Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 29
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 July 11th 2008.
The Mummer’s Dance is over, and despite the challenges we faced along the way, the mummers were delivered safely home afterward. You know, even though some of them totally started freaking out as the night wore on, a few of them actually really got into it. I guess they found the constant danger exciting, and maybe it made them feel like what they were doing was really important. It was important, after all. Why else would the Crom Cruach’s servants try so hard to stop it?
Anyway, having already dealt with the exploding leprechauns and having convinced the mummers to continue, we made our way steadily along the path. By this point, we’d pretty much dropped the “documentary film crew” story. It had become fairly obvious, that we were there to protect and guide them, after all, and even if they didn’t know that they were facing supernatural threats, I think most of them had a pretty good idea. I mean, the mummers basically have faith in the supernatural anyway, so believing that dark, inexplicable things were out to get them couldn’t have been much a stretch for them. So as the night wore on, we pretty much dropped any pretenses and didn’t bother trying to explain things away…except for when the police came to check on us. But I’ll get to that in a bit.
The next attack against us was telegraphed by a nearly unnoticeable churning of the ground, as though something were burrowing beneath it. I didn’t see it at all, but Anna and Adam did (those two have such keen eyes!). Adam detected the presence of a large number of weak creatures and one rather powerful one, but as though waiting to ambush the mummers, they didn’t attack when Adam and Anna approached. Not until Anna slammed her bat into the ground a few times, anyway. She caused earth-shaking shockwaves that must have killed the lesser beasts, which was good. But the all she did was anger the really powerful one that erupted from the ground and attacked. It was a gigantic nemean maggot. My guess is that the other things now rotting in the ground were smaller nemean maggots.
Anyway, Anna, Adam, Elisa, and Pierre immediately attacked the maggot while T-Bone and I focused on defending the mummers. Well, actually I guess we weren’t so much defending them as keeping them calm ^_^. We must have done a good job, because no one panicked and ran. I did notice one of the mummers, and attractive young redhead, stayed awfully close to T-Bone during the fight. He’d been chatting her up all night, so I’m not surprised. Still, it makes me worry. He’s so chaotic and he’s such a playboy…it’s only a matter of time before he breaks Dahlia’s heart. Who am I kidding? He’s probably already cheated on her. I can’t really get on his case for that, not after what I’ve been though over the past several months, but I don’t want Dahlia to be hurt. Maybe I should talk to her. I’d get T-Bone to do so, but he revels so much in his ability to convince people of what he wants (whether it’s true or not) that I’m afraid he wouldn’t really be open and honest with her.
But maybe I’m not being fair. Maybe I’m being too hard on poor T-Bone. I hope so.
Er…where was I? Oh yeah, the fight against the maggot. As T-Bone and I calmed the mummers, the others fought the maggot, which was spewing corrosive pus about. It was…gross. I like my mother’s maggots (you know, shikome ^_^) much better. When the maggot started gurgling like it was about to spew pus all over the mummers, Adam did something incredibly brave. He forced his way into its…pus…hole…to block it. It was about then when Ray arrived again in a flash of lightning. Which means I guess Adam was in danger (ummm, obviously). When the maggot finally tried to spray pus all over the mummers, all it did was send Adam flying like a shot from a cannon (o_o). In retrospect, it was kinda funny. But at the time I was way too worried about Adam, especially since Ray managed to send a bunch of branches crashing down on him as he made his typical dramatic entrance by slicing his way through nearby trees.
As the others finished off the maggot, I ran to help Adam and quickly healed him, though I kinda avoided touching him so that I wouldn’t get pus all over me. I mean, I didn’t really want to stain my “I Kiss Skulls” shirt. By the time the two of us made it back to the fight, the others had finished the maggot. Like the leprechauns, it exploded in a shower of puss and viscera, but not before Ray flew it safely away. Apparently Pierre was still grappling it at the time, but you know Pierre. He can take an eighteen-wheeler to the head without batting an eye, so a little thing like an exploding nemean maggot isn’t going to faze him.
Thanks to the efforts of T-Bone and I, the mummers were still ready to continue. And of course Aife was eager to continue too. But as we continued we soon encountered three cop cars. They’d come to find us and make sure we were all okay, and to force the mummers to stop. There had been reports of gun shots. But their real motivation was Alice, Claire’s daughter. She was determined to make her mother stop the Mummer’s Dance and didn’t plan to leave until her mother and the other mummers called it off.
T-Bone assured the cops that the “gun shots” were only a series of loud backfires, and I calmed their fears with a winning smile and few choice words. That was enough to take care of the police. They were pretty pleased to let us go on our way. Alice, on the other, wasn’t. In fact, she was furious at us, furious at the cops, and furious at her mother. She was especially furious at me. She wasn’t about to let the matter drop, and when it became clear that her mother wasn’t going to stop the dance, she tried to storm off down the road on foot. Not a good idea, given the dangers lurking about.
We rushed to stop her, and even though I did my best to calm her, she started hitting me with her bare hands. I can’t remember the last time that’s happened. I mean, people generally like me. And even psychos like Anna calm down when I speak to them. But all my charms were lost on Alice. The best I could was to defuse the violence, but even once she was no longer attacking me, she still spit in my face. >_<
Honestly, I was shocked, and I definitely think it bears looking into as soon as possible. Alice is just a mortal right? Certainly a strong-willed mortal, but a mortal nonetheless. How could she resist my charisma? Why does she hate me specifically so much? In the end we turned her over to the cops, who promised to return her home safely. But I’m worried about her.
I was able to confirm my theory that Alice, like her mother, is good elite shikome material. Tabby was absolutely certain of it, and I could tell that she really wanted to turn Alice then and there (which I forbade, of course). So, it seems strong-willed women do make the best shikome. Unfortunately, such women aren’t likely to fall into the sort of ennui and hopelessness that marks the women I choose to turn…
Just after dealing with the police, or maybe even while the rest of us were dealing with them, Aife’s friend Tanith (the kelpie) caught Adam’s attention and warned him that a number of pooka were making a rather chaotic attempt to set up an ambush for us further along the route. We were nearing the end of the dance and morning was fast approaching, so this would likely be our enemies’ last chance to attack. So when we encountered them, we were prepared. In fact, several of the others, including Adam and Anna, snuck ahead and ambushed the ambushers, taking out a couple of the pooka before they even knew what was happening. By that point, though, an absolutely devilish leprechaun emerged in the midst of the mummers. It turned out to be Carva, the ringleader of the titanspawn who had been attacking us!
You know, it’s really a miracle that all the mummers survived unscathed.
I dropped the veil that hid my divine beauty and with a short admonition, I entranced the pooka, leaving them powerless to act while we focused on Carva. The fight was short but brutal, but against Ray, Elisa, Adam, and Pierre, Carva didn’t stand a chance. They finished him in short order, and we managed to keep the mummers from being harmed. Once Carva exploded, there was nothing but a large maggot left, and Ray promptly crushed it. Everyone then dispatched the pooka while they were still helpless in the face of my beauty, and that was that.
The Mummer’s Dance ended successfully. The mummers were ecstatic but exhausted, and went home to rest. Claire was immensely pleased with herself and her followers (as she should be!), but she seemed to almost dread going home to face Alice, Still, I think she knew she had to deal with her daughter sooner or later. I hope she and Alice are okay.
Having been successful in our task, Aife, Siobhan, Tanith, and Scathach took the rest of us to meet Hobnail, the local Seelie leader. He’s a frightfully demonic looking pooka, but he was kind enough to us. He thanked us for our efforts and agreed to introduce us to the courts of the Tuatha. In fact, he asked us who we’d like to meet. Since Mananaan mac Lir is already behind what we’re trying to do, talking to him would have been largely redundant, so we asked to meet Lugh, one of the more influential gods in the pantheon. Then Ray surprised me by asking to meet the Morrigan as well. I wouldn’t have thought he’d want to meet with an arguably evil goddess like the Morrigan, not when he has so many problems with so much of what me and some of his other companions do (his nobility is so adorable!!). But his logic was flawless (Ray is pretty damn smart, after all ^_^). The Morrigan represents the “other” side of the pantheon, and if we’re to get the Tuatha’s backing in the war against the titans, we’ll need both Lugh and the Morrigan on our side.
And that’s where we stand now. I’m not sure when Hobnail will arrange a meeting for us, but it’ll be soon, perhaps even later today. In the meantime, I need to call Echo and check on her, sunbathe to recharge some of my spiritual energy, and check on Claire and Alice.