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Winds of Vesperia
Into the lands of the fey! Into the lands of diseased trees, rock monsters, and snow! ...Wait, what?
[Kyn the GM sets the mood, as always.]
Kyn the GM: "Today's adventure will be epic. Or it will get you all killed. One or the other."
[We are all awakened as the ship rocks out of the stream.]
Tam: "Did we hit an iceberg or something?"
Captain Jason Keeneye: "That's closer to a yes than you might think."
[It turns out that we are just off the edge of Nieu-Bethesda... and also stuck in a blizzard.]
Ray: "This is the land of the summer court. I don't understand!"
Nessa: "It looks like winter is in season."
[The ship cannot fly through the blizzard. We decide to take an expeditionary force and go on foot.]
Amber: "Mika, you're about to expand your knowledge. Aren't you excited?"
Mika: (deadpan) "Of course, Magus."
[No one's quite sure why the blizzard exists at all. Amber theorizes it might be some sort of mythal.]
Kyn the GM: "If they can make mythals this big, you're fucked."
[After a number of fights in which several of our soldiers are injured and one is killed, we encounter a polar bear who transforms into a fey woman.]
Kyn the GM: "She's speaking sylvan. Who speaks it?"
Julie: "I speak tongues!"
[We return to our camp with the fey woman and her pack of wolves.]
Soldier: "Sir, how come every time you go out, you bring something back?"
Tam: "I like to surprise you."
[The fey woman, whose name is Selene, is the head of the Court of Leaves. She begins telling us the story of what has happened, but then stops because stories here have power, and if we listen to her tale, we'll be bound up in it.]
Amber: "On the one hand, we don't want to be bound here. On the other, we don't want to leave sixty elves to die in the snow, or worse."
Tam: "I disagree."
Ray: "...You want to leave them here?"
[Selene actually speaks an ancient form of human common. Which leads to exchanges like this.]
Senior Sergeant Vinh: "How old are you?"
Lady Selene: "I am as old as the trees."
Senior Sergeant Vinh: "So, a few hundred? A thousand?"
Lady Selene: "Not a tree. The trees."
[Selene takes us to her court, the last vestige of spring in a land consumed by winter. The next morning, we are offered breakfast, including who rabbits who gave their lives so we might eat.]
Tam: "Are you saying they walked in and willingly died?"
Ray: "To feed us, yes."
Tam: "...I'm not hungry anymore."
[Selene asks us to help her defeat the Bitter Tree, the source of much of the corruption in the forest. We agree to join her.]
Senior Sergeant Vinh: "So I'm gonna be punching a tree? I won't be very useful."
[Nessa has had a rough night dealing with her conscience and some questions that Tam has put to her. Amber, on the other hand, has other things on her mind.]
Nessa: "How are you feeling, Amber?"
Amber: "...I'm going to have a mage battle with a tree."
[We choose our companions.]
Kyn the GM: "Rabbitfoot wants to come."
Julie: "It's a suicide mission -- of course he does."
[We teleport past many of the obstacles between us and the Bitter Tree, and by complete luck Amber lands us in a place where there are no immediate threats and where all she has to do to attack the Bitter Tree is to push past its wall of dispel magic. She casts blight.]
Kyn the GM: "You feel it resist... but you're a captain of the fucking Mage Corps!"
[Yes, Amber manages to destroy the Bitter Tree with a single well-placed, perfectly executed spell.]
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "That was it?! That was the epic charge?!"
[After so long, the source of the infection is gone from Selene's forest.]
Kyn the GM: "Selene is blithering in sylvan."
Julie: "I don't have tongues active. But it sounds happy."
Tony: "Does it sound happy?"
[The cloth that Lady Selene has so carefully wrapped around her face falls free in her moment of joy.]
Kyn the GM: "She's a nymph."
Julie: "And I'm bi."
Pat: "By what?"
Everyone Else: "..."
Pat: "...Oh!"
[Meanwhile, back with the men, Amber's apprentice Mika is boasting.]
Mika Silverskin: "Did you really think she wouldn't kill it with one spell? We're the Mage Corps!"
[There is much celebration in Selene's grove that evening.]
Kyn the GM: "One of the dryads starts dragging Mika to her tree. Selene steps in and whispers something in Mika's ear. His eyes go wide and he immediately steps back."
Tony: "I feel you, bro."
Kyn the GM: "They will be terribly thankful. You won't survive their thanks."
[More celebrations.]
Kyn the GM: "Pat, what are you doing?"
Pat: "Vinh. Maybe Nessa later on."
[Meanwhile, Amber has loftier ambitions.]
Lady Selene: "I will give you the same warning I gave Bobby and half the others..."
Pat: "Half?!"
Julie: "She is very beautiful."
[Selene gives her warning.]
Lady Selene: "Bedding me will be the best experience in your life."
Amber: "I don't see why that's a warning."
[Amber sleeps with Selene. It is stupendous. Perhaps too much so.]
Kyn the GM: "For the next six days, play like all you can think of is bedding her again."
Tony: "So play like Pat for the next six days."
[In the aftermath of the session...]
Kyn the GM: "You defeated the source of the corruption with one spell!"
Julie: "It was a tree."
Kyn the GM: "Yeah, but no one's pointed that out. It was an ancient evil mystical force."
And that's it for this time. Next time, we return one level more experienced. So we'll all have our new, shiny, level-14 abilities to take on the Queen of the Winter Court. Why do I have a feeling we're gonna need them?
[Kyn the GM sets the mood, as always.]
Kyn the GM: "Today's adventure will be epic. Or it will get you all killed. One or the other."
[We are all awakened as the ship rocks out of the stream.]
Tam: "Did we hit an iceberg or something?"
Captain Jason Keeneye: "That's closer to a yes than you might think."
[It turns out that we are just off the edge of Nieu-Bethesda... and also stuck in a blizzard.]
Ray: "This is the land of the summer court. I don't understand!"
Nessa: "It looks like winter is in season."
[The ship cannot fly through the blizzard. We decide to take an expeditionary force and go on foot.]
Amber: "Mika, you're about to expand your knowledge. Aren't you excited?"
Mika: (deadpan) "Of course, Magus."
[No one's quite sure why the blizzard exists at all. Amber theorizes it might be some sort of mythal.]
Kyn the GM: "If they can make mythals this big, you're fucked."
[After a number of fights in which several of our soldiers are injured and one is killed, we encounter a polar bear who transforms into a fey woman.]
Kyn the GM: "She's speaking sylvan. Who speaks it?"
Julie: "I speak tongues!"
[We return to our camp with the fey woman and her pack of wolves.]
Soldier: "Sir, how come every time you go out, you bring something back?"
Tam: "I like to surprise you."
[The fey woman, whose name is Selene, is the head of the Court of Leaves. She begins telling us the story of what has happened, but then stops because stories here have power, and if we listen to her tale, we'll be bound up in it.]
Amber: "On the one hand, we don't want to be bound here. On the other, we don't want to leave sixty elves to die in the snow, or worse."
Tam: "I disagree."
Ray: "...You want to leave them here?"
[Selene actually speaks an ancient form of human common. Which leads to exchanges like this.]
Senior Sergeant Vinh: "How old are you?"
Lady Selene: "I am as old as the trees."
Senior Sergeant Vinh: "So, a few hundred? A thousand?"
Lady Selene: "Not a tree. The trees."
[Selene takes us to her court, the last vestige of spring in a land consumed by winter. The next morning, we are offered breakfast, including who rabbits who gave their lives so we might eat.]
Tam: "Are you saying they walked in and willingly died?"
Ray: "To feed us, yes."
Tam: "...I'm not hungry anymore."
[Selene asks us to help her defeat the Bitter Tree, the source of much of the corruption in the forest. We agree to join her.]
Senior Sergeant Vinh: "So I'm gonna be punching a tree? I won't be very useful."
[Nessa has had a rough night dealing with her conscience and some questions that Tam has put to her. Amber, on the other hand, has other things on her mind.]
Nessa: "How are you feeling, Amber?"
Amber: "...I'm going to have a mage battle with a tree."
[We choose our companions.]
Kyn the GM: "Rabbitfoot wants to come."
Julie: "It's a suicide mission -- of course he does."
[We teleport past many of the obstacles between us and the Bitter Tree, and by complete luck Amber lands us in a place where there are no immediate threats and where all she has to do to attack the Bitter Tree is to push past its wall of dispel magic. She casts blight.]
Kyn the GM: "You feel it resist... but you're a captain of the fucking Mage Corps!"
[Yes, Amber manages to destroy the Bitter Tree with a single well-placed, perfectly executed spell.]
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "That was it?! That was the epic charge?!"
[After so long, the source of the infection is gone from Selene's forest.]
Kyn the GM: "Selene is blithering in sylvan."
Julie: "I don't have tongues active. But it sounds happy."
Tony: "Does it sound happy?"
[The cloth that Lady Selene has so carefully wrapped around her face falls free in her moment of joy.]
Kyn the GM: "She's a nymph."
Julie: "And I'm bi."
Pat: "By what?"
Everyone Else: "..."
Pat: "...Oh!"
[Meanwhile, back with the men, Amber's apprentice Mika is boasting.]
Mika Silverskin: "Did you really think she wouldn't kill it with one spell? We're the Mage Corps!"
[There is much celebration in Selene's grove that evening.]
Kyn the GM: "One of the dryads starts dragging Mika to her tree. Selene steps in and whispers something in Mika's ear. His eyes go wide and he immediately steps back."
Tony: "I feel you, bro."
Kyn the GM: "They will be terribly thankful. You won't survive their thanks."
[More celebrations.]
Kyn the GM: "Pat, what are you doing?"
Pat: "Vinh. Maybe Nessa later on."
[Meanwhile, Amber has loftier ambitions.]
Lady Selene: "I will give you the same warning I gave Bobby and half the others..."
Pat: "Half?!"
Julie: "She is very beautiful."
[Selene gives her warning.]
Lady Selene: "Bedding me will be the best experience in your life."
Amber: "I don't see why that's a warning."
[Amber sleeps with Selene. It is stupendous. Perhaps too much so.]
Kyn the GM: "For the next six days, play like all you can think of is bedding her again."
Tony: "So play like Pat for the next six days."
[In the aftermath of the session...]
Kyn the GM: "You defeated the source of the corruption with one spell!"
Julie: "It was a tree."
Kyn the GM: "Yeah, but no one's pointed that out. It was an ancient evil mystical force."
And that's it for this time. Next time, we return one level more experienced. So we'll all have our new, shiny, level-14 abilities to take on the Queen of the Winter Court. Why do I have a feeling we're gonna need them?