In the Prison
While the injured recovered, Mena spoke with Soto-sama. The families and most of the guards made it through to the destination world. Mena asked in Soto-sama could identify the Cyber-Lady. She replied that she had joined the Legions very young, and when she had returned from time to time, she never gave much thought to Fierce since it was an out of the way, rustic place whose magic only worked locally. Mena asked Soto-sama what her intentions were. She replied that she would probably remain on Fierce to help free it from the Cyber-naki, siting that if she left, she would probably be arrested by Drake.
Mena asked how many factories Soto-sama was aware of. She replied that she was not aware of any factories, but from what Mena had described, it was probably dependent on the artifact that they had handed off to Baudemagus.
At the Castle
Cyra tried to identify who the Cyber-Lady was. She was clearly not a Warden of Master of the Grand Stair as she could not leave Fierce. She was somewhere in the power scale between Cyra and her mother. Cyra was unaware of any sorcerers known to the Gossamer Lords that were missing.
Jane rested and maintained her connection with the dragon. Having killed the kaiju, there was plenty of kaiju meat for it to eat without any ill effects. The dragon was probably sleeping.
Cyra monitored the kaiju tracking system, but there were no new sightings. She then arranged, communicated in code, to meet at the hotel.
Outside the Prison
Mena, William and Sturm started for the police station to prefect a vehicle, and Cyra created a psychic link to them and teleported them to the hotel.
At the Hotel
Once together, Uther brought everyone up to speed with the activities at the doors. Then they teleported to Morholt’s domain to hide from the Cyber-Naki.
In Morholt’s Domain
They found the dragon passed out on the front lawn. The went to the front foor and asked the ape butler if themaster was at home. He replied in the negative and then brought them all drinks.
Uther worked on creating more shotgun shells.
Mena tried to contact Baudemagus, but could not make the connection, so there was no way to make contact wth the outside without opening the sealed door. It was possible that Baudemagus was speaking with Drake about what they had discovered. It was agreed that neither Drake nor Baudemagus had intended for the teamto deal with the issues on Fierce. Their role was strictly intelligence gathering
While waiting for Baudemagus to make contact, they searched the castle for information. Jane searched the dragon cave for scrolls or other documentation. Sturm searched for diceless gaming among the D&D stuff. Jane found a costume in a almost sealed armoire, where it was protected from dirt wrapped in the plastic bag from the cleaners, with a foam head to protect the mask.
In Morholt’s study, they discovered a strange pair of Google Glasses with magical properties. William examined the glasses and also discovered a pair of contact lenses along the same lines that he was experimenting with but were not working. Cyra tried the glasses on after taking appropriate precautions. She easily got past the security, but suspected that the memory had been remotely wiped, leaving only some unidentified Icons behind. Cyra projected the Icons so the others could see them, and Mena recognized one as an ally.
They recognized Icons were for (his gaming group):
- Bastiano, the Empire Maker
- Finian, the administrator of Nexopolous
- A woman they referred to as Ravenclaw
- Sturm and Uther recognized the Commander of the Black Raven mercenary group composed of Msters of the Grand Stair who work for almost anyone along the lines of the Italian Mercenary Code.
- Cyra recognized the Icon of someone she encountered on the net, but did not know anymore about him.
- Jane and William recognized a Rumanian emigrant with an inherited medical involving blood.
- Mena recognized the Dwimmerlaik as an ally (but didn’t tell anyone)
William asked the ape valet if any of the Icon figures had visited the manor. He recognized the mercenary captain (Mordechai), the woman with dragon (Naya Alves), Ravenclaw (Victoria), and John Woo (Chow Xiamong) as visitors.
They tried making contact with Baudemagus again, but there was still no reply. Without direction from Baudemagus, they considered the consequences of their actions. Mena questioned how much their activities had caused events to happen. She also wondered if the Cyber-Lady had motivations independent of Morholt’s plans or in the absence of direction from him.
Suddenly, Uther and Jane sensed that the original door that they arrived on Fierce through was severed. They considered that Baudemagus had done in it, or that Drake had done it, and that Baudemagus could be in jeopardy or out of the picture. Fortunately, the team knew of another exit.
Uther tried making contact with Baudemagus again, but there was still no reply. It was not being blocked, but no one was answering. Cyra tried making a security hole through the block, but determined that if she did, the whole block would collapse like a bubble. The fact that Baudemagus was not answering could mean that he was dead, or just not available.
Sturm proposed that it was time to leave Fierce before they were trapped there. They considered their position. Offiically, they had just helped a whole bunch of branded traitors to escape from the sealed world of Fierce. It was unclear who even knew they were on Fierce and what they had accomplished.
They considered establishing a method by which the remaining Eidolon would be released, however, their research determined that they would need significantly more concentrated Eidolon than was available.
They considered taking over Morholt’s domain for themselves. Only a few people knew about it, and only and handful could even find it. Fierce was not a well known world and had little that was attractive to outsiders since its magic did not work outside of Fierce.
Based on their deliberations the options were to either eliminate eight billion Cyber-Naki, or to eliminate the Cyber-Lady. Cyra suggested creating Eidolon Release Bombs and dropping them all over the world to eliminate small units of Cyber-Naki and annoy the Cyber-Lady. However, Soto-sama pointed out that the Cyber-Lady walked through their forces easily in the last battle, and as a fairly powerful sorcerer, she would probably show up wherever they acted pretty quickly.
Uther suggested attacking to draw off the Cyber-Lady so someone could sneak into the Hive and poke around.
Cyra suggested that the Cyber-Lady took on the Eidolon voluntarily and was somehow invested in the plans.
Jane suggested that the Anno-naki was a prisoner, and that its interests were they same as theirs: to reassemble itself and leave. She suggested that they could possibly use the Anno-naki in the Jaeger to fidn a back door into the Cyber-Lady. Uther suggested that there may not be enough Eidolon in the Jaeger for the Anno-naki to be sentient.
They recalled that the only things the Cyber-Naki did not attack were the Jaeger and the Temple. Sturm suggested getting the Anno-Naki into the Temple. Of all the things encountered on Fierce, the Jaeger was closest to perfection. Cyra suggested that the Eidolon Masters create something else more perfect to attract the Eidolon. Mena suggested making multiple perfect recepticles to distribute the concentrated Eidolon and prevent the kaiju from attacking.
They noted that the Jaeger was almost natural in its perfection. Cyra researched and learned that Araki Taizo had created the Jaeger, but the background information that she discovered was probably fabricated. She hypothesized that they may have had some common training or teachers in the past.
Cyra proposed going off-world, contacting Akari Taizo, and contracting him to create a perfect recepticle to attract the Eidolon. William suggested just fixing the Jaeger. Uther determined that the Cyber-Lady had returned to the Hive, and that the Jaeger was stationary at the Nuclear Power Plant.
In the end:
- The notion of transplanting the Anno-naki into another recepticle was abandoned, so the contacting the Jaeger creator plan was postponed.
- Locating Baudemagus could prove both beneficial and detrimental.
- Contacting the gaming group could help locate Morholt, but doing so was of questionable benefit. They could potentially describe what had happened on Fierce in more detail, if they could be convinced to do so.
- Determining the team’s current status had some merit.
- Stealithily investigating the Hive while the Cyber-Lady was distracted had merit as well.
Soto-sama intervened to say that, knowing Drake, he would either be pleased to learn what the team had discovered, or to be displeased that his orders were not obeyed and seal off the door. Soto-sama also mentioned that before he was a Gossamer Lord, Drake was a king and used to being obeyed. They needed to inquire as to Baudemagus’ status from someone in the Legions. Uther’s uncles was the commander of another legion, but he did not have an Icon for him.
It seemed that solving the local problem on Fierce had the most value. Mena was in favor of that. Sturm was willing to be that distraction. Cyra suggested that leaving Fierce and cutting the door was another option. It was Drake’s plan from the beginning. But Jane countered that Baudemagus’ intent was to redeem Soto-sama and her legion, and abandoning Fierce was a last resort. She supported the infiltration plan.
William proposed that he, with the aid of perfect translation technology, infiltrate the Hive through the loading dock and the elevator shaft while the others create a distraction to draw out the Cyber-Lady.
They were considering whether the Cyber-Lady still had the ability to implant Eidolon without the artifact. This was a concern because they wanted to protect the knowledge of the back door and the Masters of the Grand Stair from her, and that was consequential in determining who participated in the infiltration, the distraction, or stayed in concealment.
Cyra suggested creating two doors on a room that linked to each other and charging the dragon with carrying it around. The dragon was invulnerable, so it would keep the Cyber-Naki occupied for a while. That way if the room was captured it would have not impact. Uther and Jane would remain in Morholt’s domain under concealment. Cyra, Mena, William and Sturm would infiltrate.
Soto-sama suggested send the room in a specific place with the dragon, then teleporting the Stair Master to it, creating the doors, and then teleporting the Stair Master back to Morholt’s domain. Then the infilitration force would be teleported to the Hive. To facilitate the plan, Cyra and Jane rode the dragon out over the ocean to lcoate an optimal location and get familiar with it so he could teleport there later.
At the Hive
The plan worked. The Hive was successfuly infiltrated through the underground loading dock. The Cyber-Lady was distracted by diversion. In the penthouse there was a glass pool that hanged out over the edge of the building. It was nicely decorated and well appointed. William located an Icon of Drake, Lord of the Falling Wall, in the form of an action figure. Soto-sama later admitted that she had made it and it was stolen. They also found three icons of different Dwimmerlaik. There were also documents in several languages that they could not identify, even with Warden ability. They took them.
Cyra noted security devices about the penthouse and they decided to review the security tapes and remove ny evidence of their presence. They perfected the airshafts and made their way to the security office, where Sturm eliminated any opposition. Cyra then downloaded everything and eliminated any records for the past several hours. Then they rescued the renegade prisoner and returned to Morholt’s domain.
In Morholt’s Domain
They debriefed the renegade. They removed the tracking chip from him and then teleported it to the flooded nightclub.
They shared the undecipherable letters with Soto-sama to see if she could read them. She could not. They then shared the Dwimmerlaik icons, but Soto-sama had no insights into them either.
Mena recalled from her past researches a writing in Kale’s journal that speaks of Mobray the Pale Heirophant, an ancient Dwimmerlaik reminiscent of one of the icons. Mobray was considered the primarch of the Dwimmerlaik religion. Jane suggested that this was proof of Dwimerlaik involvement on Fierce. Cyra added that this provided evidence that the Cyber-Lady was more directly involved and possibly was using Morholt to achieve their plans.
Wiliam consulted the book and was adversely affected, but recognized the language as the Dwimmerlaik script. The writer was a disciple of Mobray who was captured by Morholt. He would have lost control of the artifact had he not converted her. The documentation was a written account of her experience. She referred to herself as a gifted sorcerer, channeler and artificer.
So the Cyber-Lady was both a victim and an enemy. They inferred from the documents that the Cyber-Lady had no idea of the Anno-Naki’s intentions. However, it was an amazing opportunity and she loved being able to command eight million man army. She had written about everyone on the team, was facinated by something called Erebus and curious as to how the team had summoned it because she did not know that they had true names. And she was also frustrated that should could not locate the artifact.
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)