou was not really excited about that. He'd rather a strong, war-like Emperor like Guan Yu stay in power but join the rebels in their cause. He also seems to have some very black and white views on what is and is not acceptable. And you know how I feel about that. I mean, I'm a goddess of harmonious light and darkness, which ironically means that I kinda live in the shades of gray. Chou's rather firm views on things, however, meant that he didn't think highly of Nuwa's integrity, which I found a bit off-putting. To put it bluntly, Chou wouldn't know compromise if it came up and bit his star-spangled ass.
Still, I agreed to convey his demands to Nuwa (one of me was still hanging out in her camp). She doesn't really seem to think highly of General Chou either, and was unwilling to back down from her goals at the peace talks on his account. It looked a bit like we weren't going to get anywhere, but T-Bone and I managed to convince Chou that sometimes the unyielding branch breaks, and that he should at least consider Nuwa's plans and potential before discounting them. And so he agreed to meet with Nuwa in person. I made the arrangements.
Once all that was done, though, I had to break to him the bad news about his son. I did so as gently as possible, but of course hearing of the death of one's offspring is unimaginably heart-breaking, and all the more so since I admitted that we had been the ones forced to slay him. Chou asked us to leave after that, and T-Bone and I made our departure as quickly as possible.
So…it was a bitter ending to our discussion, but I think we've made progress. From a purely selfish point of view, I'm not willing to let Chou call the shots on the peace talks because getting Nuwa onto the throne as Jade Emperor is part of my own agenda. If I can do that, then it will be much easier to mend the schism between the Bureaucracy and the Amatsukami.
So now we're all resting a bit in Chou's camp before moving on to our next objective, which is to…ummm…hold on. I gotta go ask Adam what our next objective is, because I'm honestly not sure. (O_O)(>_<)
First we were confronted by another river flowing through the caverns, and the rather toadish sage waiting there asked us to change the river's flow without changing its destination. I resolved the challenge by summoning the river's kami and talking it into altering its flow for a time, and the others overcame it with similarly creative solutions, like Pierre using his earth powers to adjust its course for a stretch, or Elisa vaporizing part of it with her infernal flames so that it flowed as steam instead of liquid.
Shortly thereafter, we were ambushed by a small party of black calamities and taotie masks, though in truth it wasn't much of an ambush since we saw it coming well before walking into it. The titanspawn didn't stand much of a chance against us, of course, and we easily killed them. It was, however, disturbing that they had managed to find some back doors into the caves. Is no place safe from these guys?
As we moved on, I walked along with Adam and we chatted, giving each other a hard time about things like usual, but really just enjoying each other's company. I flipped one earphone of my relic headphone so that we could both listen to my music as we walked, and at least Adam seems to enjoy a lot of the same music I do. Despite all of his faults (he really is a complete jerk), Adam is absolutely one of my best friends. (^_^)
Anyway, we had to stop our conversation when we encountered another sage, who challenged us to move some sheep through a chamber of tigers without any bloodshed. I did so rather easily by putting the tigers to sleep with my cradlesong and then leading the sheep through. Several of the others found interesting ways to create safe passageways for the sheep, while T-Bone hypnotized the tigers. Sonny just wrestled the tigers into submission and got them so drunk on his god wine that they didn't care when the sheep passed by. Sonny always comes up with the most unique solutions to problems. (^_^)
The final sage we encountered offered us a choice. We could either make a statue cry or a crow laugh. Adam rigged a contraption to make it look like the statue was crying. Elisa melted the statue's eyes with intense fire. I simply summoned the kami of the statue and then cried so convincingly myself that it couldn't help but break into tears as well. Pierre's solution was perhaps the most beautiful, for he actually created diamonds to spill from its eyes. The others managed to make the crow laugh with various trickery, though Sonny showed us all up by using Taiyi to accomplish both challenges at once.
Having passed that challenge, we neared General Chou's camp, but soon encountered the wreckage of numerous terra-cotta soldiers, no doubt the "corpses" of some of Chou's army. And just beyond them was a cavern filled with mines, presumably laid by Chou's forces to protect the approach to their camp. Sonny blasted through the minefield with a shockwave attack, clearing the way for us. Adam and Elisa disarmed and kept a few of the remaining mines, just in case. I was shocked to learn later that the mines are "powered" by spirits, which literally destroy themselves to cause fearsome explosions. I'm told by Charles that the spirits are essentially mindless and are created specifically to be used as mines, which mitigates my horror a little…but seriously, the Celestial Bureaucracy needs to work on the rights of its spirits. Something like that would never fly in Takamagahara. (>_<)
Anyway, we were then confronted by a huge, loud, misshapen man with an immense head and an arm that ended in a cannon capable of shooting deployable mines. He called himself Colonel Boom, and he was apparently created when General Chou needed a demolitions expert and transformed a psychotic duck into a soldier using Taiyi. Seriously? I thought T-Bone had the Looney Tune thing cornered, but I now see that even the austere Celestial Bureaucracy has some pretty goofy ideas. *Sigh*
Anyway, the Colonel was pissed at us for clearing his minefield, but a bit of sweet talking convinced him to take us to Chou. Within in the encampment, Chou's vast tent was guarded by five dragons, one for each of the Chinese elements. The tent itself was huge, easily the size of a circus tent, only somehow how more…formidable. The dragons standing guard wouldn't let us in, not because they feared for Chou's safety, but because they feared for ours. That sounded suspicious. (>_<)
So it turns out Chou had a visit from Da Ji a day or so ago, and whatever they talked about sent him into a frenzy of wrath, and he hasn't calmed down since. Right….so that wasn't really Da Ji who visited Chou. It looks like Abigail dropped by. Why are we always a step behind? I mean, hell, it seems like she's everywhere at once…which would be mystifying if Charles and I couldn't do exactly the same thing. (^_^) Anyway, we explained to the dragons that we feared it wasn't the real Da Ji who had visited Chou, and I offered to try and calm him down, so they reluctantly let me in to see the General, and T-Bone followed along invisibly so that he could heal any madness that Abigail might have inflicted on the honorable dragon.
Of course, the good news was that Chou was unlikely to be in league with Hundun if Abigail was pulling her tricks on him like that. Unless some twisted ruse was at work, and…well, there's only so much second-guessing a girl can do before she starts to become paranoid, so I'm just going to stop right there. (>_<)
To say that General Chou is a "celestial" dragon conveys conveys the idea of what he is, but actually seeing him was almost mind-bending. He was the cosmos, wrapped into the vague form of a dragon, and even though we stood in the finite darkness of his campaign tent, he actually filled a far greater space, and in fact the tent itself seemed to stretch on forever. How else could that place hold a dragon of such god-like magnitude that its eyes were suns and its scales the very stars of the night sky? (O_O) I felt truly humbled. It was an amazing sight, and not one I'll soon forget.
Of course, it was also quite intimidating, especially since Chou was furious that I'd been allowed in to see him, but I kept him calm with soothing words and my graceful charm. It quickly became apparent, though, that he was suffering from barely restrained madness. Fortunately, T-Bone was able to work his magic and heal Chou's tortured mind, returning him to sanity. After that, the general was quite polite, if very austere and demanding.
I discussed with Chou the idea of peace talks. I also explained that Nuwa was in charge of the rebels now, and that she was willing to make peace with the Bureaucracy along as we could negotiate her temporary ascension to the throne. Chou was not really excited about that. He'd rather a strong, war-like Emperor like Guan Yu stay in power but join the rebels in their cause. He also seems to have some very black and white views on what is and is not acceptable. And you know how I feel about that. I mean, I'm a goddess of harmonious light and darkness, which ironically means that I kinda live in the shades of gray. Chou's rather firm views on things, however, meant that he didn't think highly of Nuwa's integrity, which I found a bit off-putting. To put it bluntly, Chou wouldn't know compromise if it came up and bit his star-spangled ass.
Still, I agreed to convey his demands to Nuwa (one of me was still hanging out in her camp). She doesn't really seem to think highly of General Chou either, and was unwilling to back down from her goals at the peace talks on his account. It looked a bit like we weren't going to get anywhere, but T-Bone and I managed to convince Chou that sometimes the unyielding branch breaks, and that he should at least consider Nuwa's plans and potential before discounting them. And so he agreed to meet with Nuwa in person. I made the arrangements.
Once all that was done, though, I had to break to him the bad news about his son. I did so as gently as possible, but of course hearing of the death of one's offspring is unimaginably heart-breaking, and all the more so since I admitted that we had been the ones forced to slay him. Chou asked us to leave after that, and T-Bone and I made our departure as quickly as possible.
So…it was a bitter ending to our discussion, but I think we've made progress. From a purely selfish point of view, I'm not willing to let Chou call the shots on the peace talks because getting Nuwa onto the throne as Jade Emperor is part of my own agenda. If I can do that, then it will be much easier to mend the schism between the Bureaucracy and the Amatsukami.
So now we're all resting a bit in Chou's camp before moving on to our next objective, which is to…ummm…hold on. I gotta go ask Adam what our next objective is, because I'm honestly not sure. (O_O)(>_<)