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Winds of Vesperia
The Queen of Winter is dead! Huzzah! It only took the deaths of two PCs and most of our NPCs to do it! ...Yay?
[We enter the Tower of the Virago, aka the Queen of the Winter Court. It turns out the building is alive. Almost immediately, 'antibody' creatures of magically-imbued ice begin appearing to deal with the intruders.]
Kyn the GM: "More keep coming. They're attacking Tam."
Tam: "Hi fellas. Wanna help me search for the off button?"
[Tam finds the node that is creating the creatures and manages to deactivate it.]
Kyn the GM: "Good news: they've stopped appearing. Bad news: there are still 11 to deal with."
[Having dealt with all the 'antibody' creatures, we find the door that leads into the central pillar of the tower, within which is some sort of teleportation tube.]
Kyn the GM: "Who walks first into the tube? Never mind -- it's Rabbitfoot."
[We enter the teleportation tube.]
Kyn the GM: "For a second, you died and are reformed."
Amber: "...Well, that's not normal teleportation magic."
[The second floor of the tower is full of mirrors that show us our worst fears.]
Kyn the GM: "I'm really glad none of you decided to break a mirror."
Tony: "Seven years bad luck?"
Kyn the GM: "So much worse!"
[Third floor is a beautiful snowscape.]
Nessa: "What do you see?"
Tam: *botches search check* "It's perfect!"
Kyn the GM: "The one time there's a trap..."
[Yes, we walk right into a spike trap. As our blood falls onto the pristine snow, it turns white and is absorbed. Kyn the GM reveals that if we bleed too much onto it, our blood will turn into doppelgangers of ourselves.]
Julie: "So we're doomed?"
Kyn the GM: "I like to play baseball. That's strike one."
[Tam manages to avoid the second trap, but misses the third.]
Kyn the GM: "You can see the door -- it's not hidden. You could try running for it."
Pat: *laughs*
[Amber deals with the traps in the most expedient way possible: drop a wall of stone on them to act as a bridge.]
Tam: "You're always so overly dramatic."
Nessa: "They teach it in the first year of mage school."
Amber: "Please! It's an honors-level course!"
[Amber deals with the transmutation magic on the door. Sadly, everyone missed one crucial detail.]
Kyn the GM: "You'd think someone would look for traps at the obvious door!"
[The horrible magic trap on the door drops Amber's charisma to 5. Thankfully, she memorized Break Enchantment, so it's only a minor setback. Onwards!]
Kyn the GM: "The fourth floor is very important."
Pat: "Maybe that's the floor where Selene is!"
Kyn the GM: "...No."
[The fourth floor contains the sleeping body of the Virago. And almost nothing else. Almost.]
Kyn the GM: "The other thing in the room is the dragon that uncoils to face you."
[Amber tries to deal with the dragon by casting Black Tentacles. Sadly, she fails to grapple the dragon. She fails to grapple an inrushing Tam... but only barely.]
Tam: "Captain, I see you're still pissed about the door!"
[Fighting the white dragon, attempt #2.]
Julie: "Everyone now has brilliant energy weapons. You can't miss."
Kyn the GM: "You really can't."
[Nessa kills the dragon with a brilliant vorpal strike that decapitates it. Now we just need to deal with the matter at hand.]
Nessa: "We're facing a queen who's a giant living building."
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "...You mean that queen?"
[Yes, it turns out the Virago is lying on a dias, surrounded by veins of pure mana. Quite asleep, but also naked. And a nymph.]
Tony: "Good thing I'm not Jass. 'Well, I'm joining something for eternity!'"
[All the PCs fail their roll to avoid becoming entranced by the Virago.]
Kyn the GM: "There's nothing that exists apart from her."
Pat: "She's what we came here for."
Tony: "And yet..."
[Thankfully, not all of us failed our rolls.]
PCs: *bow to the Virago*
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "Uh... officers?"
[Rabbitfoot manages to break Tam out of his entrancement. Now they just need to deal with Nessa and Amber.]
Tam: "So you won't hit a girl, but you'll throw her down the stairs?!"
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "Well, when you put it that way..."
[We realize that the entrancement fades if we leave the stairs to the dais. But sooner or later, we still need to succeed on the roll.]
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "Don't worry, I'll push you down the stairs as many times as I have to!"
[Amber finally manages to succeed on her roll. Nessa still has not.]
Nessa: "I'll stand down here."
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "You sure? I can do this all night!"
Nessa: (dryly) "I know you can."
[We nothing much more we can do for the Virago, we continue to climb the tower.]
Kyn the GM: "They didn't expect anyone to kill the dragon, so they didn't bother defending this area."
[Fifth floor: the prison. We manage to free Selene from her confinement. She casts a cocoon spell that allows us a full day's rest in one hour. Rabbitfoot keeps watch.]
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "Oh, good. You guys didn't turn into butterflies."
[As we ascent further, we face three members of the Court of Winter. Among them are King Tresil, who holds the shawl of Ione the Mermaid, which he wears wrapped around his arm. In true selkie fashion, so long as the King controls the shawl, Ione must do his bidding. Tam knows what he must do.]
Kyn the GM: "You took out his arm, dude."
Pat: "I got the sash!"
Tony: "Get the other arm -- then no more stunning fist."
[Amber goes ethereal and realizes that the Queen of Winter and the crystal that controls her must be one floor above them. She flies straight up through the ceiling.]
Kyn the GM: "Julie, you realize you're taking on the CR 20 creature by yourself."
Julie: "I took out the Bitter Tree in one spell. I can do this one too."
[Meanwhile, in the main battle, Nessa has been struck by the satyr Clefthoof the Doomsayer's sword. She succeeds on her save to avoid the sword's lust-inflammation, but decides to play along as though she had failed.]
Kyn the GM: "Clefthoof is helping you out of your clothes."
Pat: "What are you doing?!"
Tony: "I'm taking one of the guys out of the fight."
[After Tam manages to get the shawl away from King Tresil, Nessa stabs Clefthoof in the heart with her cold iron dagger.]
Tony: "If he survives, I cut off his dick."
Kyn the GM: "...I let him die."
[Clefthoof's dying moment.]
Clefthoof the Doomsayer: "You were faking?!"
Nessa: "I think they all were.'
Clefthoof: "...Well played."
[Meanwhile, Amber has managed to damage the planar crystal, but it was much bigger than she was expecting and she has not managed to destroy it. After several rounds of good rolls, she succumbs to the Virago's aura and stands stunned.]
Julie: "Well, we're all gonna die. I'm sorry, guys. It was fun while it lasted."
[Yes, not only is Amber about to be killed by the Virago, but Nessa has been killed by King Tresil.]
Kyn the GM: "You know he broke your spine. You know he did it in a way that would make your death slow and agonizing."
Tony: "Asshole."
[Just as everything looks bleakest, Rabbitfoot appears wielding the crystal dagger that had been set next to the Virago's body.]
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "This would have been so much easier if I could just stab her, sir!"
[In a rage, the ethereal aspect of the Virago rages in a storm, causing the temperature to drop precipitously.]
Kyn the GM: "This actually works in Nessa and Amber's favor."
Tony: "Yay cryogenics."
[Rabbitfoot manages to destroy the crystal through the use of a 'void bomb,' which causes a bubble of nothingness in a 30-foot radius. The three elements of the Virago are joined, and she agrees to negotiate with the King of Summer, the Great Lord of the Hunt. Tam, the only one of the PCs still alive, joins her.]
King of the Hunt: "Following you is death."
Tam: "Even if we weren't coming, there would be death."
[The King is grateful for Tam's part in freeing him.]
King of the Hunt: "Ask for something and it will be given."
Tam: "You honor me. I don't even know..."
Kyn the GM: "The PCs are dead, you mofo!"
[Amber and Nessa are trapped as spirits near the remains of their bodies.]
Amber: "I miscalculated the size of the crystal."
Nessa: "And other things."
Amber: "No, I think that was the only one."
[Nessa tests the bounds of her spiritual confinement.]
Tony: "Can I float?"
Kyn the GM: "Nope. You're one of those boring ghosts."
[Tam asks for the sacrifices of the day to be reversed, which leads to the PCs and all our troops being brought back from the dead. Lady Selene leads us away to somewhere safe.]
Kyn the GM: "Some of the fey may decide to reward you, and their rewards aren't what you want."
[We return to Selene's grove.]
Lady Selene: "Tam, I would like to lay with you."
Tam: "Lay where?"
Lady Selene: "Don't play the fool, Tam."
[Tam feels that he is not ready for a liaison of that sort with Selene.]
Lady Selene: "I must admit, I've never been turned down before."
Pat: "Everyone else is gonna be like, 'You're an idiot!'"
[Rebuffed by Tam, Selene decides to go for the next best thing: Amber.]
Kyn the GM: "Selene just rolled a 20 on her seduction."
Julie: "...I rolled a 2."
[Kyn the GM describes the second night between Selene and Amber.]
Kyn the GM: "You thought there was nothing better than the first time, but nope. This is the moment. ...No, this is definitely the moment. ...No, this is way better. ...No, now. ...This continues until morning."
[Meanwhile, Amber's apprentice Mika is having adventures of his own.]
Mika: "She's a mermaid. They don't put you to sleep for a hundred years!"
Nessa: "How many years?"
Mika: "None! You just have to not drown, and I have a water-breathing spell!"
[The next morning, we prepare to head out.]
Tony: "If the men are lollygagging..."
Kyn the GM: *rolls* "Oh, are they ever!"
Julie: "You gonna go Full Metal Jacket on them?"
Tony: "Hell, yeah!"
[With the agreement of the King of the Hunt, we enter the mythal guarded by the fey. Inside we find a 30-foot-tall demigod who looks something like a catfolk. His name is Incose. He is an embodiment of chaos. And catfolk.]
Incose: (noticing Amber) "A female."
Julie: "Didn't you say he was thirty feet tall?"
Kyn the GM: "Yup."
[Incose is chained to a massive sequoia tree. Being inside the mythal, he has not had any company in thousands of years.]
Incose: "No one finds Incose. ...Wait, you found Incose! Friends!"
[Incose describes how he was trapped. First, the elves sent a beautiful woman to distract him and give him the present of a chain belt.]
Incose: "Chains is good! Chains is very manly!"
[Kyn the GM describes the chain that holds Incose to the tree.]
Kyn the GM: "The chain is adamantine with heavy, heavy, heavy enchantment."
Julie: (dryly) "You don't say."
[Incose the Destroyer tries bargaining. For certain values of bargaining.]
Incose: "So, you free Incose, Incose doesn't eat you or rape you. ...Can Incose do battle with you?"
[Incose describes his experience in Sigil, the City of Pain. More specifically, in the bedchamber of the Lady of Pain.]
Incose: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Incose did not behold it."
[Incose returns to the story of his entrapment. The beautiful elven woman distracted him for 300 years while a tree grew within the coil at the far end of the chain. Ultimately, the elf-woman's spirit merged with the tree, where it still remains.]
Incose: "Incose does not want to harm her. Skin her and punish her for tricking him, but not harm her."
[Incose describes for us one of two ways to free him from the chain: cutting down the tree. Which holds the spirit of the elf-woman he still loves.]
Incose: "Naturally, Incose would have to fight you and try to kill you to protect her as you try to cut down the tree."
[The reason we're dealing with Incose at all is that he's able to create planar rifts at will, even through the egg. There are hundreds that surround him. Several lead to the Astral Plane.]
Tam: "Can we send a message to the fleet?"
Amber: "Yes, but whether they'll find it..."
Kyn the GM: "You don't know where in the Astral Plane it opens."
Julie: "The Astral Plane is a big place."
[We move to the side to discuss what to do. Clearly, we can't free Incose because he'll immediately try to destroy not only us but most of the elves within Vesperia.]
Incose: "Incose can hear you, you know!"
Amber: "And are we wrong?"
Incose: "...Incose didn't say that."
[More discussion with Incose.]
Tam: "You could start a new breed: half-human, half-cat."
Incose: "What's a cat?"
Tam: "Half-human, half-you."
[Incose has boasted that the biggest rift he ever made was to steal a moon.]
Amber: "Where's the moon now?"
Incose: "...Where did Incose leave the moon?"
[Back to square 1.]
Incose: "You free Incose, Incose does not kill... or rape you."
Tam: "For how long?"
Incose: "For as long as Incose remembers!"
[Things I don't usually hear in games for $1000, Alex.]
Tam: "I guess the 7,000-year-old tree is not to be trusted."
[The good news is the human fleet was near one of Incose's rifts. Amber manages to send a message.]
Kyn the GM: "You now have a means of communicating with the fleet."
Julie: "Assuming we can get back here."
Kyn the GM: "Well, yes."
[Nessa tries to get Incose to make a rift directly to the fleet.]
Kyn the GM: "All the ships are protected against rifts, for precisely this reason."
And that's it for this time! Next time... who knows, really? Will we be able to bring the fleet through? Will we be forced to find another rift somewhere else? Will Incose kill us all, just because he feels like it? Join us in a month to find out!
[We enter the Tower of the Virago, aka the Queen of the Winter Court. It turns out the building is alive. Almost immediately, 'antibody' creatures of magically-imbued ice begin appearing to deal with the intruders.]
Kyn the GM: "More keep coming. They're attacking Tam."
Tam: "Hi fellas. Wanna help me search for the off button?"
[Tam finds the node that is creating the creatures and manages to deactivate it.]
Kyn the GM: "Good news: they've stopped appearing. Bad news: there are still 11 to deal with."
[Having dealt with all the 'antibody' creatures, we find the door that leads into the central pillar of the tower, within which is some sort of teleportation tube.]
Kyn the GM: "Who walks first into the tube? Never mind -- it's Rabbitfoot."
[We enter the teleportation tube.]
Kyn the GM: "For a second, you died and are reformed."
Amber: "...Well, that's not normal teleportation magic."
[The second floor of the tower is full of mirrors that show us our worst fears.]
Kyn the GM: "I'm really glad none of you decided to break a mirror."
Tony: "Seven years bad luck?"
Kyn the GM: "So much worse!"
[Third floor is a beautiful snowscape.]
Nessa: "What do you see?"
Tam: *botches search check* "It's perfect!"
Kyn the GM: "The one time there's a trap..."
[Yes, we walk right into a spike trap. As our blood falls onto the pristine snow, it turns white and is absorbed. Kyn the GM reveals that if we bleed too much onto it, our blood will turn into doppelgangers of ourselves.]
Julie: "So we're doomed?"
Kyn the GM: "I like to play baseball. That's strike one."
[Tam manages to avoid the second trap, but misses the third.]
Kyn the GM: "You can see the door -- it's not hidden. You could try running for it."
Pat: *laughs*
[Amber deals with the traps in the most expedient way possible: drop a wall of stone on them to act as a bridge.]
Tam: "You're always so overly dramatic."
Nessa: "They teach it in the first year of mage school."
Amber: "Please! It's an honors-level course!"
[Amber deals with the transmutation magic on the door. Sadly, everyone missed one crucial detail.]
Kyn the GM: "You'd think someone would look for traps at the obvious door!"
[The horrible magic trap on the door drops Amber's charisma to 5. Thankfully, she memorized Break Enchantment, so it's only a minor setback. Onwards!]
Kyn the GM: "The fourth floor is very important."
Pat: "Maybe that's the floor where Selene is!"
Kyn the GM: "...No."
[The fourth floor contains the sleeping body of the Virago. And almost nothing else. Almost.]
Kyn the GM: "The other thing in the room is the dragon that uncoils to face you."
[Amber tries to deal with the dragon by casting Black Tentacles. Sadly, she fails to grapple the dragon. She fails to grapple an inrushing Tam... but only barely.]
Tam: "Captain, I see you're still pissed about the door!"
[Fighting the white dragon, attempt #2.]
Julie: "Everyone now has brilliant energy weapons. You can't miss."
Kyn the GM: "You really can't."
[Nessa kills the dragon with a brilliant vorpal strike that decapitates it. Now we just need to deal with the matter at hand.]
Nessa: "We're facing a queen who's a giant living building."
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "...You mean that queen?"
[Yes, it turns out the Virago is lying on a dias, surrounded by veins of pure mana. Quite asleep, but also naked. And a nymph.]
Tony: "Good thing I'm not Jass. 'Well, I'm joining something for eternity!'"
[All the PCs fail their roll to avoid becoming entranced by the Virago.]
Kyn the GM: "There's nothing that exists apart from her."
Pat: "She's what we came here for."
Tony: "And yet..."
[Thankfully, not all of us failed our rolls.]
PCs: *bow to the Virago*
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "Uh... officers?"
[Rabbitfoot manages to break Tam out of his entrancement. Now they just need to deal with Nessa and Amber.]
Tam: "So you won't hit a girl, but you'll throw her down the stairs?!"
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "Well, when you put it that way..."
[We realize that the entrancement fades if we leave the stairs to the dais. But sooner or later, we still need to succeed on the roll.]
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "Don't worry, I'll push you down the stairs as many times as I have to!"
[Amber finally manages to succeed on her roll. Nessa still has not.]
Nessa: "I'll stand down here."
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "You sure? I can do this all night!"
Nessa: (dryly) "I know you can."
[We nothing much more we can do for the Virago, we continue to climb the tower.]
Kyn the GM: "They didn't expect anyone to kill the dragon, so they didn't bother defending this area."
[Fifth floor: the prison. We manage to free Selene from her confinement. She casts a cocoon spell that allows us a full day's rest in one hour. Rabbitfoot keeps watch.]
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "Oh, good. You guys didn't turn into butterflies."
[As we ascent further, we face three members of the Court of Winter. Among them are King Tresil, who holds the shawl of Ione the Mermaid, which he wears wrapped around his arm. In true selkie fashion, so long as the King controls the shawl, Ione must do his bidding. Tam knows what he must do.]
Kyn the GM: "You took out his arm, dude."
Pat: "I got the sash!"
Tony: "Get the other arm -- then no more stunning fist."
[Amber goes ethereal and realizes that the Queen of Winter and the crystal that controls her must be one floor above them. She flies straight up through the ceiling.]
Kyn the GM: "Julie, you realize you're taking on the CR 20 creature by yourself."
Julie: "I took out the Bitter Tree in one spell. I can do this one too."
[Meanwhile, in the main battle, Nessa has been struck by the satyr Clefthoof the Doomsayer's sword. She succeeds on her save to avoid the sword's lust-inflammation, but decides to play along as though she had failed.]
Kyn the GM: "Clefthoof is helping you out of your clothes."
Pat: "What are you doing?!"
Tony: "I'm taking one of the guys out of the fight."
[After Tam manages to get the shawl away from King Tresil, Nessa stabs Clefthoof in the heart with her cold iron dagger.]
Tony: "If he survives, I cut off his dick."
Kyn the GM: "...I let him die."
[Clefthoof's dying moment.]
Clefthoof the Doomsayer: "You were faking?!"
Nessa: "I think they all were.'
Clefthoof: "...Well played."
[Meanwhile, Amber has managed to damage the planar crystal, but it was much bigger than she was expecting and she has not managed to destroy it. After several rounds of good rolls, she succumbs to the Virago's aura and stands stunned.]
Julie: "Well, we're all gonna die. I'm sorry, guys. It was fun while it lasted."
[Yes, not only is Amber about to be killed by the Virago, but Nessa has been killed by King Tresil.]
Kyn the GM: "You know he broke your spine. You know he did it in a way that would make your death slow and agonizing."
Tony: "Asshole."
[Just as everything looks bleakest, Rabbitfoot appears wielding the crystal dagger that had been set next to the Virago's body.]
Sergeant Anthis "Rabbitfoot" Rivercrest: "This would have been so much easier if I could just stab her, sir!"
[In a rage, the ethereal aspect of the Virago rages in a storm, causing the temperature to drop precipitously.]
Kyn the GM: "This actually works in Nessa and Amber's favor."
Tony: "Yay cryogenics."
[Rabbitfoot manages to destroy the crystal through the use of a 'void bomb,' which causes a bubble of nothingness in a 30-foot radius. The three elements of the Virago are joined, and she agrees to negotiate with the King of Summer, the Great Lord of the Hunt. Tam, the only one of the PCs still alive, joins her.]
King of the Hunt: "Following you is death."
Tam: "Even if we weren't coming, there would be death."
[The King is grateful for Tam's part in freeing him.]
King of the Hunt: "Ask for something and it will be given."
Tam: "You honor me. I don't even know..."
Kyn the GM: "The PCs are dead, you mofo!"
[Amber and Nessa are trapped as spirits near the remains of their bodies.]
Amber: "I miscalculated the size of the crystal."
Nessa: "And other things."
Amber: "No, I think that was the only one."
[Nessa tests the bounds of her spiritual confinement.]
Tony: "Can I float?"
Kyn the GM: "Nope. You're one of those boring ghosts."
[Tam asks for the sacrifices of the day to be reversed, which leads to the PCs and all our troops being brought back from the dead. Lady Selene leads us away to somewhere safe.]
Kyn the GM: "Some of the fey may decide to reward you, and their rewards aren't what you want."
[We return to Selene's grove.]
Lady Selene: "Tam, I would like to lay with you."
Tam: "Lay where?"
Lady Selene: "Don't play the fool, Tam."
[Tam feels that he is not ready for a liaison of that sort with Selene.]
Lady Selene: "I must admit, I've never been turned down before."
Pat: "Everyone else is gonna be like, 'You're an idiot!'"
[Rebuffed by Tam, Selene decides to go for the next best thing: Amber.]
Kyn the GM: "Selene just rolled a 20 on her seduction."
Julie: "...I rolled a 2."
[Kyn the GM describes the second night between Selene and Amber.]
Kyn the GM: "You thought there was nothing better than the first time, but nope. This is the moment. ...No, this is definitely the moment. ...No, this is way better. ...No, now. ...This continues until morning."
[Meanwhile, Amber's apprentice Mika is having adventures of his own.]
Mika: "She's a mermaid. They don't put you to sleep for a hundred years!"
Nessa: "How many years?"
Mika: "None! You just have to not drown, and I have a water-breathing spell!"
[The next morning, we prepare to head out.]
Tony: "If the men are lollygagging..."
Kyn the GM: *rolls* "Oh, are they ever!"
Julie: "You gonna go Full Metal Jacket on them?"
Tony: "Hell, yeah!"
[With the agreement of the King of the Hunt, we enter the mythal guarded by the fey. Inside we find a 30-foot-tall demigod who looks something like a catfolk. His name is Incose. He is an embodiment of chaos. And catfolk.]
Incose: (noticing Amber) "A female."
Julie: "Didn't you say he was thirty feet tall?"
Kyn the GM: "Yup."
[Incose is chained to a massive sequoia tree. Being inside the mythal, he has not had any company in thousands of years.]
Incose: "No one finds Incose. ...Wait, you found Incose! Friends!"
[Incose describes how he was trapped. First, the elves sent a beautiful woman to distract him and give him the present of a chain belt.]
Incose: "Chains is good! Chains is very manly!"
[Kyn the GM describes the chain that holds Incose to the tree.]
Kyn the GM: "The chain is adamantine with heavy, heavy, heavy enchantment."
Julie: (dryly) "You don't say."
[Incose the Destroyer tries bargaining. For certain values of bargaining.]
Incose: "So, you free Incose, Incose doesn't eat you or rape you. ...Can Incose do battle with you?"
[Incose describes his experience in Sigil, the City of Pain. More specifically, in the bedchamber of the Lady of Pain.]
Incose: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Incose did not behold it."
[Incose returns to the story of his entrapment. The beautiful elven woman distracted him for 300 years while a tree grew within the coil at the far end of the chain. Ultimately, the elf-woman's spirit merged with the tree, where it still remains.]
Incose: "Incose does not want to harm her. Skin her and punish her for tricking him, but not harm her."
[Incose describes for us one of two ways to free him from the chain: cutting down the tree. Which holds the spirit of the elf-woman he still loves.]
Incose: "Naturally, Incose would have to fight you and try to kill you to protect her as you try to cut down the tree."
[The reason we're dealing with Incose at all is that he's able to create planar rifts at will, even through the egg. There are hundreds that surround him. Several lead to the Astral Plane.]
Tam: "Can we send a message to the fleet?"
Amber: "Yes, but whether they'll find it..."
Kyn the GM: "You don't know where in the Astral Plane it opens."
Julie: "The Astral Plane is a big place."
[We move to the side to discuss what to do. Clearly, we can't free Incose because he'll immediately try to destroy not only us but most of the elves within Vesperia.]
Incose: "Incose can hear you, you know!"
Amber: "And are we wrong?"
Incose: "...Incose didn't say that."
[More discussion with Incose.]
Tam: "You could start a new breed: half-human, half-cat."
Incose: "What's a cat?"
Tam: "Half-human, half-you."
[Incose has boasted that the biggest rift he ever made was to steal a moon.]
Amber: "Where's the moon now?"
Incose: "...Where did Incose leave the moon?"
[Back to square 1.]
Incose: "You free Incose, Incose does not kill... or rape you."
Tam: "For how long?"
Incose: "For as long as Incose remembers!"
[Things I don't usually hear in games for $1000, Alex.]
Tam: "I guess the 7,000-year-old tree is not to be trusted."
[The good news is the human fleet was near one of Incose's rifts. Amber manages to send a message.]
Kyn the GM: "You now have a means of communicating with the fleet."
Julie: "Assuming we can get back here."
Kyn the GM: "Well, yes."
[Nessa tries to get Incose to make a rift directly to the fleet.]
Kyn the GM: "All the ships are protected against rifts, for precisely this reason."
And that's it for this time! Next time... who knows, really? Will we be able to bring the fleet through? Will we be forced to find another rift somewhere else? Will Incose kill us all, just because he feels like it? Join us in a month to find out!