Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 11
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 Oct 20th. 2007.
It has been a long day. Actually, it’s been more like two days, since I’ve been on-the-go for almost forty-eight hours. This makes the third journal I’ve written in that time. I’m not really tired physically – I have my divine vigor to thank for that – but I’m psychologically exhausted. To be honest, the series of exciting events my friends and I have been through over the past couple of days are only part of the reason I’m so frazzled. Mostly I’m just stressed out about interpersonal issues. First there was the disappointment of losing Adam, and then the confusion and conflict brought on by the shikome powers I got from my mother…but wait, there’s more.
Sigh. Fortunately, Mara’s here with me. She’s giving me an incredible shoulder massage as I write, and it’s really helping to relieve the day’s accumulated tension. It isn’t helping me write, mind you, because it’s kinda making me melt… ^_^ I’m actually working on this entry from our hotel room, not Adam’s apartment. Technically, the group is supposed to be sticking together right now, but I just had to get away from the others for awhile. For good reasons that I’ll get to later, they didn’t want me to be on my own though, so I offered to put T-Bone, Pierre, and Elisa up in rooms in the same hotel so that someone at least would be with me. I thought T-Bone would appreciate some alone time with Dahlia, and, well, I wanted to talk to Pierre about some things. He tends to give good advice. Of course, with all these people I brought back to the hotel with me, it almost feels like I’m not really getting away from anyone right now…but being in the privacy of my own room makes a big difference, trust me.
Where to begin? Well, I guess it comes down to the fact that I’m not sure how I fit into the group. Or at least I wasn’t until I talked to Pierre. Now…now I feel a bit better about it, but I’m still not quite satisfied. I get along fine with Adam. I consider him a good friend, even if things are a little strained between us right now. He’s patient, and unlike some of the others, he’s very understanding. But it’s really annoying to have to worry about Anna bearing down on me with murderous intent just because I look at him the wrong way! I tried so hard to get along with Anna at first, but now, I don’t think we’ll ever get along, not until she puts aside her issues.
I guess Pierre has sort of become a mentor for me. He always has good advice, and unlike most of the others in the group, he understands what I’m going through and how important building up a connection to my mother is. At the same time, he preaches balance, so he’s not encouraging me to turn my back on Amaterasu either. I feel comfortable with Pierre, and I value the wisdom shares with me. My Shinto mentor, Fukuda-san, tends to favor Amaterasu’s views, but Pierre can give me a more objective perspective that’s sensitive to Izanami too.
T-Bone is probably the person I get along with best. We come from vastly different backgrounds, yet we have a lot in common. We’re both musicians, and we both rely more on our charms than on our fighting skills (which in my case are pretty much non-existent) to handle problems. Like Adam, T-Bone tries to be understanding and doesn’t judge others too quickly or harshly.
I’ve tried to connect with Elisa. Aside from Anna, she’s the only other woman in group, so I thought she might be in tune with my perspectives on things. But…it hasn’t really worked out that way even though we have some common interests, like photography. Oh, we’ve become friends, and we get along pretty well, but that’s really as far as it goes. I guess she’s just too…focused to get along with someone like me. She’s not very sympathetic or understanding and is a bit too quick to criticize…and to resort violence. I guess we’re just too different after all.
And then there’s Ray. For some reason, maybe just because we’re both children of the Amatsukami, I’ve always felt close to Ray. Since we met, he’s always been there to protect me, and in many ways, he’s the group’s moral conscience. Sure, he’s a powerhouse in combat, but I think his value to the group lies in the direction and energy he gives us, with his actions if not with his words. So you’d think he and I would get along just fine. But we don’t. He and I rarely see eye to eye about anything, and I get the feeling he’s always keeping me at a distance, which…hurts.
Even so, after talking with Pierre about it, I think I know why we don’t get along. I tend to see things in shades of gray. As far as I’m concerned, there aren’t many absolutes. I guess it comes from the conflicted nature of my divine heritage, or maybe it’s just who I am. Ray’s different. He possesses a nobility of spirit that lets him see things in black and white, good and bad, light and darkness. He judges things quickly and absolutely, and doesn’t waver. That’s what makes him a good moral compass for our group, but it also comes between him and me. I’m not talking about the shikome thing (which, by the way, I’ve decided to put on the back burner for the time being) – his advice on that was good, and I needed it. I’m talking about other, smaller things.
For instance, he was pretty critical of me when I expressed my reservations against Mara hooking up with a new acquaintance of ours (a dai-tengu named Hondo…I’ll get to him later). Sure, Mara and I have an open relationship, and she can sleep with others if she wants to (she is a nymph, after alll). But I don’t see anything wrong with asking her to stay away from certain people if there’s a good reason for it. For instance, I would be uncomfortable with her sleeping with Fukuda-san, simply because he’s like a father figure to me, and having my girlfriend sleeping with someone who’s like my father would just be…awkward. And Hondo…he just seemed like he’d treat her like a sex toy and nothing else. I don’t mind if Mara hooks up with Pierre, or Brand (she’s expressed an interest in both!), but that’s because I know that even if they get together just for casual, fun sex, they’ll at least treat her like a person, not just an object. She’s important to me, and I want her to be treated as she deserves.
Anyway, that’s the way I see it. Ray, though, seemed to feel that an open relationship is an open relationship, and that I had no right to dictate who Mara could and couldn’t see. In a sense, he’s right. But I’m not trying to dominate the relationship…I’m just trying to express my wishes and concerns. I love Mara and want to protect her.
The other angle to all of this is the question of what role I play in the group. I mean, I’ve been following the rest of them to state parks, industrial wastelands, and the homes of dire enemies, but is there really any point in my being there? Let’s face it, I’m all but useless in a fight, and I’m probably placing myself in unnecessary danger. I don’t have the keen detective skills of Adam or Elisa, so I rarely contribute much when we’re investigating a place for clues. My skills lie elsewhere. I’m good at talking to people, not beating them senseless. So I’ve begun to think that I should devote my time and energies elsewhere. Instead of following the others on “combat missions”, maybe I should pursue other angles while they are fighting the bad guys. You know, talking to the right people to get things done or to uncover the right kind of information.
Or at least that’s what I thought until I talked to Pierre. I don’t know what I’d do without his encouragement. He really made me feel better about how I fit into the group, even if my worries haven’t been completely set aside. He showed me how my presence has been really useful to the group on our excursions. I learn valuable information by talking to the kami, I heal people when they’re wounded, and I offer moral support that bolsters my companions spiritually. Pierre even commented on how useful my efforts to coordinate our attacks have been in some fights.
So after talking to Pierre, I feel better about my contributions to the group. I guess they do need me when they’re out in the field, or if not, then at least I’m not completely useless, right? As long as I feel like there’s a point to my tagging along them, I’m satisfied.
I just have to be more careful about staying out of the line of fire…
Okay, sorry about all the drama, but I had to get that out. Now, on to what happened in the latter part of the day. I think I left off after we talked to the other scions in Goto’s dojo and decided to check out his house and apartment…especially his house outside of town, where he was supposed to be keeping some titanspawn. But we had some hours to kill, so we went to the zoo.
We split up. T-Bone stuck with me, Mara, Dahlia, Keiko, and the rest of my girls. He is one lucky guy, getting to hang out with us all the time. ^_^ While we were admiring the polar bears, I excused myself from the others and made a call. I couldn’t get Miko, the shikome who gave me the bone ring, out of my mind. To some degree there was a supernatural connection, but it was more than that. I knew her from somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where or how, so I decided to call my father. He and I don’t get along, and in fact I don’t think we’d spoken in about a year. Actually, I think the last time we spoke was shortly after my divine blood awakened when I called to ask about my real mother (Dad raised me by himself when his wife left him after discovering that he’d been involved in an affair with my mother). I didn’t expect my father to be able to tell me much, but he did. In fact, he sounded really worried about me when I asked about Miko. Maybe he still cares about me after all.
It turns out I knew Miko when I was a little girl, no more than five or six, I guess. She was the teenage daughter of a local Shinto priest in Boston (maybe Fukuda-san’s predecessor?) and used to babysit me. Then, one day, without any warning, she went totally crazy. She killed two people, both friends of her younger sister. Then she showed up at my house, still covered in blood, and tried to kidnap me. She jumped out of a second-story window and fled from the police, and she must have dropped me at some point, because she ended up getting shot and falling about 30 feet into a river. They never found her remains.
Yeah, I’m going to think very carefully before I make any shikome.
My father is pretty sure he saw Miko watching me at least one other time after that, but since she was officially dead, the police didn’t pay any attention. Apparently I blocked all of this out, and Dad didn’t tell me because he thought being raised without a mom was hard enough without all the extra trauma. Hearing about it, though, the memories all came flooding back. And I also remembered seeing Miko watching me a few other times during my childhood.
It seems obvious that she got turned into a shikome. I’m not sure what she wanted with me, though. She didn’t just kill me, she tried to kidnap me, and so she must have known who I was. But that doesn’t explain why she wanted to kidnap me. Was she trying to take me back to my mother? Or did she have some other plan in mind? I don’t know, but if I run into her again, I’ll ask.
Anyway, knowing who Miko is put my mind to rest. My past with her isn’t very comforting, and I’m not sure I can trust her, but at least what I learned fits with everything else that’s been going on. And she’s apparently working for my mother now (if she wasn’t back then), which means that she’s basically on my side. I hope.
After talking to my father, I rejoined the others. T-Bone noticed that something was bothering me, and I told him what I had learned. I described Miko to him, so I think he’ll keep his eyes open for her.
When we met up with the others later to go check out Goto’s apartment, we found out Ray had already left. As usual (*sigh*), he didn’t really tell anyone he was going, but I guess the Goto issue is weighing on him pretty heavily. He went on ahead to scope out the apartment, and we caught up with him there.
Getting into Goto’s apartment wasn’t hard. It was a dump. There wasn’t much furniture, he doesn’t seem to clean often, and he leaves stuff thrown around wherever he wants. Anyway, we didn’t really find much at the apartment…but then again, we didn’t expect to. However, when we checked out one closet, we did find that Goto had left some sentries. A pair of shinobi flitted out of the darkness and onto the roof to escape, probably to warn Goto. Anna, Adam, Elisa, and Ray went after them and caught up easily. T-Bone and I…we figured the others could take care of things (and I doubt I could have caught up anyway), so we stayed in the apartment and chatted until the others came back, mission accomplished.
Next, we headed outside of town to Goto’s house. The house was in the country, so it was surrounded by some fields and a gated fence. As we cautiously approached, we saw that the…ahem, shirime…that we had talked to hadn’t been lying. There was a big, misshapen bull in the fields in front of the house. It noticed us, and stood up. Yep. It was a minotaur, all right. Not only that, but apparently Goto had been teaching it kung fu, because it struck a martial arts pose (which looked pretty odd…). About the same time, several glowing reddish rings appeared on the ground around it, which told us that it was summoning Goto’s oni (actually, the minotaur probably wasn’t summoning them, but something was). I told Mara to go to ground, so she sank into the earth where she’d be safe. The others charged in without hesitation.
The fight that ensued was pretty typical, and reminded me a lot of our previous fights with giants, in that I tried to stun them with Amaterasu’s light and then was broken by a single blow from an oni’s tetsubo. Unlike the giants in Beaver Creek, though, I was able to stun three of the four oni, which gave my friends a big advantage and probably shortened the fight considerably. I hope so anyway. I’d hate to think I nearly died again for no reason.
I f**king hate combat.
Ray and Anna focused on the minotaur, which, in turn, unleashed its fury on Ray. The rest of my companions ganged up on the oni. After the one oni that wasn’t stunned crushed me, I fell unconscious for a few moments until my body healed itself enough to wake me up. I was afraid that if I stayed around, another oni would hit me (and probably kill me this time), so I called out for Mara and she pulled me underground and into her embrace. She held me there until the battle was over, so I didn’t really see much of the fight…but everyone except me seemed to be okay when Mara and I emerged. I could have finished healing myself, but Pierre beat me to it, using his own healing powers to bring me back from the edge of death.
While Pierre healed me, the others (Ray excluded) harvested the oni’s blood for later use (it works like the blood of other giants). I honestly think Adam keeps some extra two-liter bottles in his car just for these kinds of “opportunities”.
Once that was done, we continued toward the house. It was some distance away across the fields, and as we neared it, we discovered that the oni and the minotaur…well, they were just the first line of defense. There were three bald, child-like figures running around the yard with their heads down, and two big, brawny guys dressed like secret service agents guarding the door. They were obviously aware of us, so we entered the gate and approached the house. The secret service guys warned us that we were trespassing, and about then one of the “children” ran up to Ray and lifted his head…revealing a single cyclopean eye. They were youkai – specifically hitotsume-kozou. Freaky, yes. But not as freaky as my rokurokubi and nupperabo girls when they show their stuff.
Oh, yeah, speaking of which, that’s something else Ray and I don’t see eye to eye on. He claims that youkai aren’t people. Sure, they aren’t human, but neither are we. That doesn’t mean they aren’t people. I found that remark kinda bigoted, especially since five of my best friends are youkai…
Anyway, the hitotsume-kozou tried to use its supernaturally freakish appearance to frighten Ray off (much like my girls can do), but it didn’t work. In fact, Ray growled at the little youkai and sent him running in fright, which was pretty funny. That kinda triggered the combat that followed, though, and the next thing I knew, the two secret service guys exploded out of their skin, showing their true colors…as biomechanical robot-men with machinegun arms. I found some cover and stayed out of the fight this time while the others took care of the door guards. I think Adam and T-Bone took out the two remaining hitotsume-kozou while Ray, Anna, Pierre, and Elisa attacked the robo-demons, or whatever they were. I did give Adam a bit of encouragement when I saw him flagging a little, and, predictably, Anna glared daggers at me. Whatever. Anyway, after a short, brutal fight, we emerged victorious.
I did notice that the biomechanical guard had a familiar logo imprinted on their chest-plates. It was the logo of the Daitakuji Security Services. I knew I’d heard of the Daitakuji Industrial Group before, but it wasn’t until Adam commented on them that it clicked. It’s a super-industrial company in Japan. They have technology that is beyond cutting-edge (and apparently supernatural), and their holdings in Japan are so polluted that the smog clouds hide their factories in perpetual shadow. It reminds me a lot of the industrial park we found earlier in the day, and if that doesn’t tie Daitakuji firmly to the titans, then I don’t know what does. We’ll have to check up on them, and that’s something I can do.
With the guards gone, getting into the house was easy. We snooped around a bit until Adam and T-Bone sensed something…powerful…in the house. It was a cat. That…worried me, because the only cats I know of that are that spiritually potent are bakeneko (powerful shapeshifting cat demons from Japanese legend) so when T-Bone coaxed it out of hiding and noticed it had three tails, I wasn’t surprised. I was afraid, though. Legends say that bakeneko gain an extra tail for each scion they kill.
Nervously, I said as much to the others. The cat must have been trying to lull us into a false sense of security, because when it heard me, it took off like a shot. I guess it figured that the odds weren’t good against the group of us. Smart cat. We didn’t really try to pursue it, so it got away. That’s probably for the best. I mean, Adam and T-Bone seemed to think it was stronger than the oni, or the minotaur, or anything else we’ve ever fought, and like I said, I hate combat anyway.
The only other thing of interest we found in the house was a huge, elegantly decorated wooden box that contained five relic weapons. The weapons were obviously designed for Goto’s students. We all feared that the relics had some darker purpose, so I conducted a small ritual to call up the spirit of one of the relics, a katana that was probably meant for Hiro. I spoke to it for awhile, trying to find out what its purpose was. We could tell it was pretty powerful. The sword kami was reticent to talk about its powers, and it didn’t know much, but it claimed that it could attune itself to a single divine purview appropriate to the person to whom it was given. We later found that it wasn’t being completely honest…
We couldn’t just leave the relics there for Goto to give to his misguided students, so we decided to take them with us. We talked about what to do next, and eventually agreed to get in touch with Hondo, Goto’s dai-tengu rival. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, right? Getting in touch with Hondo wasn’t hard, and we set up a meeting for a couple of hours later. Of course, I was the one who called him, so I got to hear the wanton exclamations of the girls he was sharing his hot tub with. It certainly gave the impression that he was some sort of tengu Hugh Heffner in his own little Playboy mansion…which didn’t really endear me to him, but I decided to be as painfully polite as possible anyway, since he is a powerful spirit and therefore worthy of some respect.
Before we could leave Goto’s house to meet with Hondo, though, Mara noticed a shadow flitting away outside. It’s a good bet it was one of Goto’s shinobi slipping away to warn its master, which is bad…though chances are he would have figured out something was wrong anyway, what with the dead minotaur and oni in his front yard. To make matters worse, the shinobi slashed Pierre, Elisa, and Ray’s tires (my van was at the hotel with the girls). So we had to call for the vehicles to be towed while I got Sera to drive out and pick us up.
We all piled in and drove to Hondo’s restaurant, which is a classy place! Hondo met with us privately, and he really does have playboy thing going. I mean, over dinner, each of us had our own waiter or waitress who was dressed in almost obscenely sexy clothes. Not that that’s bad, mind you, just a little excessive. Anyway, Hondo talked like he was high on something, but he was very friendly and very easygoing. And a lot sharper than his manner of speak implied. I bet people underestimate him all the time, which is probably exactly what he wants.
He had some pretty choice things to say about Goto (the contempt he feels for Goto is really amusing), and overall the meeting went well. Hondo informed us that the relics aren’t what they seem. They are corrupted items that will slowly but surely draw their owners into the grip of the titanspawn by shaping their values and personalities to match those of the titans. Very wrong. He kept the weapons so that he could destroy them. I may not be comfortable with Hondo and his apparent attitude toward women, but I do trust him to destroy the weapons.
I asked Hondo if there was any other assistance he could offer, and so he gave us some advice. He said that our best bet wasn’t to try and defeat Goto directly or completely, but to ruin his plans. Hondo seemed to think that humiliating Goto by disrupting his agenda would be the most effective way to deal with him. On principle, I’m tempted to agree with him, and while I’m sure we’ll come face to face with Goto before too long, I feel like an indirect confrontation is probably our best bet. That being said, though, I don’t relish the idea of having him show up later to settle his grudge against us.
Hondo did tell us that Goto has a…unique…relic called the Belt of the Cowardly Duck. It lets him escape desperate situations, but when it does so, it temporarily nullifies his powers and plunges him into some terribly embarrassing situation. I don’t know if we can use that information or not, but it’s good to know.
You know, that relic seems so below the dignity of the Amatsukami. It can’t possibly be the work of my pantheon, can it?
And that’s what we got from Hondo. He was helpful…but I didn’t like the way he was leering at Mara. I won’t go into that again since I vented about it earlier. We finished dinner and then I dropped Ray, Adam, Anna, and Elisa off at Adam’s place, then came back to the hotel with Pierre and T-Bone. T-Bone and Dahlia are safely tucked away in their room, Pierre and Elisa in theirs, and Mara and I in ours.
In other news, I’m thinking of buying a car. I can definitely afford it, and…well, my nice black minivan is good for driving my equipment and my followers around, but I want something sportier and more stylish to just cruise around in. The thing is, I don’t want anything too flashy. That would be…gauche. So I’m thinking about buying a little black Mazda Miata. What do you think?
Wow…I feel sooooo much better now. Mara is an incredible masseuse. And she’s starting to get frisky…so I’d better end this. ^_^