Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 57
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 Aug 4th 2009
Finally, one of the longest weeks of my life is over! We managed to keep Hod away from the competition and kept him safe from Crom Cruach’s minions, though things got pretty hairy there at the end. Now I’m safely back home with my baby girl in my lap as I type this. She’s pretty excited that her mommy is home, so she’s not making it easy to type. ^_^
So, first off, we had to wait for Chiron to show up so we could ask him to release the seals keeping the sphinx (her name was Calia) locked in the museum. While we were waiting, I caught up with people at home. First I contacted Miko—I can’t quite summon her yet, but I can talk to her from anywhere in the world, which is nice. All was well on Red Mountain and Rose was doing well. It warmed my heart to see Miko and Rose after almost of week of being apart. Sure, I’ve called every day, but being able to actually see them with the powers of Tsukumo-gami was nice.
Then I contacted my other daughter, Oiwa. See, we knew that to kill Fish Eye permanently a mother and daughter had to reconcile while he was present, and we decided that it would be safer for all involved if I could reconcile with my mother (instead of dragging Claire and Alice into it). So in addition to checking on Oiwa and seeing how she was doing, I wanted to test the waters of my mom’s emotional state and see if I couldn’t get in touch with her.
Mother, it turns out, was in Chicago meeting with Miki and talking about Miki’s work. That worked out great for us. There was only one bit of truly tainted ground in Chicago: the industrial park where we killed Bloody Mary so long ago. And it’s Adam’s home turf. But the real cincher (for me at least) is that my mother is always much more mellow and sentimental when she goes to see Miki. I don’t know exactly why (though now I have an idea), but she’s not the stern, cold queen of the dead that she is with me or Miyako. She’s a melancholy, caring, attractive woman who appears to be in her late 40’s. In other words, her current mood would likely be very conducive to mending the rift between us. ^_^
Eventually, Chiron showed up and we convinced him to release the wards. He also asked if we had the capacity to cure his poison…but sadly neither I nor Pierre are powerful enough to do so yet. Adam, however, later mentioned something about the serpent venom we’d collected in Duat. Could we fashion a suitably potent antidote from that? Adam’s on it, so we’ll know soon enough.
Once the wards were down, we wasted little time getting the sphinx onto the plane (she took up a lot of room >_<) and flying to Chicago by way of Antarctica (to drop the sphinx off, of course). The drop off went smoothly enough, and Ray worked hard to help the sphinx see the benefits of mending her ways and joining the gods against the titans. I really like the new side of Ray we’ve been seeing lately, the side that seems more interested in redemption than destruction. ^_^
There was one odd bit over Antarctica when Adam and Elisa got a weird look on their faces like they’d just suffered a bought of nausea. They say they felt a deep, dark presence in Antarctica, something so potent that it roused their primal instincts to flee the region immediately. We were near the Moutains of Erebus at the time…so does that mean the dark feeling associated with Suko-no-Kumi? Somehow I don’t think so. Wouldn’t I have sensed something through my taint if that were the case? I don’t know. But something’s going on there. I couldn’t help but recall my beloved Lovecraft and wonder if “At the Mountains of Madness” didn’t harbor a grain of truth after all.
Anyway, shortly after dropping off the sphinx, there was a knock on the jet’s passenger door. While we were in flight. Wonderful. >_<
Fortunately, it was only Hypnos and Thanatos. In light of Tisiphone’s failure to track us down, they’d been sent. And Synn hadn’t been told, so we didn’t know they were coming. Still, they’re friends of ours, so we invited them in the hang out and chat. We stalled and misdirected…I never actually lied to them about Hod, but I certainly chose my words carefully to suggest that we didn’t have anything to do with him. But eventually our involvement with Hod came out when the two gods made it clear they knew he was aboard.
You know, ya gotta love Hypnos and Thanatos. They don’t really seem to take much of anything seriously (see, there are other gods aside from me and Persephone and Pierre and Feng Yi who aren’t all doom and gloom where death is concerned ^_^). After we explained our situation (and I turned up the charm a bit ^_^) they were perfectly understanding and agreed not to report us. In fact, they lounged around with us for the rest of the flight.
After we arrived in Chicago, Elisa, Pierre, and I went to see Miki and catch up with my mother while the others went to see Nolrim, our dwarf friend, to get some reinforced iron weapons with which we could fight Nuckalavee. That took all night, and the next morning we took Hod, Merlin, and Tanith to the tainted industrial park to bait the trap. It was a dangerous gamble since we knew Nuckalavee and Fish Eye would probably show up with an army of followers…but it was a gamble we had to take if we had any chance of slaying Fish Eye for good.
In the end, it didn’t matter. We weren’t able to send either of Crom Cruach’s henchmen to their final deaths. >_< Fate just didn’t work with us this (Adam must be falling down on the job ^_^). Elisa and I did meet with Miki, and I was eventually able to get in touch with my mother, but not until after we’d put an end to Crom Cruach’s hunt…for the time being, anyway. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing Fish Eye and Nuckalavee again. If fact, I hope we do. We have to finish what we started, right?
I should also mention at this point that Synn texted Adam with the name of our final godly pursuer while we were making our preparations. Beowulf. That made us sweat. He wasn’t likely to be the sort we could talk down like the others…we just hoped we could stall long enough that it wouldn’t be an issue.
Anyway, I enjoyed seeing my half-sister Miki again. Her work remains very intense. She’s apparently made some progress in understanding the nature of specters’ hive minds and has been experimenting with accessing the parts of their minds that make them what they are (instead of normal ghosts). Izanami is quite curious about her work. In particular, mother is interested in the potential to make the specters that invade Yomi into docile spirits, rendering them more-or-less harmless and helping to prevent the spread of their curse to wholesome ghosts. Say what you will about my mother, she really does take the protection of her subjects very seriously. I hope I can live up to her example in that regard some day.
Oh, and I should mention that Elisa was quite fascinated with Miki’s work. One thing I can always rely on from Elisa: she’s not put off by blood and gore or the idea of getting one’s hands dirty to do what has to be done. ^_^
Anyway, Miki said mom would be coming by again around noon the following day, so I asked her to call me when Izanami arrived. But as I said, things hit the fan before I got a chance to speak to mom. Saturday morning, while Ray’s cartoon was airing on network TV, the minion’s of Crom Cruach assaulted the tainted industrial park in force. This was their last, desperate attempt to kill Hod before he returned to the Overworld, and it was an epic battle.
An earthquake heralded the arrival of the titan’s spawn. A gaping pit opened in the decaying urban ground and a massive arm clawed its way out. Around it swarmed formorians, fachan, and demon trees, with Fish Eye and Nuckalavee in command of the motley assortment of monsters. To make matters worse, time-hounds began warping in to support their allies.
We all invoked our divine might. T-Bone disappeared. Adam began using magic, Pierre made himself even more invulnerable than usual, and Elisa got that psychotic glint in her eye that she gets when she’s preparing for a fight. Tanith stuck close to me while I bolstered my allies’ ability to withstand damage, and when all was ready, Ray split into eight copies of himself again (and we needed every one).
But what I think surprised us all was when Merlin transformed into a raging black boar spewing verdant green mist from its maw. All this time, Merlin was really Dagda’s Pig! Wow! O_O He indicated that he could protect those of us who were daring enough to ride into battle astride his back, so Adam and Elisa helped Hod onto the boar before they too mounted and rode into combat. Together with Merlin, the three of them were like a tank, virtually immune to our foes’ attacks and empowered with the fury of the Tuatha so that their every blow tore through titanspawn flesh like swords through soggy paper. And on top of that, he blessed us all with the luck of the Irish or something. Whatever he did caused our innermost virtues to soar during the fight, pushing us beyond our normal limits.
I could barely keep track of the chaos of battle as multiple Rays sliced monsters to ribbons and Merlin charged to and fro through the melee. Pierre laughed mightily as he tore enemies limb from limb, and T-Bone was a blur of motion and shadow as he distracted our opponents and kept them off balance, all the while using his powers of illusion to make himself look like Hod and to make Hod look like him (and I gotta tell ya, hearing Hod mockingly lament how he was still awaiting a phone call from Brigid—which T-Bone goes on about every time we’re in Ireland—was absolutely hilarious ^_^).
Elisa opened the fight with a shot from a LAW rocket (a present from Nolrim, apparently ^_^), which put a big dent into the enemy. Adam supported us with magic but took a bad hit from Nuckalavee early on in the fight, so I phoned him a pic of me in a sexy candystriper costume to heal him ♥ ^_^ ♥. Then I used my Cradlesong to lull the time-hounds and most of the giants into sleep, but they were replaced my more foes. They just kept pouring through the pit in the ground! >_< It was really depressing. T_T I mean, there was this endless river of titanspawn coming with no end in sight. And then Fish Eye, that bastard, slammed the ground with his staff and sent everyone around him (including me) flying with the power of the shockwave. Gods that hurt. But Tanith was worse off than me (she’d be dead if I hadn’t bolstered her). I quickly healed myself and then turned to help her, but by the time I could do so Merlin dashed in and picked her up gently in his mouth to protect her just in time to save her from another shockwave. I took that one pretty hard too, and while I was still reeling, Merlin tossed Tanith to one of the Rays, who swooped down to rescue me as well. He kept us both safe for the rest of the fight. He’s always there for me ^_^.
I gotta tell ya, I’m getting beat up in these fights far more often than I’d like T_T. Not being able to bolster myself sucks. >_<. But there’s just no way I can keep up with my allies’ combat prowess. My talents lie elsewhere. ^_^ ♥
Just when I thought it would never end, Beowulf arrived in a clap of thunder and the impact of his mighty spear. He swept away the remaining titanspawn and Hod sealed the pit with ice (power over frost is pretty handy). Then Beowulf turned to us to ask what we thought we were doing with Hod.
Honestly, none of us wanted to try and pull the wool over Beowulf’s eyes. Even T-Bone. He was that scary. So we came clean, and it turns out he was cool with it. In fact, he’d been monitoring the whole thing from the beginning, and only showed up when he did because he feared our foe really might overwhelm us. All in all, Beowulf ended up being a great guy. It was a pleasure to meet him.
So, all ended well. Hod never made it to the competition and we kept him safe from Crom Cruach. Safeguarding the life of god against the armies of a titan isn’t easy, but legends of our triumph are already circulating among the gods, and I think we all felt that rush of divine vigor as our very divinity surged in response. We’re now on the very threshold of godhood, and I can already taste it. I’m that much closer to being strong enough to manipulate Erebus into defeating Mikaboshi…
Adam’s contact, Synn, also rewarded us with several relics. Echo requested something that would allow her to help me conceive a child, when I’m ready to become pregnant. Given that both she and I are women and her immortal nature prevents her from taken a man’s form as I can, I can’t normally conceive from her. But she knows how much I eventually want to experience the joy of true motherhood. So Synn bequethed upon us a delicate silver navel piercing. If Echo wears it and I use the blessings of health upon her, then I can conceive from her when we make love. I’m not ready have another child yet. Rose is enough for us now. ^_^ But I’m excited that I now have the potential to bear Echo’s child. Just the fact of the matter makes me feel more like a mother. ^_^
With our work done, we all headed home again. But before I left Chicago, I went to meet my mother. Even if our reconciliation wouldn’t let us destroy Fish Eye for good, I sincerely wanted to be in my mother’s good graces again. She’s my mother, after all, and I do love her. So I arranged a meeting at Miki’s hospital.
Mother bore her sentimental, melancholy countenance, and she seemed genuinely pleased to see me. We talked a long time, and she opened up to me like she’s never done before. She admitted that she was deeply hurt when I had taken Miko from her. I apologized, but also defended my actions. Miko was not really hers to possess, after all. And I asked her if she would still respect and love me as she did if I wasn’t the sort of self-determined person I am. Would she cherish me if I didn’t do what I felt I must, regardless of the consequences? She told me that she did treasure that side of me, and so she couldn’t truly despise me for stealing Miko.
Then she told me something that nearly broke my heart. She does love me dearly, but my presence brings her as much pain and bitterness as it does joy, for I remind her too much of who and what she once was and all that she has lost. I tried to encourage her, to convince her that she could still be who she was if she would only let herself rediscover her inner spark, and that’s when she revealed to me a secret. A secret that filled me with intense hope for her.
Her inner fire, that divine portion of her which once gave her such vibrant life, is no longer within her. When Izanami died giving birth to the fire kami Kagatsuchi (you know, the bastard who tried to burn me to death awhile back and was only thwarted by Raiden’s timely intervention), he stole her inner fire. That, more than anything, is what killed her. Hell, it’s probably the only thing that gave him life.
Were Kagatsuchi contrite about it, I might be forgiving. If he actually gave a damn about the other Amatsukami instead of siding with our enemies, I might feel that my mother’s passing and the loss of her inner fire was a natural, if regrettable thing. Life always springs from death, after all. But Kagatsuchi is a blight on the world, and a blight upon my mother’s grave. I will reclaim her inner fire from him, no matter what it takes. And I will return that inner fire to her. I know she may never again be what she was before her death. But if her inner fire can restore even a glimmer of the hope and light she once had, I will gladly sacrifice almost anything to see it returned to her. I may not be able to do it now, but soon…soon Kagatsuchi will pay for taking a piece of my mother’s soul.