Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 18

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 Feb 6th 2008.

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Right now, we’re resting briefly after a fight with some disgusting satyrs, so I have a few minutes to write. We’re well into the underground of Kaymakli, and it is just as treacherous and dangerous as promised. The ancient architecture is beautiful, even if it is kinda eroded and worn, but if you ask me, that just adds a nice sort of tomb-like appeal. When I mentioned that to the others, they didn’t seem particularly pleased with the observation. I guess they don’t like the idea of being “entombed” down here. I’m not too worried, though.

But…maybe I should be. If it weren’t for Adam’s photographic memory of the maps and notes he studied of this place, we’d probably be dead or stuck by now, killed or stymied by some trap or another. Fortunately, he’s been able to lead us through without too much trouble so far. He’s so smart. ^_^

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we even went out to the city, we had a meeting to discuss how we were going to approach the scions of Chaos Theory. We talked for a bit and decided that we wouldn’t team up with them. We all agreed that even though working with them might make things easier in the short term, such an alliance would definitely break down since they almost certainly have a different idea of what to do with the Eye of Chaos than we do. So…avoiding an alliance seemed the better choice for all parties.

Instead, we decided to try and use Echo’s status of one of Dionysus’s past lovers to get them to back down and let us handle things. Well, actually, I’m not sure if that’s how we decided to approach it, but that’s more or less what happened. Ray, Echo, T-Bone, and I went to meet with the members of Chaos Theory. They were just as interesting as Ray described. Well…actually they were more interesting than Ray described. They also seemed about as dysfunctional as we are, but I guess that’s to be expected from a group of chaos-fiends.

I basically described them before, so I won’t do so again, except for one thing. Calliope (a really scary-hot scion of Dionysus) is a maenad. A powerfully divine one, but a maenad nonetheless. And she can barely control herself. She sooo wanted to turn me and Echo…but she held herself in check. I’m curious about what that would do to me since I’m already basically a shikome…so could she actually turn me into a maenad under her control? I hope not. Curious as I am, I don’t intend to find out through experimentation. Besides, she was looking at Echo the same way she was looking at me, and she’s not going to get her hands on my lover.

Laura, the sexy blonde (and she is sexy, with legs to die for) seemed to get along well with T-Bone right from the start. I think she gave him her number, and he certainly seemed ready and willing to take more than that from her. Men. >_< He’d better not follow up, or poor Dahlia’s going to get her heart broken. Echo gets away with that kind of thing because she’s a nymph and because she and I had an understanding…but like I said last entry, I don’t think T-Bone and Dahlia have that kind of relationship.

Anyway, after discussing things with Chaos Theory, we learned that they had their own plan to take the Eye somewhere on Mount Olympus where it could be accessible to Dionysus, but we have our doubts as to whether or not they are being manipulated, and their plans didn’t match up with ours. I decided that an up-front and direct approach would be best, and if possible I wanted to avoid making future enemies out of our rival scions. I mean, they don’t seem like bad sorts. Our plans are just conflicting, even if our ultimate goal—keeping the Eye of Chaos away from those who would abuse its power—is more-or-less the same.  So I told them that it seemed pretty obvious that they needed our help more than we needed theirs, and that we intended to follow through on our plans regardless of what they wanted to do. Echo lent her support to our position with her authority as…well, as a tremendously famous nymph and Dionysus’s lover.

Ultimately, Chaos Theory backed down, with one condition. If they were going to leave this in our hands, they wanted to be able to report to their divine parents exactly who it was that they’d let take over for them. That way, if Dionysus or Loki are pissed about it, they know who to come looking for. We agreed to that demand. I mean, they’d tell their parents anyway. I did insist that if things came to that, they would also have to make it clear to their parents that we were acting on behalf of our parents—particularly Kalfu and Izanami. Yeah, technically my mother doesn’t have a lot to do with this, but as the group’s primary spokesperson in the meeting, I felt that I had to take some personal responsibility. We didn’t mention those of us who weren’t there; it’s not my place to make them party to a deal like this without their consent, so T-Bone, Echo, Ray and I will take responsibility for this one. And we didn’t mention Persephone either. No sense in giving Dionysus a reason to play upon her weaknesses.

You know, this got me thinking. I’m really starting to get tangled up in divine politics. We all are. That’s certain to continue, so I’m going to have to be more careful…and more politically savvy. I can see a lot of advantages to playing the game of divine politics, but I can also see a lot of pitfalls, and I’d like to capitalize on the former while avoiding the latter. After all, I may not have much of a place on the battlefield, but I can certainly handle myself in the ballroom, figuratively speaking. ^_^

Okay, enough rambling. Yowch.. I spent way too much time going on about all that.

Without further delay, we descended into Kaymakli. Anna gave me a hard time for wearing the fashionable clothes I’m wearing, but even if we are going into ancient ruins, I want to look good. And besides, it’s an older skirt and a pretty simple top, and both were goth-industrial fashion, so they’re pretty durable (and stylish!). With all the straps and zippers on the skirt, it’s not like I can’t adjust it if I need to move more freely. Anna could learn thing or two from me. After all, what she’s usually wearing amounts to little more than a bikini.

Ahem. Enough about that.

We entered Kaymakli through the tourist areas, and T-Bone talked us past guards so that we could get to the places we really needed to go. The main entrance to the underground was guarded by some pretty tough beasties. At least, that’s what Adam picked up with his magical sixth sense. Another way in, which turned out to be a deep pit that served as a shortcut that took us down a few levels, was also guarded by some vrykolakas vampires, but compared to the sentries at the main entry, they didn’t seem all that threatening, so that’s the way we went.

The vampires attacked us as soon as we left the tourist areas and approached the pit. There were five or six of them, and some carried barrels of oil that they tried to throw at us. I guess they wanted to catch us on fire or something. In any event, they weren’t much of a challenge. I turned on the sunlight (while cranking up the volume on my relic iPod; I was in a trancey mood, so I was listening to Armin van Buuren’s “Made of Sun”…how appropriate! ^_^). We made short work of the vamps, and then headed down into the depths of Kaymakli.

We wandered through the underground for a bit, following the map in Adam’s head. He definitely knows where he’s going, that’s for sure. I’m so glad he’s with us.

In fact, I’m really glad all of us are here. Dysfunctional though we may be, I think we’ve all proven ourselves, and I know that I’m thankful the others are here to help protect Echo and me. In fact, I wish I could protect Echo better myself, but today proved that I really can’t, so I need to rely on the others. I’ll have to talk to them about that. I know they sometimes see Echo as little more than a flakey sexpot (hell, sometimes it’s hard for me to avoid thinking of her that way), but I know better. She does have an overactive libido, but she’s much deeper than that. She’s really sweet and caring, and she’s so full of curiosity and wonder. She also understands the workings of divinity better than any of the rest of us do. Anyway, I want to make sure they’ll help me protect her like I promised I’d do. I just don’t think I can do it alone.

Anyway, back to the ruins. Our first major challenge was a gate veiled in darkness. Not even my connection to darkness and sunlight could help me see through it. Adam told us that the gate hid some sort of ambiguous challenge, and that the only way to figure out how to overcome it was to pass through the gate and see what was there. So we did.

We all got split up into pairs in small rooms (I was with Ray, Echo with Anna, Adam with Elisa, and T-Bone with Pierre). Aside from the way in, the rooms had two exits, one at ground level, and the other high up on the wall with no ladder or anything else to climb to get up there. The lower doors were blocked by heavy statues, and all the doors were sealed up tight.

I gotta admit, I had no idea what to do at first, but Ray suggested that I try to talk to the kami of the statue, so I did. She was helpful, basically telling us that we just had to find a way to get to the doors and then open them. Fair enough. For Ray and me, getting to the doors wasn’t hard. At first, Ray picked up the statue (one-handed!), but then he decided it might be better to go through the higher door, so he sat me on his shoulder and flew us up there. Then I humbly summoned the door’s kami and asked it to open up. It seemed a little hard to please…I got the feeling that if I hadn’t been as polite and gracious as I was, it might not have been very impressed and wouldn’t have let us through. But it did, so problem solved! ^_^

After escaping the room, we found ourselves together with the others again, so we moved on. Our next challenge was a long hallway riddled with narrow rays of light shining in from…somewhere. Just outside the hall was a ramp leading up to a blank wall. The hallways definitely looked like a trap (I guess the Indiana Jones movies aren’t so unrealistic after all!), so I think most of us assumed the right way to go was hidden at the top of the ramp. Not so. Adam recognized the place from his studies of the map, and told us that both were traps.

I gotta tell ya, the guys who built this place were sadistic bastards. *hate*

Anyway, Adam knew just where to find the secret door that bypassed both traps. Just beyond it, however, was a room with another sealed gate. Adam had warned us that we’d all need the blood of a maiden and a mother in order to pass. Fortunately for us, “maiden” in this case just meant “a young woman”; otherwise, we would have been in a little trouble. *blush*

Well, actually, we ran into trouble at the gate anyway. A group of satyrs were there, and they needed women’s blood to get through too. Not pleasant. They were willing to take it by force, and that’s not all they wanted to take by force. I don’t know what made these satyrs so much more horny than those we’d run into before, but I could actually see the look in their eyes change as their lusts took over and they made straight for Echo and me.

The others stopped them before they could do any real harm. T-Bone even pulled off a really crazy move with his cane! Even so, one almost slipped through, and so I stood in front of Echo and declared that he would not violate her. I called on my power over life and health and tried to destroy the satyr from within…but he just grunted and kept coming. Fortunately the others stopped him. Still, it made me feel so…useless. That’s why I was going on about protecting Echo earlier. The fight really made me feel like I can’t live up to the faith she puts in me.

Before the fight ended, one of the satyrs pulled out his pan pipes and tried to turn the battle into an orgy. T-Bone must be susceptible to that sort of thing, because he made a beeline for Anna just like he’d done back in New Orleans the first time satyrs pulled that stunt on us. Hmmm. Maybe he’s got a real thing for Anna. Scary. Or maybe he was just drawn to the girl wearing the least amount of clothing (or would that have been Echo?)

Fortunately, the rest of us kept a level head. Except for Echo, of course. She couldn’t help herself once the satyr started playing, and before I knew what was happening, she and I were on the floor in a heap and she was trying to get my clothes off as fast as she could despite my protests. Fending her off was all I could do for the rest of the fight. Under more private circumstances, and if I had been in the right mood, I wouldn’t have minded the attention, but not during a fight! Echo was really apologetic afterward, but I just laughed and told her not to worry about it. It’s not like she could help herself.

And I’m pretty sure the scene we caused made every single guy in the room pause for a couple of seconds just to stare. ^_^

Once all of that was done with, we had to deal with the gate and the women’s blood needed to pass through it. Anna, Elisa, Echo, and I were good to go as far as maiden blood, and we inscribed a mark with our own blood on each of the guys’ foreheads. Then Echo (who has been a mother many, many times in the past) shed some of her blood and marked each of us so that we could all pass through the gate.

Poor Echo had to bleed quite a bit for our sakes. I felt so sorry for her, so I healed her up with a tender kiss once we’d passed through the gate. She seemed appreciative. ^_^

Speaking of Echo, though, I’m beginning to get a little worried about her. I know she means well, but now that she’s once again accepted her real name and the legend that goes with it, she’s not only become so much more beautiful, but she’s also become a lot more arrogant about it. She knows that pride has always been her biggest flaw, but I think she’s returning to her old ways. She asked me to make sure she didn’t let it ruin her again like it has in the past, so I’d better say something to her about it. I don’t want her to end up alienating our friends. Or alienating me, for that matter. I mean, the way she keeps going on about being the “most beautiful woman” around and all is really getting to me. Even if she is more beautiful than I am now, she doesn’t have to rub it in. >_<

Sigh. A little self-reflection makes me realize that I might have issues with a bit of vanity myself…

Well, anyway…that’s where we are now. It looks like we’re getting ready to move on, so I’d better stop for now. More later!