Path to Godhood Session 16: The Royal Circle

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

A Return to Mantea

The gods arrived at the coast near Mantea, and walked through the canyons to reach the city proper.  Just before boarding the Grand Elevator of Steidis, a piercing note echoed through the air, forcing everyone to cover their ears.  It slowly faded away to a just-audible tone over a minute, and Ajax asked a local whether this was normal.  The man informed them of the Whistling Rock which wandered the canyons, and figured that it must be closer to the city than usual.

As they rose into the city, they noticed that more of the "islands" seemed to have fallen away during their absence, and that the "Belt" that Steidis had almost finished was totally gone, the stone where it had been scorched black.  On their way to the Divided Palace to check in with the two queens, Steidis aggressively asked after any new god candidates, and learned that one of the Evenias had come out of hiding, though he wasn't able to figure out which one.  Additionaly, the other Chelak, Kostis, and Neilos had come back, but left shortly thereafter.

At the Palace, Ajax was able to arrange an audience with the queens through one of the purple-clad clerks, and they were led through.  On the way, they passed a man with a spectacular moustache sporting an ostentatious red robe.  Once in the throne room the usual formal introductions were made, then the white queen cooly welcomed them back after their long absence.  Steidis declared that he had finally killed his rival, which prompted the black queen to declare thta this explained why there had been only three when the other group had returned to Mantea.

Now that was out of the way, the white queen asked that he rebuild the first two-thirds of the Belt, as they had never quite finished their initial inspection; Steidis agreed, and claimed that his powers had grown, so this would now be trivial.  In terms of resources, all of the bronze he had used before was still down in the canyon, and he would be provided more for the final third once the queens were satisfied.  

Steidis asked after the Whistling Rock, but the white queen was dismissive.  Eventually, it always went away on its own.  According to legend, the only way to kill it was to silence it, but none who had tried had ever returned.  The gods left, and Steidis immediately got to work; true to his claim, he completed the Belt in less than a day thanks to his new ability to magically bind objects together.  The inspection was arranged for the same day, and the queens gave their approval for commencement of the final third.

"Operation: Trouser Pants" was finished in record time, and Steidis was suffused with the familiar golden light; he now knew how to look into the past through the eyes of an inanimate object, but at the price of all memories of his mentor.  That done, they headed down into the canyons again to find the scholar Atlas at the black stone ruins, and on the way passed crowds marvelling at Steidis' work.

A Bounty of Knowledge

Atlas looked much the same as the last time they'd met, still clad in yellow and wearing a prominent owl pendant.  When they announced themselves, he jumped and knocked over a lamp (Neilos: "How blasphemous").  As before, he helped them translate the ancient text on the ruins, and they were able to further piece together their prophecies; Ajax was able to secure additional help by telling the scholar of the Starlit Desert that lay beyond the black door.

• The "Bringers of Toxin" in one of Ajax's prophecies referred to a trio of legendary poisonous beasts.
• The "Lesson" in the same prophecy was a horrible plague that would infect "the known world"
• The "Purifying Flame" in the other Steidis' prophecy referred to the flame in his temple in the Ruby Hills outside of Susae
• The monsters that Neilos needed organs from were the Achaierus, a man-sized bird that dwelled in a ruined city north of Metros, the Ouranoi, a great winged monster that lived in the hills around Susae, and the Sussurus, a headless ape made of porous stone which wandered the canyons outside Mantea
• The Sussurus loves wind, and hates fire.  It cannot feel pain.  It creates a powerful tone like the sounds like silence so strong that few are able to even appraoch it.  It dies if silenced.  The organ Neilos needed was its Crystal Heart.

While discussing what to do next about their prophecies, Ajax remembered the perforated bronze sphere on a stick he'd found in The Pit and realized it was a plague censer; it would help to spread any airborne diseases he created.  Still, he didn't know what the Bringers of Toxin were, so the Sussurus was their only remaining local lead.  They returned to the city, where they acquired candlewax to plug their ears, then turned in for the night.  Though only Ajax still needed to sleep, Neilos was afraid of the dark, and Steidis didn't have anything to do on his own in Mantea.

The next morning, the tone of the Sussurus was quieter, but still lingered.  Neilos went out alone to track down the Sussurus and observe it, figuring he'd be able to teleport away if it tried to attack.  He managed to find it, no easy feat given that the sound echoed off the canyon walls, but as he drew closer, found that the sound was so loud that, even with the earplugs, he felt a crippling headache and a growing pressure in his skull.  He attempted to teleport away, but the sound distracted him badly enough that he failed.

A Deathly Celebration

Meanwhile, Steidis received an invitation for a grand banquet in honour of his great work, to be held that evening.  They waited for Neilos to come back to see if he wanted to go to the party, but he preferred to stay in their lodging so he could stare at the wall and think of ways to approach the Sussurus.  The banquet was held in the Divided Palace, and Ajax and Steidis arrived to find it packed with nobility; of those present, they only knew the two queens, and recognized the red-robed man with the fine moustache.

Ajax attempted to pump the nobles for information on local legends, but they caught on and found it in rather poor taste, leaving him all alone.  Steidis had considered doing the same, but after seeing his friend crash and burn just boasted about his magnificent works.  Hours later, on his 15th cup of wine, Ajax noticed that it smelled "like death", and went to find Steidis.  He made it just in time to stop him from drinking from a cup with had the same horrific odour.

After a moment, Steidis decided not to just drink the (poisoned?) wine anyway, and the pair went to search for clues.  The black queen, who was always nice to Steidis, was nowhere to be found, so they went to break the white queen away from her current group to have a private conversation.  Ajax asked about the wine's vintage, but she didn't pay attention to that sort of thing; she was sure it was of fine quality.  He then inquired as to if the Palace had acquired any new slaves recently and they had, though the black queen had been the one to deal with that.

One of them had apparently been a murderer, though, so she wasn't too confident he could be trusted.  If they wanted to look out for him, he was bald with a scar over his left eye.  Ajax got the feeling she was leaving something out.  Steidis stepped aside and used his powers to look back through his cup's recent history, and saw the moustached man pour something black and oily into it out of a crystal vial with a skull-shaped stopper.  Back at their lodging, the proprietor brought a meal up to their rooms as an offering, but as always Neilos did not eat it (he was far too busy staring at the wall).

He informed Ajax, then tried to find the black queen to ask for a "tour" of the throne room, but she was still absent, so he went to the white queen again and badgered her into fetching two clerks to escort them.  She seemed offended and surprised that he only wanted to tour the throne room (Ajax: "I could have made the roll to ask politely!" Steidis: "A god doesn't ask, he demands").

In the throne room, Steidis asked for a history lesson from the clerks, and one of them informed them that originally there was one queen, but then the office was shared by two daughters.  One of the lines of those daughters died out, and a noble family was raised to fill the empty queenship.  The agreement seemed popular, and there was little strife between the two queens.  While the clerks were distracted, Steidis used his power to see through the door, to the meeting between the moustached man and the queens the day prior.

It seemed that the man had been elevated to the head of his household after the former head had fled with money that was supposed to have been used to build a new bridge.  There was nothing about poisoning the gods, though he got the impression that the man and the white queen had known each other prior to the meeting.  Ajax pondered offering the poisoned wine to one of the clerks, to see what happened, but instead just analyzed it with his powers, careful not to inhale or drink any.

Whatever the black, oily liquid was, it wasn't normal poison, but rather something that specifically targeted the gods.  He wasn't sure how, but he was convinced that it was associated with the first dead Nephele he had seen in the golden city in the Starlit Desert.  The two gods conferred for a moment, then decided to return to the party and wait for the black queen to show up.  Luckily for them, she had returned during their absence, and Steidis was able to pull her away from a jovial argument about whether pheasants or peacocks were better (both she and Steidis were on Team Peacock).

Steidis explained that the moustached man had tried to poison them, and though the black queen was willing to go along, she was curious how exactly he knew this.  He brushed this away with a vague non-answer, and asked that the poisoner be arrested.  She asked if it was okay to wait until the man was leaving, so as not to cause a scene at the party, and the gods agreed.  Sure enough, several hours later, members of the black queen's personal guard took the poisoner aside as he was leaving and took him to be held for further questioning.

As the gods were heading home, Ajax got a vision of a white orb moving through the sky.  Worried they were being tailed, they headed down the nearest alley, but if anyone had been following them, they didn't come down the alley, and after several minutes, the gods continued on.  They ended Neilos' wall-staring marathon and brought him up to speed on the night's events, then settled in until the next morning.

The Circle's End

Once the sun was up again, they all headed back to the Divided Palace to have Neilos interrogate the would-be poisoner with his powers.  They were able to convince a clerk to take them to his "prison cell", on "orders from the black queen", and were guided to a luxurious chamber that could hardly be called a cell.  The moustached man was reclined on a couch, reading a book and holding a glass of wine, when he saw them and did a spit-take.  He bolted for the third-floor balcony, so Neilos restrained him with a rapidly-grown potted plant.

They proceeded with the mundane interrogation, leaving powers for later, and learned the following:

• He was working for The Circle's End
• The cell in Mantea consisted of 23 people, including the white queen(!)
• The cell operated out of the Divided Palace(!)

Ajax went to go get a private meeting with the black queen to update her on what was going on, but was informed by an elderly clerk that she was still in public hearings for the day, and wouldn't be available until the afternoon.  He returned to the "prison cell" and told the others to settle in, because it'd be a long wait.  Around noon, a fine meal was brought to the "prisoner", and Ajax inspected it for weird god poison, but didn't find anything.

As he was handing the food over to the prisoner, Neilos intervened and declared that the prisoner would not eat.  The prisoner protested this decision, so Neilos pointed out that he had tried to kill them earlier.  He insisted that he had done no such thing, but he would remain hungry.  After more wall-staring, a clerk finally came to summon Ajax to the meeting with the black queen; Steidis went too, leaving Neilos to guard the prisoner.  The guards in the queen's chambers were notably not her personal guard, which left the gods wondering.

Meanwhile, back at the "prison cell", 15 armed men, with no identifying heraldry, broke down the door and charged in.  Neilos fired off a white flash, then, while the assailants found themselves suddenly blinded, cut them down with a series of lasers.  He'd had to draw in excess energy to pull it off, but he stayed on his feet.  Back in the queen's chambers, Ajax used "big words" to convey that the white queen was betraying the city without alerting the (dubiously-loyal) guards.  She summoned her personal guard, and they headed down to the "prison cell".  Inside, a lightly-bloodied Neilos stood over a room of moaning and smoking men clutching their faces.  

Notes:

Prophecy Scoreboard:

Neilos    5

Steidis    4

Ajax       2

Missing Memories:

Neilos     Family, Mortal Name, The Last 5 Years, Childhood, Most Precious Memory (His Horse, Daisy)

Steidis    Mortal Name, Family, Childhood, Most Precious Memory (His Mentor)

Ajax       Mortal Appearance, Most Precious Memory (His First Hunt)

Ideas that were turned down for dealing with the Sussurus include:

• Creating a mirror dish to reflect the sound
• A full-body insulating suit
• Creating an "anti-ape" that would negate the sound

Neilos wants to find a candidate of Keti, the goddess of the Sky, to help with the Sussurus.  They've never met one, but the "lightning woman" in Susae might be one.

The players are pretty confident that the white queen is in charge of The Circle's End cell.