At the Academy

Cyra, Mena, Mindel and Uther were possessed by the spell eaters.  Jane knocked Cyra out.  William used Eidolon to restore Mena.  Mindel gouged Williams eyes.  Uther activated his shotgun and shot a destructive damage plasma shell at William.  Sturm destabilized the reality of the spell eaters and cleared the room, except the ones possessing Mindel, Cyra and Uther. The one jumped from Cyra to William.  Mena perfected Wiliam back to normal health and destroyed the spell eater.  Mindel attacked Mena.

William perfected Uther back to normal health and destroyed the spell eater.  Jane perfected Mindel back to normal health and destroyed the spell eater.  Mena perfected herself back to health.

Then they disabled all the wards at the vault and opened it.  Inside was a lone professor and several frightened students.  The casket led them to an icon card of Lady Kitabu where a student had been sleeping.  Sturm noted that a child was missing.  The teacher identified him as James Kitabu, Lady Kitabu’s son.  The thread was leading to the icon.  Cyra collected him.  He said that the last time he contacted his mother, everyone went crazy. 

Cyra probed James’ mind and determined that he had attempted to contact his mother and was possessed into releasing the ward and allowing access to a horde of spell eaters that was waiting.  Mena convinced James to contact his mother.  He wanted Jane to speak to her first.  Jane was unable to make contact.  Cyra was unable to locate her with Wayfinding.  James mentioned that if she was in the back office, she would not pick up.  Jane returned the icon to him.  The thread had stopped.

Uther queried the professor on James Kitabu.  He said that Callius had sponsored him.  The professor said that the lich was now required to seek vengeance on whoever betrayed the school, and that was James.  Jane suggested reporting the situation of Vala.  Cyra recommended contacting Lucien as there was already an association with the academy.  

William contacted Lucien and informed him that the Last Walk brought them to Barrowborn’s academy, and that it was destroyed.  Only one teacher and 30 students were saved.  The headmaster was now insane.  Since Cyra was unable to restore Barrowborn, Lucien said he would contact Vala.  He suggested destroying Barrowborn’s body and forcing him to find a new body.  Lucien asked about Tsien’s daughter, and Sturm was able to determine that she had been the first one killed.  He suggested letting Baudemagus that his was daughter dead.

William asked Lucien if he could get Callius to remove a curse.  Lucien said that he would ask when he next saw Callius.

Mena left the academy and contacted Baudemagus.  She asked him to pull her through to inform him of his daughter Gwenboss’ death.  He was unaware that he had had a daughter.  He asked about the circumstances of her death.

They considered why Tsien was on everyone’s hit list.  The only thing that stood out was that she was the last survivor of the last Last Walk.  She had found something and was taken out.   The intent had been to have her disappear completely.  Now she was trying to communicate her discovery through her Last Walk.

They collected the Gwenboss’ body and preserved it until they could return it to Baudemagus.  Then they questioned the lich about Gossomer Lords who had attended the academy.  Vala had not, but Lucien had.  Lucien’s did not have a great appreciation of Gossomer.  However he absorbed any information, read every book, and liked to have and keep secrets.  

Lucien had sponsored Callius to attend.  Callius had been more social and optimistic,  but he only been a Gossomer Lord for about a century and did not have the baggage that the others carried.

Bastiano had not been teachable.  Dale had been his first student.

Mena asked what had been Tsien’s best feature.  Barrowborn said that she had been especially adept at dispelling wards.  In the mean time, William sought out. Student records and Jane per used the what was left of the libraries.   She found only one book intact, Cal’s Grimoire.  She gave it to Cyra.

More Details

The teacher told them that Gwenboss had wanted to transfer to the military academy, but that her mother blocked the transfer.  Two people had come to visit her recently:  Jäger Zane, a Gossomer Knight in the service of Lucien, and Taltos, a gifted Invoker alumni of the school.  Taltos had graduated about a year previous.  They were possibly in a relationship together.

They explored a relation ship between Jäger Zane and Gwenboss.  She was specializing in scrying, while he was an Invoker, so he was not mentoring her.  She was not close to her mother as she would not allow Gwenboss to transfer to the military academy.  Perhaps Jäger Zane was a go-between.

Sturm interrogated the headmaster.  Barrowborn said that Taltos carried a sword, Ximindir, forged in Hell made of poisoned iron, that gave off supernatural radioactivity.  Wounds from the sword did not heal and festered.  He took it from the Ghoul King Sczemyak when he killed him, along with a set of icons, in the Nightmare Kingdom.  Barrowborn hypothesized that Jäger Zane had been born in the Nightmare Kingdom and escaped only because the Stair favored him.  He was far more gifted at warfare than magic.  He was last known believed to be working as a wandering mercenary, who worked a freelance in exchange for True Names.

Finding Jäger Zane

They returned to Cyra’s domain to create a Jäger Zane icon.  Mena used it and contacted Jäger Zane.  He was busy piloting something and crashed.  The connection was lost.  William recognized that he was in the Tetsujin Shogunate.  Uther did not know if there was a thread from the casket leading to that world.  He used Wayfinding to identify a route to him.

They pursued the patron the Grand Stair.  They passed twenty doors before they came upon a pain white door with no indication of what lie beyond it, aside from a blood-flecked katana and a large, scaled brimstone-stinking hand on a stand in front of the door.  Jane examined that hand.  Sturm examined the katana and it attacked him.  Uther looked for traps and determined that there used to be some, but they were no longer present.  Jane determined that the had was from an Oni, one of the invader races.  They hypothesized that that sword was placed on the door to prevent anyone from escaping the world.

On Tetsujin Shogunate

Uther looked through the door and saw a battle zone.  Jane in strutted Sturm to go first.  He tried to kick in the door, but it did not work.  Uther opened the door.  Sturm walked out onto a field of battle from peasant’s shack.   There was a four armed giant robot in battle with a Monster Elder of the Oni.  Sturm determined that it was vulnerable to Eidolon.  Uther determined that Jäger Zane was not involved in the battle.  He was somewhere beyond the army of samurai aligned with the robot.  They were facing off against the village of Oni-descendants being protected by the Elder.

The Last Walk thread led to Edo Castle, which was in the distance.  The Wayfinding thread to Jäger Zane led in the opposite direction.  A pack of ninjas attacked.  Mena was stabbed.  Cyra was saved by Mordechai’s coat, Sturm killed three.  William killed two, Jane killed one, and Uther was engaged in a duel with one. Cyra teleported the team to the front door of the castle.  The samurai guards were surprised by their presence.

A pale Japanese man who appeared to be in charge appeared.  He wore golden samurai robes and a red sash, and walked with extreme grace.  Sturm said that they were sent by the Last Walk.   Sturm introduced himself.  The man introduced himself as Miyamoto Musashi.  The others introduced themselves.  Miyamoto said that he needed to talk to the Iron Shogun before they could enter since they did not know what they were looking for.  

Cyra cast a spell to locate Jäger Zane.  He proved to be in a place that disrupted sorcery.   Uther determined that there were only three Pscyhic presences in the castle.  All the rest were mundane.  Eventually, he messenger returned with the message allowing them to enter the castle to continue their quest.  The thread led down below the castle.  They passed through several high security doors that disturbed Miyamoto, eventually stopping at a mech bay.  The were two mechs there, Brother Golden Sun and Sister Sliver Moon.  

The casket led to the pilot of Sister Silver Moon.  The pilot was reluctant to participate.  She identified Tsien as a share-shifting cat and touched the casket with a wistful smile.  The pilot then produced a small pieces of Japanese clockwork featuring clocks and placed it on the chest.  It was composed of jade and some red stone.  The red stone reminded Uther of something.   Uther asked for an explanation of why they were brought there.  The pilot said that Tsien had been given it and told that someone would come to retrieve it.   It was a chess clock, and it matched Lucien’s chess set.

The pilot, Tomoe Gozen, did not know anything about the clock other than someone was going to come for it.  Mena examined the object with Eidolon.  William activated the clocks and two icons hidden within were revealed.  No one knew who they were.  They tried to get the telemetry of anger Zane’s last known position in the Sea of Japan.  They thought they knew where he was, and asked for a vehicle with which to retrieve him.  They were provided with a Raven mech, the smallest piece of junk they had.

Rescuing Jäger Zane

They located the remains of the mech on the shores of the Korean peninsula.  What ever had hit it had high concentrations of radiation and a strong electro-magnetic pulse.  Cyra used available information to follow the trail to the remains of the City of Peaceful Land, which was now a large crater.  All that was left was the Capitol of Willows Hotel.  There was a storm raging, and most of the crater was filled with water.   There was a large Psychic presence inside the hotel that overloaded  that overloaded all the sensors.

Wiliam perfected the mech to have gecko-like suckers on the landing skills and adhered to the sites.  Upon landing, they noted that the entire pyramid was shaking as if something inside was snoring.  Wayfinding indicated that Jäger Zane was down from their position.  They had the mech walk down until it was on the same level that the Wayfinding indicated.  There was an open lattice of girders there.  Cyra noted two massive Psychic presences.  They tried to contact Jäger Zane, but there was interference.

Following the Wayfinding Ito the building to note that the entire inside had been hollowed out and the giant Oni was asleep within.  Jäger Zane was also present in a large birdcage that was composed of alternating Eidolon and Umbra and floating in the air.   There was no apparent door.  Sturm determined that the Oni needed to eat large amounts of food.   The only apparent weakness was that it was difficult to maintain the Eidolon-Umbra balance.   He thought it might also be vulnerable to Zeolyte, a unique crystal compound available in Japan that could absorb radiation in water.

Sturm manipulated the Umbra to destabilize the balance to convert the cage to a normal cage.   Mena manipulated the Eidolon.  Sturm’s body was transformed into a chunk of black and grey carbon nanotubes.  His woo thing and possessions were no affected.  Mena discorporated violently. Except for her head, torso and right arm.  The cage started falling.  Cyra contacted Jäger Zane through his icon and teleported him to her position.  Jane and William grabbed Sturm.  Jäger Zane grabbed Mena, and they returned to the mech.  Mena stabilized her perfected her own Umbra and then passed out.  Uther made a link to the castle and they stepped through just before the mech was hit with radiated steam and vaporized.  

Sturm was composed of perfect carbon and unable to be prefected back to normal.  Jane searched his belongings and found his icon of Mother Girl.  Wiliam tried to contact her, but was unable to get through.  Jäger Zane suggested contacting Bastiano, the most powerful Umbra Master that he knew.  But he did not know how the cage was made as the dragon did not use Eidolon or Umbra.

Uther informed Jäger Zane that the Academy had been destroyed by Spell Eaters. William asked if he knew of anything she was working on.  He said that Gwenboss had been working on scrying parts of the Labyrinth, which would help him with his book.  Jäger Zane confirmed that Taltos was her boyfriend.   He said that he had been imprisoned on 626 for losing a bet with the djinni.

The team told him of their experiences on the Last Walk.  Their hypothesis was that Gwenboss saw something in the Labyrinth and that someone was out to protect that secret by killing anyone she might have told.  

The Team: 

  • 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)