Path to Godhood Session 12: A Flame Extinguished

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

Reunion

Neilos woke up in a fancy bed in the Metaxas estate, and this time he got a slave put the shards of the mirror in a sack instead.  He checked in with Pan, then teleported back up to the sun and down to the outskirts of Syrinth; when he was in the sun, he felt a presence similar to his own.  Neilos then walked back into town and found the other gods at the place they'd been staying.  Happy they wouldn't have to wait a week, Ajax suggested they go find a smith to turn the mirror shards into weapons.

They found one easily, a woman named Lyssa who took care to stay clean despite the dirty work, and Neilos started the conversation oddly by reciting the Circle's End code phrase.  From her perspective, this man just seemed unhinged.  When she saw how careful they were with the shards, she asked what was going on, and Neilos informed her of their divinity (thought not which specific gods they were).  Lyssa agreed to make a backspike for Steidis' hammer, and told them it would be done in two days.  Neilos tried to volunteer Steidis to assist with her work, but he refused ("My honor!"), and she wasn't interested at any rate.

To prepare for dealing with the beguiling lights, Ajax and Neilos wanted Steidis to make a mirrored shield, in the hope that the lights' hypnotic power wouldn't work through a reflection.  He bought the required bronze, but failed to use his powers to create it instantly, and stopped when they realized it would take several days.

Path To Godhood Session 11: The Rekindled Sun

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

The Missing Assistant

Ajax tried to pick up Rini's tracks, but it had been 3 days since she'd gone missing, there had been a heavy storm, and it was a swamp, so he found nothing.  The gods asked around Syrinth as to what might cause someone to go missing in the swamp.  Boring explanations like "if your light source goes out it's really easy to get turned around" weren't much help, but then they found a "swamp fisher" who claimed that there were beguiling lights out in the swamp that only showed up in pure darkness.  You're going to want to walk towards them, but you have to resist, because those who followed the lights were never seen again!

As the god of "the sun" (which is, allegedly, a bright light), Neilos wanted more information about the lights, and the swamp fisher told him what he knew, which wasn't much.  He'd once seen them while out harvesting swamp fish way into the darkness, with all his light sources turned off.  Ajax asked whether groups could be affected, and the fisher figured they probably had been, otherwise how would people know that the ones who'd followed the lights had never been seen again?

They discussed what to do with this information, and Ajax noted that Syrinth's unnatural darkness seemed to be more absolute than the starlit desert.  Neilos decided to ask around if there were any other gods in town, but didn't turn anything up.  While they were walking around the city, Steidis momentarily saw a vision of a cresting wave gently rolling into the shore in twilight.  He told the others of this, and put forth a theory: the swamp eats people and then moves the remains to the sea.

Path To Godhood Session 10: The Land of Night

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

Hunting The Lioness

Ajax wasn't a fan of Pirus 1's attempt to get him to kill the other two candidates (and doubted he could pull it off anyway), so they went into a team huddle to discuss their options.  After a while (35 minutes real-time), they broke off and Steidis attempted to intimidate Pirus by threatening to tell Pirus 3, whose forces were still at full-strength, that she was wide open to an attack.  She was unmoved, and said that she knew the gods weren't on good terms with Pirus 3, so their actions would be irrelevant.  Neilos Revealed Pirus' Secrets, and asked what she wouldn't want the other gods to know.  In a semi-dazed state, she replied that she had spies in their camps.

Out of further ideas, the gods charged Pirus 1, intending to wound her badly enough that she would request them to stop.  Ajax shot out death rays, Steidis fired fire from his eyes, and Neilos fired off blinding flashes of light, while Pirus failed to activate any of her own powers, but grabbed a spear and was able to hold them off and retreat outside.  While most of her men were disabled by the sickness Ajax had spread in their camp, Pirus herself was far more capable in a fight than they had anticipated, and the gods were forced to flee.

Homecoming

Thinking he was locked out of that prophecy for now, Ajax told the other gods that they might as well go somewhere else.  Eventually, they settled on going back to Metros, and after Ajax drained the life from a lost child to stave off his steadily approaching death, they booked passage on a ship.  They ended up docking after dark, and found a group of militia dragging a dishevelled looking man out of town.  Exile was a fairly common punishment, but the gods decided to follow along in case something interesting happened.

Path To Godhood Session 9: The Three Lions

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

The Assembly

The Tetrarchs sat on a raised dais, while Neilos made his case for instituting public trials, the Urbosan nobility in the crowd arguing with each other and him over the proposal.  One horrified noble asked if he was planning to cancel public executions; the crowd gasped, and one noblewoman fainted.  The ensuing discussion about whether trials overseen by the Tetrarchs would help stop the Eniadnan spies took several hours, and was only settled when Pan Metaxas intervened and brought up that the nobility would appreciate the new trials if they were accused of espionage.

It was all for show, as the gods had already secured the votes of three of the Tetrachs, and after some haggling between Pan and Lamia Michelakis, the new law was instituted.  The assembly continued on, but the gods left; they didn't care about the nobility's struggles with crops being seized by the battling armies on the highlands.  Instead, they headed to Natasa's to check in on the Acantha situation.  After a short wait in the lounge, Natasa emerged from the dungeon, lightly spattered with blood.  Apparently Acantha had given up enough of her co-conspirators that they were confident they could take down most of the spy ring, so they could start the trial the next day.

The Trial

The trial was held in the city's amphitheatre, dug into the base of Mt. Fotia, with nobles looking down from hot-spring balconies.  The Tetrarchs held court, with Neillos behind Pan, and Acantha was brought out.  The evidence Arethusa had found in her quarters turned out to be orders signed by an imperial official, and several co-conspirators testified that Acantha was the leader.  It wasn't particularly dramatic, but she was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Path To Godhood Session 8: The Circle's End

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

The Konstoninus Estate

While waiting in their apartments, Neilos tried to use his powers to fill in the missing half of the map of the Raptis estate, but they weren't working.  A while later, Kallisto came to fetch them and took them out into the street to rendezvous with the 10-man goon squad she'd been able to call up on such short notice, and they headed to one of the side entrances of the Konstoninus estate.  Kallisto was sent forward to intimidate the pair of guards into letting them through on "Hunter's business", and they parted and unlocked the door, but stayed at their posts.

As they crossed the grounds to the inner doors, Kallisto suggested going in loud because nobody other than herself (and possibly Ajax) were remotely capable of stealth.  This lead to a discussion of how suitable their powers were for taking prisoners (Neilos somewhat, the others not at all), and a decision for the gods to take point as they headed to the second-floor apartments, where prisoners would likely be held.  Predictably, their large group was spotted by a lone man who cried out that there were intruders and ran off.

Neilos grabbed him with some decorative flowers nearby, and the party decided to rush forward and engage the foe before they could organize themselves.  They spilled into a long hall where 15 armed men were trying to form up and the two forces clashed.  Up the stairs, a dozen of the house Raptis guards in blue tabards waited, blocking one hallway but not intervening.  What was left of the warped mirror was brought out, and several of the enemy drew shards of it, but the gods wisely sent their goon squad in to engage the shard-wielders while they hung back and tried to use their powers.

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.

Traveller Session 4: Verorum (Part 3)

Player Characters:

John A Rico - Former Star Marine

Rocke Ramora - Thief-Turned-Trader

Willy Warder - Noble Administrator

NPC Crew:

Zuleikah - Money-Obsessed Astrogator

A Quick Departure

Rocke gazed on in horror as "his" ship crashed into the bright-red ship one berth over and came to a stop at a 30-degree angle, crammed onto the platform.  He, Rico, and Overseer Paulus Calidius started down the concourse towards the ship, planning to climb up to the airlock intercomm.  A rocket launched from somewhere off to their right, streaking towards the star marine patrol corvette which they just now noticed hovering higher up in the dome, and the sound of gunfire echoed off in the distance.  They jogged towards the ship, Rico carrying their 5kg of immortality drugs.

Meanwhile, Willy and Zuleikah yelled at each other on the bridge ("You should have piloted the ship!" "I told you, I'm not a pilot!" "Well neither am I!").  The ship was obviously way off-kilter, but neither of them were certain if it was stable, or if it was about to fall off the platform.  The crowd that had been around the red ship they'd collided with dispersed, so Willy lowered the entry ramp; as the ship was still at a steep angle, the bottom of the ramp was still 6' in the air.  He then used the intercomm to ask if anyone was injured, but nobody responded other than Zuleikah, who was one chair over.

Wanting to check on their "passenger" Willy brought the camera for the main airlock up and heard a bunch of pathetic moaning from the nobles who had been aboard during the crash ("Are there any other secret cameras I can check?" "Only Rocke knows about those" "Hey, those were supposed to be secret!").  After some fiddling with the computer system he was able to force a connection to the room GX-415 had been locked in, and he claimed to be injured but it didn't sound urgent.