Scion – Petro Campaign – Session 44
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 2009
It’s only been three weeks since we got back from the Caribbean and we’re already off on another divine crusade. This time…it’s a bit different. This time we have the opportunity to actually destroy a titan, not just weaken it or foil its plans. Scary huh? Anyway, I’m currently writing during our flight to Nanjing, China to take care of the first stage of our six-stage plan of action. ^_^
It all started when I got a call from Hinako. She and her band of scions (including Maneki, Ryunomaru, and an Iga ninja named Hattori Kazumi) have been investigating a troubling trend in the flow of ki through Japan’s ley lines, and they finally discovered that even though Daitokuji is gone, something is still draining ki into the Hiroshima region. Kazumi bravely entered a sort of terra incognita in the area and discovered that a titan is growing within the spiritually poisoned belly of Hiroshima. Daitokuji’s activities inadvertently empowered the titan, and it’s only a matter of time before it breaks its bonds and unleashes its anger upon the world…and more specifically upon Amaterasu and the rest of the Amatsukami. Not good. >_<
The titan was once the Ainu sun kami (the Ainu call them kamui) known as Pappa Kamui. As the people of Yamato (the ancient Japanese) drove the Ainu (the indigenous people of northern Japan and Hokkaido) from their own lands and conflict erupted between the Ainu gods and the Amatsukami, Amaterasu slew Pappa Kamui’s sister, the moon kami Coppa Kamui. His anger and thirst for vengeance led Pappa Kamui to petition a being known as Hundun for power. Hundun is a titan…sort of. It’s really a kind of ambiguous entity of unbound chaos. The result was a terrifying titan of chaos known as Pika Don. According to Kazumi, it resembles a sickly, many-armed sun with two huge pits of nothingness where its eyes should have been.
Anyway, the titan growing in Hiroshima is this dark fusion of Pappa Kamui and Hundun. It was bound long ago by Chinese mystics, but couldn’t be destroyed at that time. And now it’s growing in power thanks to the A-bomb and Daitokuji (that’s bastard’s still causing us problems >_< ). Our goal was to figure out how to deal with it and if possible destroy it. Hinako’s group had to call us in for two reasons. First, this thing’s a bit out of their league. Second, they’re all either Japanese or Amatsukami or both, and since Hundun is basically a Chinese titan, we’re likely to have to rely on help from the Celestial Bureaucracy, who don’t exactly get along with us Amatsukami very well. In other words, the Bureaucracy isn’t likely to give Hinako’s group the time of day, much less help them deal with this titan. Hell, even I’m going to have to take a back seat in some of our negotiations. But Hinako’s group won’t be idle while we’re working to destroy the titan. They’ll be working to slow the flow of ki into Hiroshima, keeping the titan from growing any stronger and buying us time.
To get all this info, of course, we had to fly to Shikokou again and meet up with Hinako and her band. She was willing to put us up at her place for the night after our intensive planning session, and I was all for it, but the others were eager to get a move on, so I didn’t get a chance to hang out much >_<. I only briefly talked to Hinako about breaking things off permanently with Sayuri…I need to have a long talk with her about that. Maybe I’ll invite her, Maneki, and Kazumi to that great spa resort in Hakone again. I’ll have to have Echo and Rose fly in, though. I can’t let Echo miss it this time, and I don’t want to be away from Rose any longer than necessary on this trip.
Anyway, the flight over was pretty typical, though there were some weird moments. T-Bone seemed a bit distracted, and when I asked him what was up, he just said he was thinking. Something must have been bothering him, though, because he was a bit confrontational. For one thing, he made some comment about me being Rose’s father. I asked him not to say that, and he said that I was her father because I didn’t give birth to her… That’s a sore spot for me, in part because there is a grain of truth to it, and I became pretty upset. First off, I don’t like being labeled with the masculine qualities that “father” suggests, but more than that it implies a sort of distance from Rose, like I can’t really be her mother because I didn’t give birth to her. T-Bone didn’t know how much these insecurities have plagued me since Echo conceived. I want to be Rose’s mother, I want to feel like I am her mother, but it’s been hard because I didn’t actually give birth to her. A part of me feels that T-Bone’s right, but another part of me refuses to believe that I can’t be her mother just as Echo can. Hell, I had these same reservations and worries even before Echo and I decided to have a child, which is one reason I was so resistant to it in the first place.
So T-Bone managed to upset me pretty badly early on during the flight. It made me feel terrible for leaving Echo and Rose back at Red Mountain. It made me wish I’d stayed behind and left this one in the hands of my friends, just so I could be with my daughter.
Anyway, I should switch to a happy face ^_^ and talk about the brighter parts of the flight. Adam brightened my day by telling me about a half-sister of mine he’s discovered in Chicago. Yep, there’s another scion of Izanami operating on Adam’s home turf. Her name is Miki Yuurei (that’s got to be a nom de plume). She works in a hospital there. According to Adam, she spends most of her time experimenting on specters (and possibly other ghosts…which is a bit worrisome), trying to learn as much as she can about them. She actually gave Adam a mask made from a specter’s severed face (complete with brain matter! ^_^) that allows a ghost to masquerade as a specter. That could be useful given where we’re going, as I know a number of ghosts who might be able to help us and who could certainly use the disguise, Oiwa not the least of them. Miki also collects dolls (and summons ghosts to possess them). I’ve got some club dates scheduled in Chicago in a few weeks, so I think I’ll visit Miki as soon as possible. I think I’ll offer her the doll relic I salvaged from my undead sister the first time we were in Shikoku. I don’t really need it since I won Daitokuji’s tie (*wink*), and it seem like it’s more her sort of thing. I doubt mother will mind, but I’ll ask her first for the sake of propriety.
I guess the only other major thing to note is that Ray isn’t with us right now. He left Red Mountain with Cila before Hinako called. I think he was going to visit Persephone and Hades in the Underworld, but I’m not sure. He only tells me so much. ^_^ It’s okay, though. If we need him, I’m sure he’ll be here.
As for my crew, I left Quinn, Dahlia, and Kimiyo behind to help Echo look after Rose. I also left Kaori, Emilie, and Steph behind. Keiko and Sera came with (they’re flying the jet since Juanita’s not here), and I also brought Tabby, Audrey, Sophie, and Robin. Tabby was really excited to have Robin along on the trip without all the other lesser shikome along (Audrey can look after my dear cannibalistic Sophie on her own). In fact, she spent the better part of the evening before our departure helping Robin pick out her clothes for the trip. Robin was impressively bored by the ordeal, but she put up with it in good grace. ^_^
And as for Quinn…I managed to talk to Elisa about Quinn’s pregnancy and Pierre’s role in it. I was surprised to learn that Quinn had already done so, and so relived to find that Elisa was cool with it. Of course, Keiko had some other worries about Quinn. I’m not going to share them here, but I think Quinn will be all right. She just has to get off the rollercoaster of romantic attachments she’s been riding lately.
Hmmm. I think that’s about it as far as the flight goes, and I’ve already more or less covered what we learned from Hinako and her companions. In the end, we decided that since agents of the Celestial Bureacracy had bound Pika Don once before long ago, the Celestial Bureaucracy might be able to help us figure out how to destroy him, or failing that, bind or weaken him again.
We needed an “in” with the Celestial Bureaucracy, and so I suggested that we petition Kannon (Guan Yin) for help. After all, unlike most of the Chinese gods, she’s worshipped with as much devotion in Japan as any of the kami and so she views the Japanese more favorably than most of her pantheon. Plus, she’s a goddess of compassion and mercy, so I thought she’d be more than willing to help. I recommended that we travel to Tokyo to call upon her in the Asakasa Kannon, one of her most famous temples (in Japan at least) and one that was built since World War II. I guess it seemed appropriate as a symbol of her forgiveness of Japanese actions during the war.
I led an invocation to Kannon in the open main chamber of the Asakasa Kannon, and before long she graced us with her presence. I respectfully explained our situation to her, and she gracefully agreed to ask her pantheon for the assistance we needed. She disappeared, and while we waited, I brought up the fact that talking to Kannon was one thing, but talking to anyone else in the Bureaucracy was another matter entirely. Since they don’t like the Amatsukami, I probably shouldn’t be the one to do the talking this time around. So T-Bone stepped up to the plate.
Soon, Xi Wang Mu, a goddess of cataclysm, divine vengeance, and the keeper of the Peaches of Immortality, showed up. She knew a great deal about the situation we faced, and though she came across as sly and coy, she was willing to help us. I couldn’t help but notice, however, that her feline shadow kept a predatory eye on T-Bone’s shadow…but I’m also pretty sure that Kalfu showed up in T-Bone’s shadow to warn her off. ^_^
Xi Wang Mu informed us that in order to defeat Pika Don, we would need to reclaim his eyes. The mystics who bound him couldn’t destroy him, but they were able to weaken him by removing his eyes and hiding one in Nanjing (the Chinese city made dubiously famous for the Japanese war atrocities committed there) and the other in Di Yu in the Hell of Burrowing Maggots. Sounds like fun. In order to destroy Pika Don, we would need to return his eyes to him. Otherwise, he couldn’t be killed as a part of him would remain to rebuild his power. Unfortunately, doing so would more-or-less complete his power, so we would need to slay him almost immediately.
And here’s the kicker. In order to kill him, we need the ghost of Little Boy, the A-bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. So in addition to retrieving the eyes from Nanjing and Di Yu, we’ll need to venture into the Poison Sun Ward of Yomi to retrieve the ghost bomb. My half-sister Miyako has been there with her allies, but I never thought I’d have to go in. I mean, I thought it would be suicidal for demigods…but maybe Miyako knows something that can help us. She’s still living with mother in Yomi, so I’ll have the opportunity to ask her. Once we have the bomb, we have to take it to the Imperial Shrine of Ise and purify it so that we can nuke Pika Don with it (I gues it would probably just empower him more if it weren’t purified).
Adam and T-Bone also believe that the Orb of Chaos might help us. When we return Pika Don’s eyes, he’s likely to unleash his powers on us, and T-Bone may be able to channel Pika Don’s chaos long enough for us to detonate the bomb and escape (I’m not even sure how that’s going to work yet >_<). Furthermore, the Orb might provide us some protection in the Poison Sun Ward when we go there so if we can take it with us, it might make that part of our mission less suicidal.
The problem is that all of these things we have to collect aren’t exactly easy to carry around. The eyes themselves are a couple feet in diameter, according to Xi Wang Mu, and we know the Orb of Chaos isn’t small. And the ghost of Little Boy is over 8 tons! Even if people like Pierre and Ray can pick it up without much trouble, it’s still kinda unwieldy, and not the sort of thing we want to be carrying around with us any longer than necessary (especially since it’s supposed to be kinda unstable)
So we’ve decided to use my apartments in mother’s palace in Yomi as a base of operations and a place to store these things as we find them. Yomi will also serve as a convenient gateway to Di Yu and Duat, which we’ll need to visit to find the second eye and to retrieve the Orb of Chaos.
So here’s the plan we formulated:
1) Go to Nanjing and get the first eye of Pika Don, then take it to Yomi via the cave in Izumo and store it at my mother’s palace.
2) From Yomi, travel to Di Yu to get the second eye of Pika Don, then return to Yomi to store it at Izanami’s palace.
3) From Yomi, travel to Duat to retrieve the Orb of Chaos and keep it with us (and out of Izanami’s hands) while we travel to the Poison SunWard.
4) Go to the Poison Sun Ward to bring back the ghost of Little Boy.
5) Take Little Boy to the Shrine of Ise to have it purified. We’ll take everything else with us too, since we’ll go directly from the Shrine to our final destination.
6) Take everything to Pika Don’s terra incognita to kill Pika Don.
Sounds simple, right? We’ll just have to see what sort of twists and turns we run into along the way. But at least we have a clear plan of action. ^_^