Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 78
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 Jun 10th 2010
Well, things are a bit tense within our group right now, largely thanks to the fact that I finally shared with the others my plans regarding Erebus and Mikaboshi (you know, the whole “manipulating one titan to overthrow another” thing). They were understandably upset. I don’t think they were angry, per se. But they were unhappy at the risks I plan to take, and worried about what using Erebus could mean. Everyone understands that it’s a gamble that could claim my very soul.
They’re all kinda cold right now. I get the impression that Pierre’s falling back on his old stone-cold killer ways and preparing himself for the possibility that he might have to kill me if I end up terribly corrupted. Elisa seems worried about me and isn’t comfortable with the abstract dangers that manipulating Erebus entails. She’s a lot more straightforward about things, and I don’t think she really understands how we can even fight a battle like this, much less emerge victorious.
T-Bone, on the other hand, understands completely, but that doesn’t mean he approves. I explained to him the madness-inducing possibilities involved in dealing with Erebus, and he promised to do what he can to support me. He IS becoming a god of madness, after all. When I tried to kiss him on the cheek to show my thanks, he said very coldly, “Don’t do that.” He’s never been so icy toward me before. T_T I didn’t know how to take it. I practically expected T-Bone to be in favor of something as daring as manipulating Erebus into helping us defeat Mikaboshi from within, so at first I was worried that he was just mad I hadn’t told him about my plans sooner. But now I think there was something else going on behind his dark eyes. I just wish I knew what it was, but T-Bone’s so good at hiding what’s really going on in his head…
Adam, with whom I’ve been discussing my plans since the beginning, backed me all the way, though. He’s so awesome. He believes it can and will work. He even wrote it into his book of fate. ^_^
Anyway, I thought I’d leave everyone to their thoughts for the time being and work on my journal. Right now, we’re on the edge of Red Mountain. The whole place has been enveloped in a thick dark fog as Soku-no-Kumi takes over. Even my ability to see in the dark and through obscurement is no good. It would have been impossible to find our way to the place if our friends trapped on the inside hadn’t left us a trail to follow. I guess Charles might have been able to guide us in using his psychopomp powers, but I still have no idea where he is! T_T
But I guess I’m getting way ahead of myself. I should probably relate how we calmed things down in Chicago first.
After dealing with Jigsaw X, we had to pinpoint where the disruptive signal was coming from. The kami were still going berserk, after all. Of course, I was still freaking out over Echo, and insisted that we purify her to keep Mikaboshi’s influence away as long as possible. But T-Bone reminded me that a whole city was at stake. As painful as it might be to wait, we could help Echo later, AFTER we’d saved Chicago. He was right, and I’m glad he helped me come back to my senses. It broke my heart to leave Echo in the throes of Mikaboshi’s power though. T_T
We retreated back to Adam’s house. On the way, I sensed Tabby urging me to come to her. It was the first time I’d felt something like that since Miko was purified, but it was definitely the sensation of a master shikome calling her servants. I mentioned to the others that I felt Tabby calling, but by the time we arrived, it looked like the girls had things well in hand. A number of cars has attacked Adam’s house, but Tabby, Mercy, Ophelia, and Sadako had taken care of most of them and things were pretty safe by the time we got there. My girls rock. ^_^
I had the shikome take care of Echo. She had become almost totally uninhibited and couldn’t control her urges, so Tabby made sure she didn’t get into any trouble while we were tracking down and eliminating the signal. Meanwhile, Adam had his work cut out for him trying to get his computer to cooperate with him, given that it was under the signal’s influence too. In order to take my mind off Echo, I offered to help by trying to talk to and soothe the kami. It didn’t exactly work that way, but in the process I discovered that I could confuse the kami into cooperating with Adam, as strange as that sounds. It made his work a lot easier, and in no time he found two sites from which the signal might originate.
Video feeds from the sites showed that one had been pretty much cleaned out by someone wielding a sword. Could it have been Ray! I bet it was! He wouldn’t leave Chicago in danger like that if he could help it! Sadly, we didn’t see him. T_T
The other site looked like it was our target, and didn’t appear to be defended by much more than cyberdemons and a few big robots. It was a high tech chemical waste treatment facility. Without wasting any more time, we rushed to the site and approached carefully on foot. Several Daitokuji walkers and HDRs were positioned outside under the cloak of some sort of holographic projector, so the place looked undefended, but that didn’t fool sharp-eyed Elisa or Adam.
I gotta admit, I was pretty pissed off. For one thing, Echo was in bad shape, and I was (and still am) worried about my wife. And I was frustrated because I couldn’t purify her or get back to Red Mountain to find Oiwa until all this Daitokuji crap in Chicago had been dealt with. To make matters worse, I had to hide for most of our last fight against the robots.
But this time, I had a plan. If what I did to Adam’s computer to help him could be applied to hurt the robots, I could confuse the kami that were partially animating them, effectively shutting them down. And it worked like a charm. I used a brief ritual and a paper charm to disorient one of the walkers’ kami, rendering it effectively powerless. The results in this case were a lot like what happens when T-Bone sabotages things or Adam invokes gremlins. Score one for Erika!
While I took out one of the walkers, Adam and Elisa shot down another and T-Bone sabotaged a third. The HDRs didn’t last much longer, and with the robots out of the way, entrance into the facility was clear.
Fighting our way in was tricky. The cyberdemons had just enough time to set up defenses, and as we descended into the spacious concrete basements of the facility, we had to maneuver through (or around) several halls filled with burning chemical waste potent enough to be dangerous even to demigods. And the cyberdemons were ready for us when we forced our way into choke points, ambushing us with vibroblades and exploding barrels. But eventually we found our way into a control room in which the only things left to defend the signal emitter were a few cyberdemons, a couple of HKRs, and some of the newer model bodyguard robots (BGRs), which are pretty damn tough! >_<
While T-Bone and I took out the robots, the others fought the cyberdemons, and we emerged from the fight a little beat up, but not badly. The cyberdemon who was in charge had some tricks, but nothing we couldn’t handle. ^_^ And while we were all fighting the enemies, Pierre did us the honor of destroying the signal emitter by tearing if from the surrounding machinery and throwing it with colossal force at one of the cyberdemons.
After we were done (and Elisa collected some cyberdemon hearts to sacrifice later), we didn’t waste any time getting back to Adam’s place to pick up Echo and my shikome. Then it was off to the Valkyrie to fly to Red Mountain. En route, Miko performed the ritual to purify Echo while I waited anxiously to see if she’d be all right. Adam proved that he too was worried about Echo by channeling fate into the ritual to help Miko. I didn’t say anything at the time since I was so anxious, but it really meant a lot to me. Still, it really hurt that I couldn’t do the ritual myself, but in this case my ideological disagreements with my pantheon and the fact that I’m already tainted made me ill suited to the task. Still, as soon as the ritual was done and Echo had vomited up the inky black corruption, I held her and didn’t let go until we arrived just outside of Red Mountain.
Oh, I should also mention that when Echo was more lucid again, she told me that the burning sensation in her belly from the fires raging beneath Red Mountain has been steadily diminishing. If so, then that means the fires are being extinguished. Maybe something good will come of this after all.
We left Echo and Miko in the care of the shikome on the Valkyrie and headed onto Red Mountain on foot. We even passed by the truck stop where Elisa got the truck she used to literally crash Oiwa and Grundy’s wedding so long ago when we first came here. I’ve passed by the place plenty of times since then, but somehow this time it really brought back the memories.
It was about 2:00 a.m. at this point, but the darkness wasn’t an issue for most of us. The fog from Soku-no-Kumi WAS an issue, though, and it didn’t take long for us to realize that it would be impossible to find our way onto Red Mountain without a psychopomp. It was already that far gone…
But that’s when Adam and Elisa noticed a trail of candy leading into the fog. It seemed so incongruous that we couldn’t just ignore it, and we couldn’t deny that it seemed like a godsend. If it had been left by our friends (Yuko, Tanith, or Pierre’s daughters) who were trapped on Red Mountain, then at the very least it would help reunite us. However, Adam was unwilling to take it on faith, so he consulted the mysteries again, and asked who had left the trail, where it was leading, and where Tanith and Yuko were.
It turns out the trail was left by Uirii Wonka, the nuri-botoke that I encountered with Storm’s group in Japan. He’s connected to a candy factory and was handing out candy to trouble-causing youkai kids (hitotsume-kozou) when I met him. Since he looks like a Buddha-corpse with its eyes popped out and hanging down its face, he’s not much to look at, but he really wasn’t a bad guy. And apparently he’s been dating Yuko. ^_^ It’s so sweet. Anyway, Uirii, Yuko, Tanith, and the others were holed up in a place on the edge of the area that was being devoured by Soku-no-Kumi, where they were safe for the time being, and the candy trail led there.
Before going in, though, I made Adam call and apologize to Keiko for being such a jerk to her for all these years ever since she frightened him the first time they met, when she was on Red Mountain investigating things for me before I even arrived. He’s held a grudge about that for a long time even though Keiko’s apologized on numerous occasions and has always been very nice and kind to him. Adam’s a great guy, and all, but he can be a bit of a stubborn jerk at times. ^_^. Anyway, he called and said he was sorry, but he did it in such a way that it almost sounded more insulting than sincere, so I called Keiko to apologize for him and…
You know, I don’t even remember how all of that came up. I guess facing danger on Red Mountain again just brought back memories of how we all met there. There was something incredibly nostalgic about it, and I just wanted Adam to apologize in case we don’t make it out of this alive. Looking back on it, it seems really obsessive and random for me to get stuck on it like that. But I’ve been so anxious about Echo and Red Mountain and Oiwa that I think I just really needed something normal to fixate on. >_< And believe it or not, my memories of when we all met on Red Mountain are some of my fondest memories.
I guess that’s one reason I hope Solomon Grundy is on our side this time. I mean, I know he was the bad guy back then, but after all this time has passed, and since he was a big part of what brought us all together, he almost seems like a part of the family now.
Anyway, once Adam and I finished calling Keiko,we proceeded into the fog, following the trail of candy. I was still pretty upset, so it really meant a lot when Adam took a moment to assure us that things would be all right. He even wrote “We got dis.” into his book of fate and illustrated it with a smiley face. ^_^ It made me smile and really boosted my spirits. Adam’s just full of surprises.
It didn’t take us long to find Yuko, Tanith, Uirii Wonka and Pierre’s daughters. They were hidden in Tanith’s small underwater cave in the river that runs down the mountain. That’s where we are now. I’d never been here before, but it’s pretty cozy. ^_^ Once we’d all shared our relief over being reunited, Tanith and Yuko filled us in on what has happened on Red Mountain so far.
Apparently, the corrupting effect emerged from the mines, expanding through the abandoned town and eventually enveloping our homes (Pierre and Elisa’s, Charles’ and mine; the others don’t live on Red Mountain). As that happened, servants of Mikaboshi emerged to scout out our houses and, once they were sure it was relatively safe (i.e. we weren’t home), they broke in and probably ransacked the places looking for whatever they could find. I’m glad I keep the Ama-no-Zaku summoning mask in Echo’s subterranean sanctum. I’d hate to lose it.
According to Tanith and Yuko, our houses are now guarded by zombies and gashadokuro burning with black fire. We briefly discussed liberating our estates, but decided to get to the root of the invasion first and worry about our houses later. So it looks like we’ll be heading straight into the mines.
It was at that point in our planning that my schemes for Erebus came up. Adam cautiously asked me if I thought I could use my connection to Erebus to negotiate some sort of advantage for us, like the ability to see in the impenetrable darkness of Soku-no-Kumi. I thought about it and agreed to give it a shot. After all, I may as well start building some bridges now, especially if it’ll give us an edge. I also decided to seize upon the opportunity to share my plans with the others. It seemed like a good time to do so.
I can’t blame them for being anxious or worried or upset. I just hope they warm up to the idea soon. My connection to Erebus is a great opportunity for us, and I think the risks are worth it.