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| Khut’s feeling… Rather upset that Naquim Blackhand still draws breath… |
Hulagu
Human Relations #10: “It’s My Turn” – Dealing with Anger
Void Sept
Fireeyes
Hook: The Dolmens
In finding the HMB breeding grounds, we have camped in the blasted wilderness…
Additional food is hard to come by…
The camp digs in in muted, sullen silence…
Scouts indicate that the Nihil Sept is nearby to the East…
Chinua informs us that the Void Sept has cut off retreat to the south…
Led by Orbghuz Ironcrown (BWAHAHAHAHAHA)…
Ellen-Dear is meditating with the Yaghuth…who ‘OM’ like foghorns…
He sees a vision of a city…inhabited…at a distance…
Creatures with long, pale hair…
Long-necked like a giraffe…with tall twisted horns…
On its back is a twisted, moving cage like an orrery…
A second later he sees an endless rainforest as far as the eye can see…
And a sense of devistating loss…
Barruk wakes up to a snarl of challenge…and two burning Nohai eyes in the darkness…
Black fur and slavering teeth leaping for his throat…
Fireeyes! (isn’t he dead?)
Barruk rises, shaking his head slowly…
“You really want to do this?”
And Fireeyes gets the horns…and his teeth shatter…
Barruk wakes (for real)…with his hammer burning in his hands…
Oh look…the hammer is Sentient…and thinks that its Fireeyes…
We’re surrounded…again…so…LET’S THROW A PARTY!
We bust out the fatted Holy Mountain Beast…roasting on spits the size of trees…
Massive bonfires are lit…
The music is…complicated…
Yaghuth droning…under warbler melodies, nohai yipping, and steppe chants…
Rust appears at the edge of the camp and scouts call us over to meet some…guests…
We go to greet the emissaries…
In the valley below is a large camp of black felt tents…Steppefolk tents…
Tattered black flags fly in the wind and ranks of soldiers stand ready…
Rust stands with some black-clad folks…
Starts yapping about how we are brazen and over-bold…
Then a big, scarred orc calls for Vadim’s head on a pike…
Orbghuz Ironcrown and Naquim Blackhand are here…
They’re here to discuss a truce?
REALLY?
They want to join our Ordu…under our Yasa…
And only want freedom of religion for it…
We call a council of war to talk it over with Hoargrim…
There is a long…long talk about whether or not to accept them…
We’ve stolen beasts, stolen troops, stolen cities…
What keeps us from stealing a god?
The answer to monotheism is synchrotism…
There is some worry about splitting the camp…meh…
Khut: “We’re going about this all wrong…
We’re much too sober to make these kinds of decisions…”
We call the vote and 9 to 4, decide to let them in…
AND it becomes one hell of a party…
Families are re-united…Hellhorns and Black Crows and Drowned River coming together..
Including a whole bunch of Black Crow shamans who quickly join us…
Casting off their black cloaks…and letting Squee paint their faces…
Squee starts up some arts and crafts with the new children…
They tie-die some robes…
Ithunn points out to grumpy parents about the freedom of religion clause…
Ithunn takes the Amazons out for a training exercise…
Khut calls out Naquim…and gets cock-blocked by Giggles…
Because there are no challenges during the party…REALLY?
So Khut challenges Naquim to a smoke-off…and kicks his ass…
Ellen-Dear and Sorq get the magelings to put on a firework display…
And set some trees on fire…and put them all in contact with the spirits…
There is acrid tension and hatred in the air…
Both the old mothers and the black crow shamans jump into some cutting…
The rights take a turn even a bitter darker than Sorq is used to…
Ado has a chat with Altan about acquiring large swathes of black silk…
And makes some silk shirts for the troops…
Vadim and Barruk team up with some Fertility priests…
AND casts AWAKEN on MORVA THE ANCIENT HOLY MOUNTAIN BEAST!
Vadim clambers up by Morva’s ear and tells him the story of our beasts…
“You would like to charge your enemies, yes?”
“I suggest stepping on them…”
And Barruk steps in to discuss getting the beasts to partner with riders…
Getting Morva to tell them to “Stay still, at first”…
And Barruk spends a lot of time encouraging “Trampling” as an idea…
He might need some apples…
Rust starts moving among the people “doing good works”…
Reuniting families, managing strained relations from the splits, etc.
Khadagan and Hundreds go off to work on his armor some more…
Crushing some purple lotus to make a dye to colour the whole thing…
The wings are woven out of purple lotus fabric…
With thread-of-gold insect-like traceries…
A flaming circle of gold is etched in the chest…
Anything that bites him must save or be blind or deaf…
And the wearer is deeply terrified of the colour pink…
Squee: “We need exposure therapy!”
Iron-Dear goes off to spend some quality time with her spear-tusk…
Everyone dances the evening away (or meditate as appropriate)…
Everyone is stuffed with meat and fermented mare’s milk…
Khut and Khadagan notice that someone has been raiding our store of apples…
It is definitely not that Malik-shaped person hoofing it through the darkness…
There is also a light dusting of fade-cancer spores over all the plants…
We are hauled out of our sleep in the middle of the night by a hubbub…
Khut wakes up beside a passed-out Naquim Blackhand…
Urinates on him before catching up with the others…
Where Petrana and the Tradestoners have assembled an unofficial constabulary…
Yelling at a stone-faced woman standing unbuding in the middle of the yurts…
An angry crowd is gathering…
And the three biggest troublemakers find themselves Held by Sorqutani…
The fight ends before it starts…Petrana explains…
There was a scream from a yurt…
Belonging to a black crow soldier and his estranged wife…
AND Iron-Dear is in the tent, as usual…
A burly man in Empty Circle robes lies bleeding on the ground…
Raised bands on his arms…like nettle stings…
Rust convinces the woman to let us in to have a chat…
Ado modifies the woman’s memory to grant her perfect clarity…
She tells us her husband gave her a gift brought back from the EC…
A forged golden nail on a silk chord around her neck…
She smelled something like burning gulchberries…Madcackleweed…
Her head swam…heard whispering speech, then grinding noises…
Rust points out that the golden nail is a popular symbol among the converted…
The golden nail that pins the sky to the home of the gods…
Which rotates around the seven-starred constellation of the great bear…
Barruk blesses the nail and tells her to keep it as a memento of her husband…
Sorq finds the scuffed-out traces of a ritual circle…
And his head has a hole bored in it…death by trepanning…
Khadagan also finds traces of a paralytic toxin…
Green Lotus…the really rare, good stuff…
Khut looks at the nettle-welts…
Not nettles…precision work with a very fine whip…
Then does an autopsy on the body, head, brain…
Which is more like field dressing, but whatever…
Inside the mouth he finds a black crust…
Which Khad identifies as mutated fade-cancer spores…
Ithunn points out a neat curlycue of smoke rising from the fire…
AND raises the alarm…
There is a cracking sound…and an arrow materializes and cuts one of Ithunn braids…
AND another arrow is in the air from Khut’s bow…Ithunn tries to deflect it…
AND there is a surprised ‘Meow’…and a Pasht falls off of a tent…
Ithunn has a nice chat with the Pasht (Sarafesht)…who she owes a favor…
Apparently someone has taken a contract out on us…
Apparently they want the ones in our camp to be delivered to them…
One of those ones is the mother of one of their best assassins…
But is obscenely overly attached to her offspring…
Who is the one who is going to kill us apparently…
They take contracts to protect their homeland’s sovereignty and independence…
Vadim goes down on all fours and sniffs…a faint waft of incense and the Fade…
Barruk puts the scouts and mage-corps on alert for possible Old Empire intrusion…
Sorq brings in the coven…It’s time to smoke up…
“We’re like the super-dark version of the powerpuff girls”
The three sisters share a creepy meal…and their eyes turn creepy-green…
AND…we are standing in a lush, verdent forest with gray-green leaves…
The delusional dream-elf-twins notice…something…like we’re being watched…
And Vadim catches the very very faint scent of incense…
Khut and Iron-Dear take point…
We find a valley with an arcane circle with alien, old imperial ideoglyphs…
And a quartet of cloaked figures gathered around a twitching, bound body…
Arandyr creeps up to investigate…
And realizes that the valley isn’t really there…
A precipitous cliff dropping away into nothing…
And the hooded figures are looking directly into a mirror in their hands…
Creepy old imperial with long tongues with eyes on the ends…
Khut launches some arrows, which bounce off some suddenly raised shields…
Ithunn and Barruk go leaping in…with similarly ineffective results…
Khadagan follows and manages to sink its claws into one…
Then Squee makes them blurrily pink coloured…
Vadim’s cackles show up and tear into them…pulling one down…
Ellendear animates some little rock monsters to join the grand melee…
They try to telekinetically fuck up Vadim and Iron-Dear, but Ellendear shuts them down…
And Sorq treats us to a brand new kind of fire…immolating one…
Ado vanishes in a puff of purple smoke and appears in the melee as well…
They hammer us with mind blasts, stunning several…
Mostly Khut and Khadagan…who stand there for a long time doing nothing…
Rust runs to clear the blast radius…
Then one raises a Wall of Force between them and the cliff…
Iron-Dear appears and knifes one…and it dies…
Sorq drops a fireball on everyone…
One of them is blown strait off the cliff…
Then Ado…who had just been standing there…stabs one…
With a dagger…which pricks it…AND
Simultaneously mind-fucks it and inflicts a contagion…
Ithunn kicks one’s head clean off…
Squee drives the last one mad…and he gets eaten by the cackles…
And the author said, “This is good, this thing I have done.” And he went for lunch and a drink. And it was good!
- From the ramblings of Khut
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