Game Report August 7th 2010

Sheevawn Lockheart is currently recovering from near death due to the firedust explosion at the artificial harbor's shoreside barracks fort, Ky Aria's botched attempt to stabilize her, and hours of frostbite when being flown back to the Necropolis of Isulgath by Telvida.

As best as we could all recall, night was falling as Ky and Sheevawn briefly encountered the dead kraken, swooped into the fort, and set off the trap left by the retreating Skullstone fleet.

Ky Aria flew into the harbor waters, to avoid the thunderbirds who were trying to kill him due to his botched attempt to stabilize Sheevawn, but not before putting Sheevawn's unconscious body onto Telvida's back. The thunderbirds attacked him as he dove into the water, but were unsuccessful due to his perfect dodges. Eventually, they gave up on him coming out of the water as Sheevawn was carried further and further from them, so they felt compelled to follow her to protect her.

After the thunderbirds departed, Ky emerged from the water and destroyed the ten longboats left in the harbor, each with one or two swift throws of his golden vajra.

Note: Longboat appears to be the correct word. The Viking "longboats" were actually called longships according to Change-a-pedia.

Then Ky investigated the burning fort, discovered a hard packed roadway leading to the west (and slightly to the south). He flew along the roadway, under the fat, but not yet full, moon. Quickly he realized that it lead towards the fortified Manse which now looms over the ground once known to the followers of Isulgath as The Pit. So he continued onwards and flew to the dark Manse.

Meanwhile, Telvida had flown Sheevawn through the cold winter night, back to the necropolis of Isulgath, guarded by the five angry thunderbirds on her journey. Togire was awakened, and the military's medics went to work to try to save Sheevawn. Togire realized that their tools were simply not enough, and that time was too short. In a flash of inspiration, he sent troops out to gather the best of the city's Embalmers, that class of strange doctor who helped mere mortals live among Fair Folk who were determined that the image of death was a lifestyle. After an hour of grisly surgery and skin grafts, Sheevawn was saved. It will be weeks, but her Exalted constitution will soon restore her burned and battered body to the magnificent beauty that she has always been.

Togire wondered fearfully why Ky Aria had not returned. Telvida told him of the scuffle with the thunderbirds, and of the burning fort. Had Ky fallen prey to the dead kraken? Had Ky drowned in the cold night sea? Had Ky been captured by the enemy? He gathered the people of the air, and sent them out to look for Ky across the moonlight wasteland of Isulgath's ruined kingdom.

Sometime close to when Telvida landed with Sheevawn, Ky arrived at the manse that was built to cover the Pit. Imagine that it looks kind of like this except that the bottom point of that picture is straightened into a wall, and pierced with a gate, rendering the whole structure into a roughly triangular fortress. Also, ignore that ridiculous scale.

Anyway, Ky flew up to one of the two gun towers, and dispatched the handful of guards and gunners atop it, but not before one of them roused the alarm by firing the necrotech lightning ballista off into the air. Booted heels pounded up the stairway below in the tower, while calls for archers echoed in the courtyard below.

Ky dragged the ballista onto the tower's exit hatch, blocking that route from his would be attackers. Then he spun the gun around and fired it at its counterpart on the opposite tower. Its crackling energy did not consume the other weapon, but it did damage it such that it would require repair before use.

Across the courtyard, a tall man completely encased on grim armor of twisted soulsteel burst from the main keep's portal. He raced across the courtyard.

Ky swooped into the air, and hurled his vajra like a score of thunderbolts at the lightning ballista, shattering many of its delicate crystals and rending its fuselage. Yet, as he felt the spear return to his hand, and he readied to cast it again, the impossible occurred. The soulsteel-clad deathknight leapt into the air, closing the long yards as though they were but an arm's length apart. Like an owl seizing a mouse, the deathknight grasped Ky in an inescapable clutch. Ky struggled, but to little avail. Held nearly helpless, his warrior spirit raged as he felt himself fighting to breath, his Solar Essence drowning in the cold oblivion of the armor's crushing caress.

Images from past lives flashed before his eyes, one after another, and Ky fought harder and harder to free himself. (Summers spent lots of XP raising Ky's Martial Arts Ability rating.) Yet the deathknight did not loose him, and the two of them plunged down, and fell upon the artifact cannon at the top of the tower. Ky went limp as he lost consciousness, cold blackness closing in around him.

Ky was captured, presumably destined eventually for being cast into a Monstrance, and corrupted to the cause of Oblivion.

Then we switched up, and Summers started playing Shepherd of the Lost, since Beau wasn't here, and Sheevawn was still terribly wounded and unconscious.

At dawn, the search for Ky began in earnest. Only half of the people of the air had searched for Ky in the dark, and now the other half, having rested for a while, set out in the early morning light to look for him.

Shepherd convinced Telvida to fly him to the place where Ky disappeared, while the thunderbirds watched over Sheevawn's sleeping body. So it was that Shepherd also arrived at the shores of the new harbor. Searching about the burnt out fort, he saw little sign of Ky. As he was about to give up, however, he happened upon Ky's ashen footprints upon the road west. So, Shepherd, thought, our lost Solar has gone to scout out the enemy. Perhaps he was captured. Shepherd convinced Telvida to fly him close to the dark Manse, so that he might investigate the matter further.

As Telvida flew away to return to Sheevawn, Shepherd set off on a mile long walk, carefully approaching the redoubt. Disguising himself as one of the zombie guards on patrol, he circled the fortress repeatedly, seemingly interminably, before he realized that the dead would never be relieved of duty. If he waited too long, then night would fall, and he would be in a shadowland after dark. Attempting to gain access through diversion, he crippled one of the zombies so that it would need attention and replacement. Alas, one of the ghostly watchers on the wall spotted him, and the force that came from the gates was an imposing body of zombies, Skullstone troops, and the deathknight master himself. Standing still as a statue, Shepherd evaded their detection until they tired of searching for him beneath the watchful glare of the sun. Then, he joined the rear of their force as they returned to the redoubt, and slipped into the courtyard, just another zombie follower.

Inside the fortress, the deathknight issued an order to the empty air, telling it that the lurker had escaped, and asking his invisible audience to remain vigilant. Then he addressed a mortal repair crew, telling them that time and materials were both in short supply, and commanding them to cannibalize one of the siege cannons to repair the other. Finally, he returned to the keep, and Shepherd slipped inside, still posing as a zombie. The deathknight left the zombies to guard the iron portal to the keep, and disappeared along a corridor, accompanied only by his human and ghostly troops.

Shepherd waited for a time, and then sought passage to the lower floors of the redoubt. After a while, he found a stairwell down to the dungeon, and within it he saw that every cell was occupied. One held Ky Aria, manacled in upright position, with great iron hooks piercing his outstretched wings, and his head bowed in deep sleep. Bruised and bloody, but seemingly alive. In another cell, Shepherd discovered Nilandrela, Isulgath's queen, also bound in iron manacles. At that moment, a gong in the dungeon's main chamber sounded, and Shepherd glancing at it realized that it had been rung by some invisible, presumably ghostly hand. Shepherd made a hasty decision. He could free Ky, but then he would have to carry him out. Instead, he freed the Fair Folk queen, hoping to cause a disruption in the Skullstone fortress, that he might turn to his advantage.

The queen offered to help him escape, and she wrapped him in an illusion of death which perfectly complemented his Night Caste stealth. As they left the Manse, clambering down a rope along its walls, the sun set more swiftly than seems natural. The two of them escaped, two errant corpses disappearing into the descending night, even as the redoubt swarmed with troops searching for the source of the alarm.

At the edge of the shadowland, Shepherd bridged its borders with a ritual of blood, and the two of them crossed into Creation again. After a discussion about the plight of her people, Nilandrela determined to depart for the east of the island, to search for Admiral Driftcorpse, but not before she revealed that King Isulgath was no longer himself. Shepherd slipped into the night, looking for a place to finally rest for a while.

Meanwhile, Togire had spent his day preparing for the impending battles against Skullstone's forces. Attended by a bodyguard of Rust Princes, he dared a Wyld region of the rugged hills, and began to shape it to his needs. For ten hours, he turned his will and Essence against the forces of chaos. First he tamed the land, and then he bound its dusty winds into the slender bodies of 200 more people of the air, already impressed with the skills of warcraft. He received reports that Telvida had returned, but that neither Shepherd nor Ky Aria were to be seen. Telvida said she had left Shepherd about a mile from the redoubt earlier in the day, and that he planned to try to sneak into its walls to see if Ky Aria was imprisoned there. Togire felt another pang of fear, and silently prayed to the Unconquered Sun that Shepherd and Ky would not both be lost to the enemy.

Togire felt alone. Sheevawn lay nearly dead, although she was recovering. His love Oscina was somewhere in the night, and he had not heard from her for hours. He regretted that when she last messaged him, he was too busy shaping the Wyld, and had not responded to her. Shepherd was yet to return, and Ky had been missing for an entire day. Lord Breakwater had retreated to his ships a bit too hastily. True that Togire had asked him to be on the lookout for the missing Skullstone fleet, but Breakwater had also expressed dismay over Togire's plan to create more soulless warriors to carry out their conflict. Conversely, the commander of the allied troops lent by Lord Spurok was entirely too happy to have shock troops to shield his men from the real dangers of the war. He lay down in the Rust Prince camp, in the broken courtyard of Isulgath's ruined palace, the wool blanket scarce comfort against the cold night air, but of little consequence compared to the weight of so many lives upon his shoulders.

A dark brown bird with silver runes upon its body descended from the moonlight sky. Oscina, also sent out by Togire to find Ky, found Shepherd. The two traveled south until they felt reasonably safe from the patrols of the Skullstone forces. Hidden in a jagged ravine in the hills that lead from the necropolis to the redoubt, Oscina watched over Shepherd as he took a well deserved nap, and then she woke him at dawn. Shepherd arose, wearily, having gained but little sleep over the past two nights.

As Togire shared a depressingly cold breakfast with the Rust Princes before spending another long day shaping the Wyld, he was delighted to hear Oscina's voice upon the wind. She sang out to him, in the style of the Silver Nightingale, and told him of Ky's capture by the dark knight's forces, and of the release of the Fair Folk's deathly queen.