Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 52
This account was originally found on Livejournal, I am not the original author—I am just a fan of the journal and have found reading it on livejournal clunky to navigate and rife with errors/instability (such as having to refresh multiple times due to the page in questions becoming unavailable often requiring multiple refreshes. The original post can be found here, published by DJ-Yomi, and was published on May 31st 2009
The day’s not even over yet and it’s been eventful. Par for the course, really, given the way things usually work when we’re on a “mission.” But this time, at least, most of the day was fun. I mean, it’s not every day that you get to take a god out shopping! If it weren’t for the time-warping hell hounds and the formorians, the day so far would have been perfect. ^_^
So, we all gathered in the morning to discuss our plans for the day, which mostly revolved around waiting for Hod to show up. I re-introduced Ophelia to the others, explaining what had happened and why I turned her into a shikome. They weren’t exactly pleased…but no one raised a big fuss about it or anything. Ophelia was chipper as usual and began fawning over the others, messing with their hair and trying to apply a touch of extra make-up to those who would let her. Most didn’t, and Ray drove her away with a withering glare and a tense, “Don’t touch me.” Poor Ophelia. Pierre let her do as she would, though, and by the time she was done he had not only his typical skull-face painted on, but an adorable image of a skull-faced girl with a heart-filled word balloon painted with immaculate care on his bulging bicep. ^_^
Anyway, most of us waited for Hod in or around the hotel. Adam, Pierre, T-Bone, and I lingered in the lobby. At least, I think T-Bone was there, but it was hard to tell because he was making himself as unobtrusive as possible, which means I had no idea where he was. Elisa decided to patrol the grounds outside the hotel. Ray, who tends to be a little impatient anyway, didn’t want to just wait around, so after warding the hotel door with an alarm that would warn him of Hod’s arrival, he went out looking for signs of enemy activity, and it’s a damn good thing he did. He managed to stumble across signs of Crom Cruach’s activity, which ultimately gave us the info we needed for a preemptive strike. More on that later.
Shortly before Hod arrived, T-Bone sensed more of the dog-beasts coming. They warped in from the corners of the room and began prowling around, no doubt looking for Hod. We immediately leapt into action. Pierre, Adam, and T-Bone moved to fight the dogs while I made myself the center of attention for the mortals in the lobby and directed them to exit the hotel (and the battle zone). It didn’t take me long to get them out the front doors, and by that time Elisa was on her way in and Ray had arrived. I was carrying Merlin, who helped keep the dogs away from the hotel’s guests while I evacuated them, and just to be sure, Ray threw up an Unseen Shield until they were safely clear.
About the same time, a frumpy blind man wandered onto the scene and was a bit befuddled as to what was going on. Yep, it was Hod, the god we were waiting for. I quickly explained that we were trying to clear the hotel of beasts sent to kill him and asked him to wait outside with me (near Merlin) while my friends finished off the dogs.
Once the coast was clear (and I’d healed Elisa, who was hurt in the fight), we took Hod inside and explained to him exactly what was happening: not only had we been asked to keep him away from the competition on Cyprus, but servants of Crom Cruach we after him. He caught on pretty quickly and confirmed Adam’s guess that he was, in fact, that prophet that had called down doom and destruction on Iram of the Great Pillars and that Crom Cruach was that city’s dark earth god.
Hod himself was nice enough. Very bitter, though. He couldn’t resist making wry comments about the way his pantheon treated him because of his prophesied role in Ragnarok. I suppose some people might have found that fixation a bit annoying—he can only go on about how he’s a “kinslayer” for so long before it get a bit old. But there was a subtle touch of dry humor underlying most of his comments. In a way, I actually found it a bit charming. Then again, I am a member of the goth crowd, and while I’m certainly perky enough, I’ve hung out with a lot of mopey goths in the past. Compared to some of them, Hod was positively sunny.
Anyway, Hod agreed to work with us. He did comment that Baldur would be upset, but there was definitely a bitter edge to his voice when said that “Baldur always gets his way.” Honestly, I think Hod wants to piss off his brother. Spiteful? Yeah. But he’s earned it. ^_^
There was one catch, however. We’d originally planned for the others to abscond with Hod while I stayed behind to greet Demeter and Persephone and talk them into helping cover for us while we kept Hod safe. But Hod insisted on meeting with Demeter personally. As deities of winter (among other things), they’re in charge of preparing for the long, dark winter of fate, and they needed to discuss those preparations. That’s a little scary. Does that mean a time of darkness is upon us? Is that what we’re trying to forestall by fighting the titans, or is it going to happen anyway? The fact that the situation is serious enough for Hod and Demeter to actively begin preparing for it is not comforting…I’ll have to ask Hod more about it.
So we had to kill some time again, this time waiting until Demeter and Persephone arrived later in the evening. They’ll be arriving only about forty-five minutes after Echo’s flight gets in. I’m sending Dahlia to pick her up, and hopefully she’ll be with us when Demeter and Persephone get here.
I volunteered for the job of entertaining Hod while we waited. It seemed like fun to me, and he needed to loosen up a little. Adam, T-Bone, Tanith, Tabby, Dahlia and Merlin (of course) came with me (Sera and Ophelia stayed behind at the hotel), but Adam and T-Bone left us for awhile to acquire some seismographic equipment that we hope will help us detect the presence of Crom Cruach’s burrowing titanspawn, like those horrible maggot-things that we fought in Ireland or one of the giant worms that attacked Surtr’s oil rigs (oops, jumping the gun a bit. ^_^ More on the oil rigs below). Merlin got some worried looks from mortals in the shops and plazas we visited (swine flu paranoia and all), but a winning smile and a couple of well placed words was all it took for me to defuse any anxiety we encountered.
I took Hod out shopping. His appearance was a bit shabby, after all, so I totally GQed him up. By the time we were done, he was strutting the streets in style, sporting a crisp Italian suit, a slick new hairdo, and even a nice new satin blindfold to replace the old one he had. I really made an effort to encourage and compliment him, hoping to build up his spirits a bit. He remained grim, but he definitely lightened up as the day went on, especially when I was around. ^_^
You know, it just occurred to me…Kimiyo’s observation about how similar Ophelia and I are really was spot on… =^_^=
I also treated Tanith to a healthy does of encouragement. She got a makeover too. When she really dresses up, she looks stunning! ^_^ She tried not to let on, but I think she really enjoyed herself. And by the time we were done, she had several nice new outfits for a variety of occasions. You know, casual, formal, clubbing, etc. I think she was a little overwhelmed. ^_^
While Adam, T-Bone, and I were looking after Hod, Ray, Elisa, and Pierre followed up on leads Ray stumbled across earlier in the day. See, while we were waiting for Hod at the hotel, Ray happened across some giants, many of whom were injured, who were leaving a freighter in the harbor. Giants are usually bad, so Ray confronted them to find out what was going on. Apparently the giants were pretty shellshocked. They’d been working on oil drilling platforms in the ocean some distance away, but their rig had been attacked by a massive worm of some sort (obviously a servant of Crom Cruach, if not the big guy himself). It destroyed the rig and killed most of their comrades. The survivors were heading to the hospital for medical treatment.
Ray let them go at the time—the dogs showed up at the hotel and his danger sense told him we needed him. But while I was out with Hod, Ray, Elisa and Pierre went to the hotel to track down the giants and get more information from them. It turns out they were working for the titan Surtr, and the oil rigs they were working were actually drilling into Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent, in an attempt to wake him up. >_< Good lord, this Ragnarok thing is really trying to happen, isn’t it? >_< Apparently the contractor they worked through to build and operate the rigs was a company called Hurrlson. I’ll have to get Sera or Keiko to look into that.
Ray made the giants swear an oath that, hopefully, will lead them to serve Utgard Loki (the lesser of two evils, really) or help redeem them outright. They were awfully shaken-up by their encounter with Crom Cruach’s worm and were in a good frame of mind for redemption. Of course, being scared to death of Ray, Elisa, and Pierre helped a lot too.
The giants did mention that a group of formorians had arrived in the harbor. The giants didn’t know anything else about them, but it was definitely worth checking out, so after leaving the hospital, Ray and the others investigated. Sure enough, there were formorians on a ship in the harbor near the 101 Hotel. They looked like they were keeping an eye on the hotel, probably waiting to jump Hod when he arrived. Their leader was a huge formorian wizard named Fish Eye. Tanith knew of him. She said that he was invulnerable to any weapon that pierced his skin – only bludgeoning weapons would hurt him. And he couldn’t be killed normally—if “killed,” he’d just dissolve into a pool of water and evaporate only to be reborn in a few days. There’s definitely a way to kill him permanently (there always is), but we have no way of knowing what that is, short of Adam reading the mysteries of fate, which he was unwilling to do this early in the game. I suppose we could track down the info in Ireland, but I don’t even know where to start on that. Maybe Adam or Tanith does.
We snuck Hod into the 101 Hotel and Ray warded his rooms. We left Merlin there to help protect him too, along with Chase, Tabby, Sera, Dahlia, Tanith, and Ophelia. If something did come for Hod, at the very least they’d be able to slow it down long enough for Ray to get there to help, and Chase had orders to fly away with Hod if things got too bad, but fortunately things remained all quiet on that front.
Hod also helped us prepare for the fight by granting us protection against Fish Eye’s frost powers and by equipping Ray with a tetsubo of ice (Ray’s swords wouldn’t hurt Fish Eye thanks to Fish Eye’s unique invulnerability). During the fight, Ray lit the tetsubo on fire. That was a pretty interesting site – a flaming ice weapon.
Then we went to confront the formorians. I bolstered everyone, and Adam, T-Bone and Elisa crept in under the cover of stealth to ambush the giants once Ray, Pierre and I distracted them by openly and brazenly confronting them. It worked like a dream. Ray challenged Fish Eye and I drew the attention of Fish Eye’s henchmen, enchanting them and keeping them out of the fight until we’d defeated Fish Eye. Fish Eye had some tricks, though. He reacted as quickly as Ray and Elisa and used infection magic on us, but we were able to shrug it off without too much trouble. After that, Elisa, Adam, and Ray “killed” Fish Eye pretty handily (he’ll be back though >_<).
The bad guys had a surprise for us too, though. As we attacked Fish Eye, two of the trees along the street that bordered the harbor twisted and shifted into monstrous masses of gnarled branches. The titanspawned monster trees ambushed us, and seemed to focus their attention on me since I was keeping their formorian allies at bay. I thought I was doomed when I saw their lashing branches coming at me faster than I could react. But I was tough enough to take what they could dish out. Sure, I got knocked off my feet, but was otherwise barely hurt. I expected a lot worse…
Despite that nasty surprise, we were able to finish off the rest of the titanspawn pretty handily. Elisa used her Aztec club relic to dish out some ugly wounds, T-Bone ran interference as usual, Pierre soaked up some withering hits, and Adam spent much of the fight helping the rest of us with his magic. Once we’d killed the demon trees and the formorians had broken free of my enchantment, I did something I haven’t done in a long time: I used Amaterasu’s Heavenly Flare to stun them long enough for the others to clean up. There was a time when giants were pretty much immune to that power, given how tough they are. Looks like my divine beauty is just too much for them now. ^___^
With our foes defeated, we returned to the hotel to check on Hod and await the arrival of Demeter and Persephone (and Echo! ^_^).