My Dinner with Ghengis...
We're in Xanadu
Ja'Lin's malik seneschal explains that Ja'lin's dad is trying to decide
which of his four sons should bear the banners of empire
Ja'lin is (of course) the youngest, least experienced, most academic one
He wants our help to let Ja'Linget the one-up on his older brothers
We head to the baths to get ready...except Khut (who hides)...
because why would anyone want to be wet all over on purpose?
Giant roman-style baths
Fire and Ice spirits bound to make the caldarium and frigidarium
Six evil mer-monsters with big harpoons burst out of the pools
Just as everyone is getting naked...
Ado stuns them all with some pretty feathers floating in the air...
We kick their asses...
Mostly by lots of Khut, Khad, Ithunn, and Barruk...
knocking, throwing, kicking, bull-rushing them into the hot/cold
and Squee driving them insane...
and Ithunn grabbing one by the head and holding it under...
in the pool closest to the Ice spirit...
freezing it solid...
and Vadim and Khad playing tug of war to tear one in half...
AND free Updon Telegon (the spirit mother of fire)...
and accidently drop her into a pool of freezing water...
banishing her...
And then we get all gussied up to go hob-nobbing...
While everyone else is dressing, Khut has some mer-monster sushi...
We are led off to dinner by some steppefolk women
strange women with dark-dark skin and red-tinged tusks...
We see the three princes...
Prince Jamushka is attended by lots of big heavy-set brutal killer types...
no intelligence, no imagination...
Prince Baijou, emaciated with a big scary staff...
attended by paper-pushers and number-crunchers behind him...
Prince Subotai, old, fat, carried in an ornately-carved wheelbarrow,
with strangely nondescript attendants...
We bust in and make a big entrance...
Barruk (big malik champion that he is) definitely gets their attention...
Khadagan walks in also looking big and bad...
with a big-teeted malik serving-lady on his arm...
Prince Subotai is very pleased (by the threat?!)...
and clearly not as drunk or incompetent as he looks.
Squee rocks in, wearing a big feather headdress,
and makes friends with Ghengis Khan...
Who reaches down, draws Squee up into his lap...
and proceeds to hold court...
And she starts braiding his beard...
Ado fluffs up and wheedles over to General Baijou...and invites him to tea...
And makes suggestions that they should band together against Subotai...
And Baijou calls for some very weak, almost clear, tea...
Breaks Like Wind slides in obsequiously and starts collecting people's shoes
and passing out silk slippers...heading to Subotai first...
Subotai's are certainly not in need of changing
but Breaks is there right as some wine is spilled on the shoes...
And he reads the lines on the bottom of Subotai's foot-palm...
his lifeline is extraordinarily long, continuous, and strong...
Khut skitters in hiding under Ja'Lin's trailing robes...
then rolls under Jamushka's table...
his men are wasted, distracted by ladies, and stink of fresh blood...
As Ja'lin walks in, there is not a place set for him...
Vadim controls Ja'Lin's plants...
causes a table and mushroom-cushions to appear...
Then...there is food...
Whole roast warbler with all feathers replaced...
Whole roast hellpig braised only in sea-grass...
A thunderbird crafted out of ice, each feather dyed, infused with sugar...
Landshark egg-drop soup...which Breaks and Barruk get the recipe for...
Whole roast thunderbird, each scale and feather replaced in place...
Baijou appears to eat...but doesn't touch anything...
And several people start looking severly ill...
Haunch of gorgon...whole roast gorgon legs...
AND Khut laces Jamushka's food with badberry...
AND Vadim (legit poisoned) projectile vomits on Baijou...
AND Jamushka ends up on hands and knees emptying his guts...
Then the Storytelling...
Vadim tells the story of battling the sorcerer atop the Thunderbird nest...
While brandishing the horns of the Malik sorcerer...
and the thunderbird scale shield...
One of Jamushka's goons starts to heckle...
then REALLY needs to go to the restroom (thanks to Khut)...
Ithunn tells the story of the burning of the Remembrance of Yaguth...
with a performer's flair...
Everyone laughs at the ridiculousness...except Genghis...
Barruk stands up, taking the Malik sorcerer's horns...
and laying down a Zone of Truth...
And tells the tale of the assault on the Malik sorcerer's camp...
And his acting as the bait to draw the Gorgon stampede...
Breaks Like Wind...appears out of no where...
and tells them that he's looked THROUGH the mirror...
AND the whole room is silenced...
Khadagan laces a brazier with mad-cackle weed...
"Let me tell you about how I met my wife..."
AND even the worst hecklers are spell-bound...
Squee, still in the Khan's lap...speaks up saying "I'm fun-sized"...
and tells the story of coming from a pink castle on a purple moon...
and how the queen sent her on a mission to "collect shiny things"...
IN A ZONE OF TRUTH...
And the party is completely baffled, amazed, dumbfounded...
Quothe Khadagan: "This is madness!"
Quothe Squee: "This is squee!"
AND Ado is up...
he thanks Baijou for the tea...
warns Ja'Lin that he may need to render Ado unconscious at the end...
And tells the story of his encounter with the undead warblers...
and his trip to the fade...
Baijou looks horrified/guilty...
Subotai looks cool...
The Khagan looks shaken...
AND stabs himself in the left-eye with a cursed arrow...
AND hands the cursed arrow to Ja'Lin's second-ranked Malik seneschal...
AND the room goes deathly quiet...
then erupts into booing and hissing, except the Khagan...
AND Sorqutani tells the story of the spirit, the Mother of Fire...
with lots of special effects...
AND turns into a potted plant?!
Quothe Khadagan:
"Next time [she] turns into a plant, I am going to deflower her."
AND a voice echos out from under the tables...
"Once, I walked into the feast of the great khan himself...
and poisoned his sons, and stood before him...and was gone"
AND KHUT stands up, unwashed, right in front of Ghengis...
and meeps away and is swiftly hidden again...
THEN
Subotai tells the story of "The Cattle-Raid of Oolan Baatar"...
to a whole lot of heckling from the professional cattle rustlers...
But he carries it on with his expert oratory...
Baijou tells of the taking of Val-Ashem,
riding on the backs of thunderbirds, burning the city with lightning...
Which is actually kindof cool...
Squee realizes that Ghengis is going to pit the two "winners" in a death-match...
Next Time: The final story of Jhamoushka Khan...
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