Tuesday, September 17, 2019

The Giggling Dark: Session Eighteen


Sir Xellous: the 14 year old main character, played by Kurlak. Last we saw him he was in a Khen-zai mech, about to be attacked by a Khen-zai armada. He's trying to figure out how to shift the mech back to the material plane so he can go and save his 10 year old brother-in-law, Michael and his wife, Kora. He is the temporary wield of Pyra, a bow of immense power. He had originally made it for his now-missing wife, Kora.

Telos: A hero from another place, another time. He had come and gotten the Celestial Knights to save the king from the Cursed of Xalmantra, a group everyone thought was extinct.

Thought-8: One of ten black Khen-zai. He had been captured by Sir Xellous and the Celestial Knights. He had been left to his own devices by Sir Xellous and so he called in an armada to rescue him.

Ernzan: A former member of the Cursed of Xalmantra. He was the one who had originally forced Michael to summon the Flammeous Lads. He had since repented of his evil and is know a Celestial Knight.

Facing down an armada, Sir Xellous scanned its auras, trying to ascertain its strategy. The larger ships, which were bio-mechanical, were hanging back. Hundreds of smaller auras were streaming out of them, identical to the aura of his mech. It was time to see if he could fly this thing. Sir Xellous, armed with the knowledge from his ring, attempted to fly the mech. It was a bit shaky, but he was able to get it off the ground. He put the ziggurat between himself and the incoming fleet, so that he could have a second. Sir Xellous didn't think they would do an orbital bomardment; Thought-8 was still on the ziggurat, somewhere, and they would probably want to keep him alive. He found an entrance into the ziggurat and busted through it, trying to buy himself some time to phase shift the mech.

All of a sudden he was being pulled out of the mech, out of the ethereal plane... somewhere. The pain was intense. The world became a kaleidoscope of colors and horror. Sir Xellous fell onto the ground. He was back on the material plane. And, standing before him, was Ikuinen Lampo, blood coming out of her mouth. She fell over, and behind her stood something that resembled Michael. The smile wasn't his, he had some significant wounds, and his eyes shone with a fell purple light. The sight of this monstrosity should have paralyzed Sir Xellous with fear. It didn't. He didn't have time. If Ikuinen Lampo died the dead would rise in his home region, his mother-in-law Threen would die, and he would lose his ability to see and manipulate auras. He reached out to his sister's body, which Ikuinen was inhabiting, and reinforced it with his own life-force. It was a similar body to his, and so he lent his own energy to what was left of his sister. His blood vessels burst and his skin began to sweat blood. He held on. Ikuinen Lampo stabilized, briefly. Michael walked up to him while he did this, grabbed Pyra, and winked at him. He jumped twenty feet, to the top of the castle wall, and jumped off easily.

Shaking like a leaf, Sir Xellous looked before him and realized he was in front of the keep of the king's castle. Bodies were everywhere, Celestial Knights and The Cursed of Xalmantra alike. There was a pile of corpses in front of the open doors to the great hall. Sir Xellous slowly pulled Ikuinen Lampo up the stairs, past the pile of corpses, into the great hall. He needed to find her medical attention immediately, before she died and everything important to him was lost. There were more bodies in the great hall. Telos sat on one of the chairs. He was exhausted and bleeding from a cut to his head. Seeing Sir Xellous Telos got up and helped him set Ikuinen Lampo down on the table. He asked what happened to her, and Sir Xellous told him about Michael stabbing her. Telos said that wasn't possible, and then grew pale. Sir Xellous didn't know, no one had been able to tell him yet: Michael had been killed twenty minutes ago, rescuing Ernzan.  Sir Xellous said it was definitely Michael, but he had been twisted into something awful. Ernzan came into the great hall and came running up to Sir Xellous, in tears, and told him something awful had happened to Michael. Sir Xellous told him that Michael was running around, but strange and twisted, and much stronger! He told them both about Michael's twenty foot jump. Telos grew very afraid at that point; he asked if Michael had purple eyes.

When Sir Xellous confirmed Michael now had purple eyes Telos picked up Ikuinen Lampo and put her in Ernzan's arms, demanding that he take her to the nearest medic. They needed to save Kora, right then and there. Sir Xellous asked why Kora needed saving from Michael, and Telos told him that Revenants bore grudges against their loved ones from when they were alive. Telos had no idea how Michael could have become a revenant on this world, but he was definitely one. They ran out the front doors of the keep, and heard an enormous explosion to their right:

BOOM. A house exploded. Pyra was a work.

BOOM. Another one.

BOOM.

BOOM. Two structures spat up smoke into the evening.

Sir Xellous locked onto Pyra's aura, and Telos picked him up. He barreled down the street, going where Sir Xellous pointed him.

And there was Kora, baby in her arms. Michael stalked behind her, laughing an awful, creaky laugh. BOOM. He was missing on purpose. He saw Telos and Sir Xellous and stopped toying with Kora. Telos threw Sir Xellous to the ground and pushed Kora out of the way. Telos' Behemoth-made  armor tanked the blast, but the explosion knocked him out. The baby was screaming. So was Kora. Michael notched another arrow. Sir Xellous narrowly got her clear of the shrapnel. Kora didn't recognize Sir Xellous, just one glance told him that. He told her that she didn't remember, but that he loved her and they would get through this. Michael told Sir Xellous that at the end, when he had died, there was only one person he had wanted to see, only one person he wanted to rescue him: his big brother, the mighty "hero" Sir Xellous. He wasn't there. And Michael would take everything from him that he loved.

Grabbing the star stone in his pocket Sir Xellous held it aloft. He found the... thing... whatever it was... that was making Michael a revenant and suppressed it, hoping against hope to buy more time. The invocation of the stone reacted with the foreign object in a way unlooked for; nothing defiled can stand before purity, nothing. The thing shattered, and Michael's little body collapsed, never to rise again. Sir Xellous collapsed next to Kora, who was trying to comfort her sobbing son. More blood poured from his skin, and he found he couldn't move. Kora, haltingly, picked him up. There she was! She was real! Her hair brushed his cheek.

Ernzan came running out with a group of people. Some of them grabbed stretchers and got Sir Xellous and Telos on them. Telos woke up and asked what he missed.

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