Briefing

      • Baudemagus, the Legate of the 150th Legion, appeared at the academy in Area 51, Nevada.
      • The world of Fierce was a low-magic party world for the lords of Gossamer. Advanced tech existed on Fierce that did not work on other worlds. And there was no tradition of sorcery and magic on Fierce.
      • A year ago, Eidolon powered cyber soldiers appeared and attacked the inhabitants.
      • Soto-sama, commander of one of Drake’s legions and a Fierce native, and her legion engaged the Cyber-Naki to stop the genocide.
      • Drake ordered the world abandoned. Soto-sama refused to leave, and her 1st cohort, the First Fangs, stayed and were sealed in. The last communication was that they were attempting to leave, but they never arrived.
      • Drake ordered the door sealed and declared Soto-sama and her legion as traitors. No further news was heard from Fierce.
      • Yesterday, Soto-sama’s legate, Baudemagus, received a message from Soto-sama that the evacuation was a disaster.
      • Since he was forbidden from sending Legionnaires to investigate, he recruited eight gifted academy seniors to do a recon as they were not yet members of a legion.
      • This was all the information that Baudemagus had.
        He gave them each Soto-sama’s icon, one of his own, and maps of Fierce.


Baudemagus asked them some questions:

      • What were you before joining the academy?
        • Asiah was advisor to the pharoah of her realm. Uther was gathering information of the previous Gossamer war.
        • William was a fellow of the Royal Society (scientist).
        • Jane was also a fellow of the Royal Society (explorer).
        • Cyra was a hacker/sorceress.
        • Sturm has been a soldier from birth.
        • Mena was a traveller.
      • Goals?
        • Mena – hone skills
        • Stum – glory for the leader
        • Cyra – root the universe
        • Jane – knowledge
        • William – science!
        • Uther – gathering specific information for a patron
        • Assieh – improve the lot of her people
      • Where did you come from?
        • Mena – does not talk about it
        • Sturm – the death world of Krieg
        • Cyra – the Mars colony of a future high-tech Earth
        • Jane – start of enlightment alternate Earth
        • William – start of enlightment alternate Earth
        • Uther – an alternate 1920’s Earth
        • Assieh – Calashar, the home of the aliens who actually did visit the ancient Egyptians

Planning

      • Mena, Assieh and Sturm raided the academy weapons locker to sign out training weapons. They acquired full body armor, plasma rifles, two-handed swords, combat knives, and a hover gunship armed with missles and plasma cannons.
      • Mena informed her home mentor to inform him of her assignment. He said it was an excellent opportunity.
      • Cyra informed her parents. Cyra’s mother had been to Fierce before. She said it was similar to the training Earth. There was a meteor strike that introduced metallic hydrogen, which was the key their advanced technology. She had heard about cybernetic soldiers, but they were not new to Fierce. However, those soldiers were not powered by the Eidolon. These cyber-soldiers could probably have operated on the stair, and she was glad that someone was being sent to investigate because she thinks Drake’s plan of isolation was misguided. She wanted to know how they were empowered by the Eidolon and why they are called the Cyber-Naki.
      • Jane learned that the door is in the northwest corner of the island housing city of No, which was the site where the meteor fell millenia ago. The door was all that remains following the endless fighting between the Cyber-Naki and the defenders.
      • Soto-sana was holding the door as a means of escape, but there was no indication that the Cyber-Naki had every tried to go through the door.

Incursion

      • They headed for the door, past eight other doors on that side: Broke World, Imperia, Nightmare Kingdom, Tetsugen Shogunate, Stratospheria, Verse Arcanum, Ossuary Empire, and Nexopolis. The door to Fierce was next. The door beyond fierce was Finisterrae, the last battlefield, also known as the Last Earth. No living soul of that world remained along with soldiers from a thousand other worlds, as well as the remains of their Dwimmerlaik foes.
      • They left the gunship behind.
      • Uther, Jane and Cyra all got impressions from the door. They got a sense of a threatening environment on the other side. Natives and non-Natives of fierce are present of the other side, as well as Eidolon influence and the presence of an icon.
      • Uther also sensed the presence of Edward, a cadet who graduated when he first entered the academy. There are at least four non-native beings in close proximity to the door, who are not Eidolon infused, but the Eidolon is rapidly approaching. The signals from the icons do not seem any stronger than at the academy.
      • Cyra noted a small sense of Soto-sama, a ward of sorcery in the distance, and an extremely powerful sense of tiny pieces of the Eidolon. She also got a sense of a place dedicated to a powerful Master of the Grand Stair who was not a Gossamer lord.
      • Baudemagus unsealed the door with the instruction to go through quickly so he can seal the door, and use the icon to contact him to open the door again.
      • There was a crashed ship shooting a beam toward an icon card. There were four armored beings on the ground. One was trying to recover the icon while the other three were shooting at flying Cyber-Naki shooting at them.
      • Assieh identified that one of the flying entities is vulnerable.
      • Sturm went through the door first, stepped out of the doorway, and shot the identified entity with a plasma bolt. He shot it through the head, and it plummeted out of the air as a tiny bolt of light flew out of its midsection.
        Mena identified it as a piece of perfect Eidolon and grabbed at it to bring it to her.
      • Jane held back to assess the situation.
      • William edited one of the flying creatures to not have wings and flew off.
        Uther entered and used his weapon to distract the enemies from the other team members. Most of the Cyber-Naki landed and focused on him. One, who looked different from the others, held back and directed two others toward the icon again.
      • They were assaulted by the Cyber-Naki. Assieh, Jane, Mena were hit by kinetic weapons built into their armor. Assieh’s Umbra consumed her bullets. Mena’s Eidolon deflected all the shots. Jane hid behind Sturm, who took the hits to protect her. Jane then raised a protection of her own.
        One of the two that were redirected back to icon reached out and a small torrent of lava onto one of the defenders whose armor disappeared and was reduced to ash.
      • It was clear to Sturm that the Cyber-Naki were intent on recovering the icon from the myriad defenders, whose corpses were lying all around. Seven Cyber-Naki of the red type remained in the immediate vicinity, but none were coming.
      • Off in the distance, Jane saw a tall intact structure to the east with multi-colored glass from which a lot of the Cyber-Naki were coming. To the south, Jane detected a sanctuary to the south of a Master of the Grand Stair.
      • Sturm shot the outcropping above the lava-shooting Cyber-Naki and buried it under tons of stone.
      • Jane grabbed the icon with blinding speed and returns for cover.
        The Cyber-Naki that fell to the ground advance rapidly. They drew Eidolon enhanced swords and fired their kinetic weapons. The defenders abandoned their mech suits and tried to flee though the door, though it was closed again. There were no three empty mech suits.
      • Uther continued to draw their fire. He could see their their Eidolon Defense was focused to the front and detonated unexploded ordinance behind them and destroyed them.
      • The Cyber-Naki returned fire and slaughtered the unarmored former defenders. The team’s defenses protected them.
      • Cyra noted a magical presence in the drone the icon was on and took it and then took cover. Sturm determined that the drone had been flying around to prevent it from being targeted while sending its message.
        William strengthened reality and one side of the building reappeared and was strengthened against the incoming Cyber-Naki assault.
      • Assieh determined that the light inside the red Cyber-Naki has no trace of Umbra in them. She affected the environment around it to make it vulnerable.
      • Mena used Eidolon Mastery to make the liquid in it solid into a perfect statue, but she was unable to defeat its defense.
      • Mena’s eyes suddenly became perfect and her brain was overcome by sensory blindness. She sent Mindel to attack him physically.
      • Sturm sprinted to one end of the wall and saw the red one attacking Mena with an Eidolon beam, but did not appear to hit him. There was some tech protecting him, but the beam attack was suspended.
      • Uther assessed the escape options. He determined that he could reassemble the drone to affect the team’s escape from the engagement zone.
      • Jane retrieved the rifle that was next to the icon.
      • Cyra mind-blasted the red Cyber-Naki. It then restarted and began shooting at the incoming Cyber-Naki.
      • William perfected the red Cyber-Naki’s programming. Sturm saw the tiny light fly off toward the southeast toward the Grand Stair Master’s enclave.
      • Uther molded the downed drone into an escape vehicle. The team mounted and prepared to depart.
      • There was a massive explosion and a building falls on top of several of the incoming flyers.
      • They travelled to the enclave and found a bizarre, white temple blending Asian mythology of demons and such, bearing an image of Soto-sama.
      • Around the building was a moat contain the sculptures of myriad hands. The image said that speaking inside the building attracts the Cyber-Naki, but they do not want to damage the structure. The building has an almost perfect Eidolon presence. The only Umbra present was in the pit of the damned.
      • Uther hypothesized that there might be another door in the building. However he did not detect one.
      • Sturm stayed to defend Mena and Assieh.
      • Asssieh scryed impending danger.
      • Mena contacted Baudemagus and reported in. He identified the temple and suggested using the tech to contact other members of the cohort.
        Sturm detected the presence of an incoming cruise missile. He grabbed Assieh and Mena and dragged them into the building.
      • Uther saw the missile hit and convert everything in the blast zone convert into perfect dust. Then the little light flew off back to the southeast.
        Inside the temple are scenes of popular heroes fighting their nemeses. In the center of the building is a giant statue of a goddess where Buddha would normally be sitting. Mena advised being respectful of Kenti Iomenta, the Lady of Silence, a fifth stage Usari. She said that speaking within the temple attracted the cyber-naki.
      • Cyra hacked into the tech he took from the drone. She identified that it was being used to broadcast the message to any other icons.
      • Uther tried to send a message and determined that it was being blocked. But he did detect a brief presence. He detected no doors in the image he saw.
      • They went to one of the outbuildings to talk. They discussed options.
        From the top of the pagoda, they could see a flashing neon sign to the west saying “the Paralax” with an arrow pointing to a stair going down to a nightclub. To the direct south was an amusement park where some of the rides were still functioning. To the east was a large body of water with an aquarium and a water park on the top of the plateau. Most of the surroundings look like a battle zone except for these things.
      • Sturm hypothesized that a retreating army would go to the nightclub as it was underground.
      • According to the maps, there was a market south of the amusement part, but there was a symbol next to it in an unknown language. They speculated that the aquarium might be used to grow food, that the amusement park indicated a functioning power source.
      • Cyra prepared her spells and teleported the three mech suits back to the temple complex. She noted a figure observing the suits before taking them. Then she hacked the systems. She heard a repeating message through the comm systems stating that a male speaker named Jonathan had been captured and was being held in the basement of the Hydrasteel building. She assessed the authenticity of the message and determined that the frequency used was recognized by the suits as authentic from the legion.
      • Jonathan was the name of the cadet Uther had recognized from the door.
      • Cyra replied to the message and asked to report his condition. Jonathan said that he was able to voice activate his comm unit and send the message, but that he was bound and that it was otherwise dark. He asked what happened to his squad. When asked of they normally take prisoners, he said that they used the prisoners for organic parts. He said that it was not normal to bring prisoners to the Hydrosteel building.
      • Cyra followed the transmission and located the mech suit, which was located at the location of the Hydrosteel building and a level below Jonathan.
      • The mech suit had an escape plan programmed in. It appeared to be prepared by Soto-sana. It warned against making rescue attempts, but attempted anyway, to use the subbasement. The same message was found in the suits the team had acquired.

The Team:

Oberleutnant Sturm von Krieg the warrior (Joab)
William Edwalton the scientist (Greg)
Jane Edwalton the explorer (Jenna)
Mena the traveler (Stephanie)
Uther the gatherer (Dave)
Cyra the sorceress (Mike)
Assieh the demi-goddess (Miranda)