Zhiyu-Ji Djinn, Campaign Notes
Episode 11
The secondary objective of the five Abyssals was to kill milord Kino, as he was in this time, before his exaltation. We decided to prevent this, but we were over 1600 miles from where milord’s past self currently was, at his old temple. The fastest way we could cross this distance – since milord realised that they were likely to attack him in only two weeks, at a time and place where he remembered having been attacked mysteriously – was for me to travel by flying over the mighty jungle that was between us and our destination. We could then use milord Theo’s shared-dream spell to bring the others to my location.
I carried the drugged unconscious Ashen Lotus of Destruction (ALD) with me and arrived at the isolated temple where I met Master Ozymandus, who gave me the hospitality of his temple and shelter for the night. I explained away my captive by telling him as much truth as I felt I could: he was a notorious killer, and my companions and I were hunting his companions. That night the others joined me, as planned.
We spoke as a group to Ozymandus, and milord Kino revealed himself (and us) to be from the future, wishing to protect the present Kino.
Note: From now on milord Kino, the one that came from the future with us, shall be referred to as future-Kino, and the Kino we have travelled to protect shall be known as past-Kino. This shall hopefully avoid confusion.
We took past-Kino in a covered wagon, driven by milord future-Kino who, as the only occupant visible, was a decoy – the stalking Abyssals would hopefully only see him. We travelled into mountainous terrain for five days.
While camped for the night, a dagger was thrown at milord future-Kino, tearing his throat but not delivering a fatal blow as he almost precognitively moved out of the direct path of the weapon, saving himself. Milord Carlos returned fire with a golden shot from his gun, while I was proving unable to determine the source of the attack. Then the wagon burst into black, sorcerous flames, forcing us to abandon it. We had to leave the captive ALD there as we did so, to suffer the fate intended for us.
The flames had been raised by a dark-haired man in flowing black robes – some kind of Necromancer, by the look of him – but he had given himself away by using a large amount of essence to attack us. I launched myself into the night sky and swooped out of the darkness at this enemy, sword in hand. He must have seen my approach, or more likely heard it, as he brought his bare hand up and knocked my strike aside. This did not save him from milord future-Kino’s attack, however, in which he was cut to pieces by a frenzied series of blows.
Seeing the arrival of First and Foremost of the Pride (F&FP), who was charging towards milord Carlos, we realised they were all here. I picked up ALD from the ruin of the wagon. F&FP was making mincemeat of milord Carlos, so I bowled ALD at his boss, momentarily distracting him while I plucked milord Carlos into the sky and got him clear of the deathknight.
We regrouped and outpaced the Abyssals. Come the dawn, we found ourselves near a city, which we made our way towards. It was then that a mysterious vision passed over us…
A black-clad figure with cat-like eyes spoke with F&FP. Between them they decided the time had come to return to the time they had left, as they had succeeded at their primary objective and failed at their secondary. They used their machina, and vanished.
We delivered past-Kino to his destination. Thus, although things did not happen exactly as milord future-Kino remembers, the broad outline of the events that occurred for him has remained. And if we have been left here by our opponents, it may be that, unhindered by them, we can undo what they have done with regards to their “primary objective,” and make things happen as close to our history as we can…
Episode 12
My point of view, that it was our task to act as agents preserving history, countering our opponents who were agents of change, was accepted by the others and the decision was taken to travel to Thorns and see how much of their interference we could undo. Our work was cut out for us, as the city had been levelled.
We examined our options. They seemed to be to either attempt to restore the city to its former status, or attempt to prevent our opponents from capitalising on their success – if we could get rid of the shadowland, then F&FL would have gained nothing in destroying Thorns, since he would be unable to march his army through into the real world, which had been the goal of our opposite numbers. Since there was no way we could guarantee restoring Thorns to its previous “glory;” we could reconstruct the buildings and walls, perhaps, but not restore its army or the Mask of Winters’ magical protections or things of that ilk, we thought to try the second option.
Milord Theo reckoned it was within his power to destroy a shadowland with powerful sorcery, but he would need to learn such techniques and had no books. That gave me the idea – our manse-city was missing the books on sorcery its library was supposed to contain, despite nobody else having been inside since the beginning of the first age of the world. Perhaps it was/is/will be the time-travelling us that removed them?
We got into the tunnel via the river-gate, and walked down to the barrier that denotes the edge of the manse’s power. We were blocked at first, but the barrier opened in response to our force of will. We passed into the dark, lifeless city, and then went to attune ourselves to our home. After this, we encountered a guardian spirit barring our way into the library, claiming (without offering any evidence, I have to add) to have been sent by a Maiden of Heaven to prevent us from accessing the library. He told us that we should instead travel to Rathess and search there for what we sought.
This didn’t seem like such a bad plan, since it would also offer us the opportunity to check on the hidden army of automata without the risk of Infernal Exalted getting involved. So we set off for Nexus, from which to get a ship up the Grey River to Chaing-Dav, on the way to Rathess. We attached ourselves to an expedition from Chaing-Dav for the final part of the journey. Though we intended to explore separately from the others, we would camp together for protection.
The previously unopenable doors to the vault of the automata swung open at our touch and we entered the workshop. The second set of doors opened at the very presence of all five of us. It was a 20ft thick gate of indestructible, magical metals. We all agreed it was nigh impregnable. Beyond lay ten thousand giant, silent automata and their weapons, arrayed in perfect ranks in a sight that took my breath away. Truly this army would be invincible, if it ever walked upon the face of the earth.
We spent the rest of the day assisting milord Carlos in his detailed examination of one of the machines.
The next day we began searching manses for books of lore and sorcery. In the centre of the city sits a giant pyramid, which we detected was a manse. With no doors visible from the ground, we climbed to the top and gained entrance that way. We descended into a cathedral to the Sun God, which occupied the interior. There were many side rooms, among them was a library. Milord Theo went straight to work researching within it, with milord Kino assisting him in his work. With nothing to do but wait for them to complete their task, which they expected to take several weeks, myself, milord Carlos and milady Endless Brine decided to explore the city and take anything we thought was worth looting, er, I mean liberating.
On one of the days that we were occupied with that activity, milord Carlos detected the presence of something evil in a building we had entered. We searched for it, but it evaded us until it managed to flee the building. Out in the open, it began moving very quickly. Milord Carlos stopped to try and begin a debate about what we should do, but I realised there was no time for that. I took to the air and was almost able to keep up with the man we were pursuing – a sinister individual in black, probably a deathknight (given our past experiences of them) – but he clearly possessed a good knowledge of the layout of the city, losing me in a maze of side-streets. We did not see him again.
Eventually, milord Theo finished his researches and we left Rathess with the expedition.
We returned to the ruin of Thorns. Some deathknights appeared to have set up camps with some two thousand or so people as a workforce to begin the rebuilding of the city. We disguised ourselves to fit in, and inserted ourselves into the camp. These were, as we suspected, the survivors of the destruction of Thorns. They feared greatly the return of the Abyssals that had demolished their city.
Thus, we began spreading rumours of their return to “finish the job.” This caught, and the populace split between those who wished to stay and those who wished to flee. We encouraged them to side with those who were advocating fleeing, until that party was the majority. Milady Endless Brine, at the peak of their fear of the return of F&FP and his minions, decided to start fires a few miles to the south. This action caused a mass panic, beyond what we had expected or hoped to achieve, and everyone fled. I, and the others, tried to maintain some degree of order in the flight, but we were struggling against a force that was out of our control. Regrettably, there were some casualties among the men, women and children.
The three deathknights remained in the ruins of Thorns. We killed them, and so Thorns was cleared of opposition. Milord Theo was then free to conduct his ritual undisturbed.