Feng Du Act 4
(15th September 2007)
The party go on ?jaunts? to check out the area, while
Oolong maps the spirit movements of the Forsaken.
To survive, you either eat food, which in reality is red weave made solid, or you can meditate and draw the red weave into you. If, however, you eat / meditate enough (stay here long enough) you will lose the blue weave in you and become a part of the red weave realm ? and thus be unable to leave.
Rats hang around the torture areas. Tatzelwurms are concentrated into about 5 packs (varying in size between 5 large beasts and 30 small beasts or a mixture of sizes). The ghost prison is off limits.
The boiling lake starts to boil. Gongs are struck and Shen Wu?s island appears. He descends floating with his minions (and Dubarrie) in tow. Dubarrie looks like she would like to be rescued, but not just yet ? Shen Wu is a bit too interesting!
Oolong investigates the reason why the tatzelwurms don?t inhabit the area where the waterfalls of scalding water are located.
Oolong arrives back with what looks like a chunk of white rock about the size of a shield. He saw an imprint of a dragon in a mound of gold about the size of a mountain.
This is basically the Eastern Lair of the White Dragon Balor.
We have two choices of entry into the ghost prison. Firstly
Lyris is investigating the possibility of getting in through the underground tunnels (the area where Tanaida was imprisoned) and she has a way of getting us into the underground area if the rats can get in. This method could leave us insane. Anya could lead the party through the Hall of the Dead into the ghost prison, although this method could be potentially bad, if anyone dies in the Hall of the Dead (they would become both insane and seriously powerful).
We head off into the wilderness to attack vampires, who are preparing to attack the demons by using the hymn-singing vampires as bait / distraction.
Impasa?s plan is to go into straight battle with the vampires. Lyris is going to be bait and the rest of us will be waiting in the ?killing zone? where we want to attack them.
Lyris will masquerade as an escapee running away from the demons.
Scout comes out while we are waiting for
Lyris to arrive and nearly pees on Mysuki. He spots Lyris doing her ?scaredy-cat? routine and warns his mates.
Lyris pauses, hears them coming and shouts ?coo-ee!? They stop but then one of them walks into another. She screams and legs it. 10 bandito vampires are in hot pursuit but
Lyris is gambolling along like a mountain goat. The bandits reach our killing zone and the fun begins?.
Oolong shoots one of them in the head and he dies in a little ball of balefire.
Mysuki disappears up the tunnel they came out of.
Impasa barrels into 4 and sends them flying to the ground.
Anya shoots the scout chasing and closest to Lyris and hits him in the back of the head. He falls over and starts trying to pull the arrow out of his head.
Lyris is clearly an expert at escaping and has probably been the bait before!
Oolong shoots 3 vampires in the leg and leaves them limping.
Mysuki realises that the leader is a female. She is trying to sneak back to the ?den? to get out of the way. Mysuki casts an illusion of herself in front of the girl who whirls around. Mysuki does a smashing blow and splats her, catching the heart as it falls.
Impasa splats one of the vampires he felled earlier, crushing his head. He grabs another and tries to headbutt him, but they both lose their footing on gravel and go flying.
Lyris stops in her tracks, does a rude signal at the vampire still chasing her and runs off again.
Anya goes for the scout again (who has just successfully pulled the arrow from the back of his head) and gets him in the gut and in each thigh with arrows.
Oolong dispatches a few more with his arrows.
Mysuki hears a noise and hides herself as a master assassin approaches. She drops behind him, taps him on the shoulder and has her knife to his throat as he spins round.
Impasa is rolling around with the vampire he tried to headbutt and starts punching him. He punches him twice and kills him outright.
Lyris continues to run, being pursued by another vampire. Anya shoots him in the gut and he doubles over.
Tanaida dispatches one with telekinesis and does a Darth Vader-style lift on another who is left dangling,
Oolong hits the scout (otherwise known as Mr. Pincushion) several times and finishes off gut-guy.
Anya also shoots the scout again and finishes him off.
Mysuki has a chat with the assassin she?s cornered (Tai Sung) ? he now owes a favour as she?s agreed to save his face by not telling anyone she bested him. Mysuki informs the party that this is the case.
We have 9 gems (tainted hearts).
We are awarded a tenth (from the one we interrogated). The interogee tells us that there is a big bandit group living in a set of cave-type things where Balor tried to dig through into Hell from his Lair.
Anya tells the group that she (inside Juan the friendly ghost) has been into the ghost prison and says she knows exactly where the 108 heroes are in the galaxy. Unfortunately the floor is ?alarmed? and as soon as someone steps on the floor they will activate the four guardians who will smash and kill.
The various options for releasing the 108 and then saving our necks are discussed at length.
To escape hell, party could
destroy contract
get possessed by some of the ghosts from the prison ? change weave signature
obtain contract and dump it into an iron cylinder to prevent it from activating
give a portion of our souls to Tanaida which would then change our soul weave and enable us to leave. Involves an element of trust in Tanaida.
Contract is stored in a hall of contracts within the Hall of Judgement.
Oolong has the idea of trying to contact the tatzelwurms to get their aid in creating a diversion and destroying various halls. (Hoo Long can tell the wurms where the gold is kept.)
Mysuki, Impasa, Lyris, Fabian and Tanaida have all been contacted by the book in the library in the Hall of Judgement. It has offered them all advice but it wants information in return ? and ultimately, it wants them to write in it so that it can learn from them. It is not the only book ? there are several in co-existence across the galaxy.
Impasa wants us to get hold of the book ? his theory is that us having the book would make Shen Wu nervous.
Juan the ghost goes off to find out how much time has passed ?out there?. The mortal realm is going more slowly but the Fey realms all tend to move at the same sort of speed. The calends all occur at the same time.
Mysuki wants to find out some more info.
Party decide to do tourist trip round hell ? spend a jewel. Party want to look round the Hall of Judgement and other palaces in hell. Want to find where the treasury is, the hall of contracts and the library.
Do a tour of the Hall of Judgment while judging takes place.
The Hall of Judgement ? grand staircase with 300 clay jars wafting incense at one end. Behind the jars is a single throne and then other seats for the Lords of the Death.
Centre of hall has a platform where the gate of fire is called forth for the prisoners to come through. The Mirror of Retribution is shown on one side. Prisoners see their sins within the mirror and the Lords of Death judge the prisoners on their reactions to the images in the mirror. The mirror convinces most prisoners of their guilt and that their punishment is just.
There is a jury which act as arbitrator and secondary witnesses.
Party settle into seats opposite the Mirror.
Atmosphere in hall changes. Lighting changes so that everything is terrifying. Prisoners are herded through the gate of fire by 2 senior demons ? Horseface and Oxhead. Then the Lords of Death float in ? including Shen Wu.
First prisoner brought forward and Shen Wu activates the Mirror of Retribution. The prisoner reacts to the images and judgement is passed. The Mirror is made up of weaves from at least 5 different worlds.
Mysuki, Lyris,
Oolong and Impaza all look into the Mirror. They all see different stuff? Anya studies the different prisoners.
After the ceremony, Impaza sweet talks the other mercenaries, networking to gang together and have a mass vampire hunt. He arranges a gathering of about 4 other groups. A group of mercenaries of this size would be able to take out the really big group of vampires that Hoo Long found at the top of the old ruined citadel.
Oolong was able to use true-sight and see Shen Wu?s real form ? a tall black rakshaza surrounded by subject servants. On his clothing there is a big symbol on the centre of his chest.
Mysuki talks to Tanaida and shows her a drawing of someone she saw in the Mirror of Retribution. The one she saw was one of the Five (the Council). She then explains her heritage to the party as she thinks that the way her people have chosen to link themselves (Japanese ? through the country, Chinese ? through celestial dragon, Korean ? through soul-eating) to this world may give a clue as to how Shen Wu has chosen to link himself to this world and therefore a clue to his power.
Oolong saw in the Mirror of Retribution that he is a puppet and being used so asks the party to keep an eye on him.
Impasa sends his hunter spirit to Dubarrie to arrange a meeting. They met in the garden by the lake. He discovered that the dragon-turtle (that moves Shen Wu?s island) uses the ocean currents to navigate. Shen Wu has been attending a meeting of the Presidium in the chambers below the ghost prison. He is the President of the Presidium. Dubarrie said that since the meeting of the Presidium he hasn?t been interested earthly affairs. (Does this mean that something more important is happening elsewhere ? or that everything is going as planned here on Earth so he can concentrate on somewhere else?)
We need to:
find out if there is a way into the ghost prison building from underneath (Lyris and her rats)
talk to the tatzelwurms
Anya suggests that there is a possibility that we could get in through the ?book room? which links through both the Hall of Judgement and the Ghost Prison. This would perhaps work if one of the people who were contacted were to agree to write in the book as the book would then want to let you in to the room in which it?s kept.
The rats cannot find a way into the Ghost Prison from underground. Mysuki offers to go and check out the area in fox form. Anya suggests waiting the few days until Shen Wu and his island leave, but Mysuki is getting restless and doesn?t want to do nothing. Anya suggests that we could go and get some more vampire hearts while we are waiting.
Fast-forward a few days to when Shen Wu leaves. Mysuki goes off scouting as a fox. She finds a way in and sneaks through past webs made by a giant millipede-thing, some bits with webs caught in it. Through a small crack, too small to get through, she sees a room crackling with electricity, with a book on a pedestal in the middle of the room. From that book are electric crackles going to other books in the room. ?I see you!? thinks Mysuki. ?I see you, too,? as a crackle comes and touches Mysuki and makes her glow green. Mysuki enters the book?s matrix. Mysuki finds out what Shen Wu wrote in the book. Mysuki makes a deal with the Book ? it will let her enter its room providing that she writes in it. Mysuki learns that Shen Wu considers that our entire world and the Fey wars are all an experiment. Shen Wu doesn?t care who wins. The Book just wants to know how the battles are won. Shen Wu wants the Book to be the ?ultimate? on governance and ruling ? the Machiavelli of Machiavelli?s theories.
Mysuki?s 6th sense warns her that the mega-millipede is returning and she escapes after a bit of a chase.
She fills in the party on what she found out. Impasa says her can create us all sandals with the imprint of Shen Wu?s soul in the sole of the sandals so we can walk into the galaxy-room. Mysuki knows that she can break dream-cycles. Lyris asks how we are going to get the 108 from the galaxy as they are not at the centre (and about 10 metres up).
The plan:
Kill the 100+ vampires with the big team
Bribe the tatzelwurm with gold ? if Hoo Long can do it
To get to the treasury they will have to get past the Foo dogs ? but Lyris knows she can keep the Foo dogs asleep.
Anya informs the party they could go back to the Fey realms and allow the princes to ?kill? then heal them. They didn?t like that idea. At all! No way, José! Only as the final solution.
Impaza says he will spirit walk into the Contract room and destroy the contracts. Anya suggests taking the dragon scale in and ?bombing? the contract room with the balefire.
The plan for next time:
Kill vampires.
Negotiate with the tatzelwurm.
Impasa spirit walks into contract room while the others hit the galaxy room.
