Path To Godhood Session 7: The Warped Mirror

Characters:

Ajax Karo   -   Gregarious Hunter and Aspiring Kostis, God of Death and Plagues
Neilos   -   Aspiring God of The Sun and Plants
Steidis   -   Aspiring God of Fire and Smiths
Ursula Bearclaw   -   Klutzy Woodswoman and Aspiring Chelak, God of Bears and Independence

The Meeting

Just now realizing that they hadn't discussed any plan with Natasa, Neilos asked what they should do in a whisper.  She replied that they would listen in on the meeting to determine if Voula Raptis was associating with the Eniadnan spies, and then move in to apprehend them.  From where they were, she couldn't hear anything, so she snuck under the bridge on which the Tetrarch, carrying her child and speaking from behind a circle of her guards, was meeting the spies.  The negotiator for the spies had the pale white skin of a Mantean, which was somewhat odd, as the spies were supposed to be Eniadnans working with the local Urbosans.  None of the gods felt sneaky, so they held back, ready to charge up a rough incline to the left when Natasa gave them the signal.

Apparently Neilos' ears were sharper than Natasa's, because he was able to hear the discussion from their hiding spot.  Sure enough, they were negotiating the terms of the spies bodyguarding Voula in exchange for "the mirror", and once the deal was struck, a shrouded object was brought forward by two guards, the disturbance in the formation revealing a lion wearing bright silver "armour" beside her.  The cloth cover was removed and beneath was what could only generously be called a "mirror".  It was as though a fine 6' gilded mirror had been stretched and twisted, now utterly useless.

The gods were inflicted with a sense of imminent doom upon seeing it, and Neilos froze in shock, rendering them unable to further hear the conversation.  Ajax walked Neilos back into the passage they'd come from to try and slap some sense into him in a place where they wouldn't alert the others.  One of the spies came forward to inspect it and seemed to approve, so the two groups went to leave.  Natasa signalled to Steidis and Ursula to launch the attack, but they failed to notice her, so she walked over and in hushed tones told them that it was go time and began to sneak up the incline, followed shortly by Ursula.  Steidis apparently had other ideas and went to check on Ajax and Neilos, leaving Natasa and Ursula alone.

Fallout

Neilos finally came to and yelled at the others, asking what they were doing, and rushed back down into the chamber.  A giant bear, assumed to be Ursula, now lay on the stone bridge, unmoving, while a pair of Voula's guards and one of the cloaked spies were unconscious on the ground.  Natasa was nowhere to be seen, nor was Voula or the leader of the spies.  Neilos checked on Ursula, and found that she had a fairly deep wound, but it wasn't bleeding.  Despite this, she wasn't breathing or moving at all, though she was still warm to the touch.  Ajax tried to figure out if she'd been affected by some disease from another Kostis, but was unsure.

They gave chase down the tunnels to the right, hoping to catch the spies, but by the time they emerged from a trap door in a ruined building, they were already gone.  The gods decided to head back down to question the people Ursula had knocked out, but by the time they got there, two had already disappeared.  Ajax picked up the tracks and found that they took the left exit out of the cavern, and charged off with Steidis while Neilos stayed back in case the other guard came too.

Steidis' warrior training paid off and he easily caught the two escapees with Ajax on his heels; Voula's guard had apparently been disarmed in the scuffle with Ursula, but the spy held a shortsword.  The guard asked who they were and what was that thing (likely referring to Ursula).  Steidis threatened them into submission by claiming to be a god, and the spy dropped his weapon.  They brought the prisoners back for questioning just as the other guard recovered.

He seemed out of it, likely concussed when he had been thrown 15' by a giant bear into stone, and wasn't receptive to questioning ("Where I am... What's your name?" "None o' your business, I'm doing the questioning her-" "Nunya Bizniss?  A strange name.  Where are you from?").  Neilos started the interrogation anyway, but learned that this random guard was not privy to the nature of the group they were dealing with.  He seemed positive that Voula would retreat to her estate after the deal went bad, however, then started to doze off.  Steidis took over interrogations, with Neilos helping to reveal secrets.  From the spy, they learned the following:

• He was working for a nobleman from Mantea, Lambros, who had shown up with a bunch of money and was now in charge in the city
• The spy was Urbosan, and so were most of the group he worked with
• The mirror was "supposed to do something to gods", so that was probably what had happened to Ursula
• His group was operating out of the villa of Konstoninus, a nobleman, where Lambros was also living
• The organization he was part of was spread over several cities

When they asked for the name of the organization, the man tried to speak, but no sound came out.  Neilos tried to force his way through whatever this block was with his powers, but undid the work he'd done before, and the spy stopped talking entirely.  From the second guard, Steidis learned only that he had seen "the woman in red" running off to the left while flying through the air after the "monster" hit him.

The Shard

Interrogations complete, the gods headed up to Ursula to "investigate".  Ajax tried "gently poking" Ursula with his knife, but encountered more resistance than he expected.  Unsure if that was "godbear resistance" or "mirror resistance", he moved on to poking into the wound.  His knife encountered the same amount of resistance, and prodding further he felt it scrape across something metallic ("Is Ursula made of metal?" "The other Chelak could turn into solid iron, so there's precedent").

Steidis, their resident "metal man", stuck his hands into the wound, intending to reshape the metal and extract it; strangely, he found the metal white hot to the touch, but the surrounding flesh seemed normal.  Going back in wearing linen gloves stolen from one of the guards, the metal was cold most of the time, though occasionally his fingertips would experience pricks of extreme heat.  Now with a solid grip, he attempted to reshape the metal to make it easier to pull out, but the shard did not bend and he was forced to tear it out.

The wound didn't look any worse, so they took this as a success.  The shard of metal was warped and jagged; it looked like part of the warped mirror had been shattered and a piece stabbed into Ursula.  None of the gods were willing to hold onto it, so they stole a guard's tabard to use as a makeshift sack.  Ursula didn't seem to be getting better, so the gods tried to move her, but she proved far too heavy in her bear form.  Neilos tried to determine how bad the wound was, but nobody was familiar with normal bear anatomy, let alone a magical godly bear.

Ajax drained the lives of the spy and the non-concussed guards to gain another 14 days of life for himself, leaving the concussed guard for further experiments with Ursula.  He then attempted to consult his godly memories of Death to figure out what was going on with Ursula, but couldn't recall them, and the gods began to argue what to do.  Eventually, Ajax drained the last guard into Ursula as he usually would, but for whatever reason it didn't work and she remained in her current state.

Neilos used his powers to conceal the entrance they had used with plants, but failed to do so at the trap door.  The gods decided to regroup with Natasa at her estate, and hoped that the combination of the skeletized remains of their victims and the giant bear would keep people away.  They re-entered the city and made it to the estate, but the slave housekeeper told them that Natasa hadn't yet returned.  The gods claimed that she was in grave danger, and asked if the housekeeper knew of any other Hunters they could contact for assistance.  She did: a Hunter named Kallisto worked out of an abandoned mansion in the foreign district, and she told them the secret knock.

Kallisto

On the walk to the foreign district, Neilos mentioned that Voula didn't know that they'd planned to attack her, and with Ursula out of the way, she might be more open to a diplomatic approach.  Ajax agreed that her and the spies' plans had likely been thrown into disarray, so it would be best to act immediately.  They continued discussing where to attack with their reinforcements, settling on the Konstoninos estate.  As they pulled up to the mansion they'd been directed to, Neilos realized that they'd never asked anyone about if the Hunters had an HQ; they'd always just gone to Natasa's place.  They didn't even have an estimate as to how many Hunters there were.

Steidis did the "secret knock", and a younger Urbosan woman with tear drops markings under her left eye (similar in style, though fewer in number than Natasa's) answered the door.  Kallisto noted that they'd used the code she'd given Natasa, which meant they were working with her and this must be an emergency, then led them inside.  Debris and cloth covered all the windows, and the room Kallisto took them to was even further inside the building to keep away from any passers-by.  Even the sanctum hadn't been renovated, however, save for a desk, and the gods were forced to sit on piles of loose wood.

Rather casually, Kallisto asked what the emergency was, but Neilos requested to use his powers to Reveal Secrets to see if she was working with the enemy.  She seemed well-informed, knowing both that they were gods and that some of the powers they'd used in the city, and insisted that her word would have to suffice.  By convincing her that Natasa was likely in grave danger, Neilos was able to get her to consent to his powers, but he failed to manifest them.  He asked her the question anyway, and she repeated that believe it or not, she was working against the Eniadnan spies.

Neilos got down to explaining that they knew the leader of the spies, but Kallisto interrupted to say that she'd already been informed about Acantha, which caused him to stumble.  He insisted that Lambros was a new boss in town, and was living at the Konstoninus estate; they'd gone with Natasa to surveil a meeting he'd attended.  Kallisto asked who else was supposed to be at the meeting, and when Neilos informed her of Voula Raptis' involvement, she grinned and confirmed that that lined up with what Natasa had told her earlier.

The gods informed Kallisto of the evening's events (carefully leaving out their screwup) and asked what she resources could bring to bear.  She claimed that she could call on a handful of militia members, but nothing more in the noble district on short notice.  The gods agreed, and she asked that they head back to the Metaxas estate and wait for her and her men.

Notes:

Prophecy Scoreboard:

Neilos    2

Ajax       1

Steidis    1

Ursula    1

Missing Memories:

Neilos     Family, Mortal Name

Ajax       Mortal Appearance

Steidis    Mortal Name

Ursula    The Last 5 Years

Coming back to this after 2 months took a lot of catching up.  Neilos' player apparently had difficulty deciphering his own notes, but that's sort of a tradition now.  In a D&D game years ago, he found something that he noted only as Fish Traveller's Boots on his character sheet, and nobody remembered what the hell it was when he next brought it up.

Another session with no prophecies completed.  Probably would have gone differently if everyone hadn't decided to leave right before the big fight.

Ursula's player has had to drop out of the campaign for now, so this actually worked out well in that regard.

The simplified combat system I'm using this game is just a single opposed roll based on the highest skill, and large groups of enemies aren't that big of a deal: you get a bonus based on the size/speed/range table by subbing in number of combatants for distance.  So a group of 15 mortal soldiers (highest skill 12) would be at a 12 + 5 (group) = 17.  Meanwhile, a group of 3 gods (highest skill 13), two of whom activate a combat god power would be at 13 + 1 (group) + 5 (god power 1) + 5 (god power 2).  It's meant to be ridiculous and in their favour.

When draining the captives, Ajax discovered that he can spend HP for blood magic on Life Drain and just immediately recover it (provided the power goes off).  Also that it doesn't recover FP.

Neilos wanted to know if he could use his ability to Reveal Secrets to "reveal the secret of where Natasa is".  No, it's not that overpowered.