"I think it would be wise to move the egg."
You visit Koride's office, but the egg is not there. It's no where to be found! Disturbing news.
That night you party in spire dorm. Many people on campus want to visit. Haibram soars off the Leaping Spire. Eli and Chim spend some time alone before joining the group. Chizire makes electric lemonade cocktails with the help of Ixamè. Ignaci watches new students put coins into the All-Seeing Solutions. Izem and Mariama smoke some pungent herbs out by frog pond.
Zachva and Zanvi are excited to see Aunt Wisps, but the dragon babies and threm become fast friends and are soon playing a new version of tag that involves flight and spider-slung webbing.
Anchor root spins good music, but her choices are also kind of a downer because the dance floor is rather empty… there's no Soomdevi vamping or Noxolo dancing.
It gets quiet pretty early and you torn to cards in Okoro's room. Talk inevitable turns to various things… Koride (where is she with the egg), Soomdevi and Noxolo, the Shadow-Maagambya…
Chim looks at his hand, an Old Mage card and a Tower.
Chimwemwe rearranges the cards in his hand as he talks. "I thought Soomdevi had more of a grim humor than a melancholy about him," he says and looks over at Curling-Wisps-of-Smoke. "I didn't realize the pain in his heart was still acute. I didn't see that my friend needed help."
Akoril pokes his heads in at various bits of partying, spending a bit of time here and there but largely feeling disconnected from his collegiate haunts and activities, and not willing to spend a whole not getting lost in one of them.
Finally late at night, a bit does catch Akoril's interest as he watches partygoers stumbling home and realizes their paths are another bit of energy that flow with the ley lines that connect everything.
Sketching out the patterns he begins to see forming Akoril begins piecing together another bit of research, how the flow of people connect with and alter the existing leylines.
Ignaci scoffs. Soomdevi was so DRAMA.
He does an impression of showing off fangs and pretends to bite Okoro, who looks uncomfortable with the tone of his boyfriend's jest but can't help but giggle, and tip his winning hand.
Ignaci places a bet.
I want to take Soomdevi's room. I'll make it a scriviner's and alchemy lab and it's right across the hall from our room. We can throw his junk out on the quad, the newer students will scavenge it.
Haibram grunts and goes all in, and you can see he thinks he has a good hand. Ignaci grins… Haibram is a terrible poker player and always loses.
If you want to bet and keep the room out of Ignaci's hands, and Soomdevi's stuff from being ignobly tossed out on the quad, make a card-related skill check like Deception or Gambling Lore.
Akoril will stretch, find a good seat that lines up with the leylines and play cards to try and hold on to Soomdevi's stuff.
Akoril wins handedly, especially since Okoro topped his hand. Ignaci throws his cards down in disgust. What a sore loser.
Binji watches from the corner, clutching her doll. Her eyes glitter as she dreams of her very own room. So big. Plus, she knows Soomdevi was a very lazy student so there is probably lots of helpful cleaning to do in there — after all, lazy students tend to be messy.
BINJI… help…??
Haibram shuffles. Alight, another round for Soomdevi's stuff. I get he's got some good eye shadow, fingernail polish, lace and gods know what else in there. I mean, not my style but I bet someone would buy it… let's see who gets it, before Ignaci tosses it on the quad!
He deals again.
Wisps pretends to try to keep a straight face, but she taps her fingers excitedly as she examines a terrible hand.
Kiri watches the game as if it were a show. You get the sense that, were they capable of eating popcorn, they would have a large bucket of it with them.
"He's not dead," Chimwemwe protests as he rearranges his cards. "We should keep his things safe until he returns."
Wisps wins easily.
Whatever, I don't care. says Ignaci.
Now he sounds like Soomdevi! laughs Esi. Ignaci stands with wounded dignity and excuses himself to get a drink from Chizire's room.
You head over to Soomdevi's. Binji eagerly follows and starts frantically cleaning with her Broom of Wonder. She points it at a pile of socks, which blow aside in a magical wind and four roach-shaped spellskeins, suddenly exposed, skitter away. Binji help!
In Soomdevi's dresser, in addition the aforementioned gothic accoutrements and wooden trapper-keeper notebooks filled with more doddles than class notes, you find a journal of poetry. The latest specimen:
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
My heart
Is a raincoat
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
⠀⠀
Binji looks at Akoril, her eyes glitter with hope. Binji room? Bingi help. Binji keep clean. Promise.
She points at a hair-thin ley line thrumming along the ground, a psychic green remnant of Soomdevi's own primal druidic powers — the natural magic that thrummed just below the surface of his enigmatic shadow-casting.
It's barely there. Akoril is astounded Binji located this ley-line in the first place… her powers are growing.
She caresses the ley line with the brush-tips of her broom, as if to help it grow stronger. Good lay-line. Binji help?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Akoril nods solemly, well maybe he cracks a little smile.
Well maybe a big smile.
Wisps cackles as she openly folds her terrible hand.
"Binji can definitely help. I think you should take care of this room, and keep an eye on that leyline."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"Maybe I should let Binji take care of my snakes," Chimwemwe muses. He looks at Akoril and Curling-Wisps-of-Smoke. His lips part and then close in an aborted question.
The next morning, you leave Binji behind while she cleans her new room over and over again.
You see, just off campus, grandstands being erected near a wide portion of one of Naantambu's canals. Apparently, the leshies have been working on a new MECHA that may help defend the city, in case of attack. What could it be?
Later that day, one of the leshies delivers a letter:
Friends,
Will you help us demonstrate our new MECHA for the people of our beautiful city? Meet at the canal tonight.
You ask around.
Akoril talks to a MECHA LESHY intern who's tinkering with a buyoancy device that looks like a river perch. The the leshies have code-named their project the
and "SMITE" is an acronym for its attack features:
Submersible
Mecha
Incendiary
Tail-whip
Engulf
Wisps hears overhears some students who got a peek at LESHY classified documents:
They say "SMITE" is an acronym for its attack features:
Submersible
Mecha
Ingurgitate
Torpoedos
Electrified
Whatever the case, the LESHIES love their acronyms!
Akoril leaves behind a tasty snack for Binji in someplace she's sure to find while cleaning.
Akoril puzzles "Ingurgitate, is that even a word?. I'm happy to memorize Water Breathing for tomorrow, but we might want to have a couple ready just in case."
"I'll head over to the Powderpile. I'm sure I've seen one in Xhokan's stacks of scrolls."
After learning about the environment the leshy academics have planned to challenge them, Chimwemwe spends the day leading up to the challenge in his workshop. Flashes of lightning and strange harmonics emanate from within.
When he emerges that evening to join his companions on the way to the challenge, his armor has been modified with a broad gorget that has what appear to be illuminated gills on the sides and both his vambraces and greaves have elaborate runes evoking piscine creatures engraved upon them.
Prepared, you walk over to where the MECHA arena is set up, It's sundown, and the tide is at slack. This sector of the Naantambu's features some of its most wide and deep canals. Teacher Mafika walks with you, wearing his badass bomber jacket.
The LESHIES are proposing we use their MECHA to patrol the deep waterways on the city, should there ever be an attack from the waterways. The Tempest Sun will be in attendance for this operationl test. As before, everything here will be nonlethal!
The stands are filled with curious citizens. Zaxhva, Zanva, Binji, anbd the cloud dragon's children are in a section of the stands eating cloud candies, sugar-infused mist spun from magic; Tzeniwe and Ixamè wath on, worried about the sugar highs and inevitable cranky crash. Ignaci is working the stands, taking bets. Esi sits next to her Tempest Sun mother, twisting her fingers and anxious to see her partner ace this test.
This time, there's no Soomdevi to work the crowd.
Mafika separates from you as you wade into the canal. There's no current, and the walls of the canal plummet straight down 50 feet. You see magical sensors down below, and above the canal the air flickers to life with a three-dimensional, real-time illusory recreation of everything that happens under water, in high definition. You can hear the sounds underwater too, a little garbled but clear enough to make out.
Mafika steps up to a podium.
Now, for the rematch you've all been waiting for." He gestures, and an illusion of your last bout against the begins to play, complete with booming music provided by Anchor Root.
"Last time fought well… fought hard… but was bested in the end by their nemesis, " The illusory reel shows the MEGA falling to pieces. "They're tied now, ONE TO ONE! They're both looking to prove themselves and they're both back… they're stronger than ever… they're hungry for a rematch… Who will prevail?" You hear the dim roar of the crowd above.
"Let me introduce, in this corner… " He gestures at your team and this time, the crowd cheers!
"And in the other corner… A gate in the canal opens up, and out swims a terror of the deep: a gargantuan contraption made of wood bent around metal and glass. It has a hooked claw, fishing pole (maybe the leshies spend their idle patrolling time fishing!?), and an aperture in its front. Leshies in sailor hats watch from the portholes, the . "we… have… my gods…" The MEGA waves its fishy tail and a wave rises, crashing over the stands and soaking a few ozen spectators. "The… the… oh my… the… " The crows howls with anticipation. The MEGA lines up opposite you, sinking to the bottom and crackling with electricity.
LOAD FISH! shouts the captain leshy. Aooogaa! Aoooga! Aoooga! A klaxon inside the MEGA sounds off, and lights flash. A long, thin device is lowered from the belly of the mecha-beast. Propellers on its tail end begin spinning. FISH LOADED!
The thing swims forward and fires the "fish" off. The tube shoots forward and explodes in the water in front of you, bursting in a 20-foot field of electrified water.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
SMITE MEGA
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Undead fighter
➤ Kiri
⠀⠀➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
Earlier that day...
Akoril casts Water Breathing (3)
---
Underwater Akoril swims forward to Kiri and casts Feet to Fins on his companion, hoping the mobility will benefit them more than immediate aggression.
Kiri feels Akoril's spell take hold, then darts around the electrified region before firing an orb of freezing energy at the submarine.
The submersible's thick armor frosts over a bit, but to no other effect.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
SMITE MEGA
➤ Chimwemwe
Kiri
➤ Wisps
Akoril
Chimwemwe lowers his peacock mask. As the modified gorget shifts automatically to seal the gaps, he leaps feet first into the water. Once submerged, the piscine etchings glow with a soft blue light.
He traces the invisible tattoos on his arm with a finger. The tattoos bloom and add to the faint nimbus of light filtering into the water around him. He then raises his shield and glides effortlessly into the electrified water.
Wisps waves her hands around and casts a spell around the leshies's submersible. She sends them visions of the submersible exploding and water rushing in!
, DC 31 basic Will, with additional effects on a crit fail
She swims a little closer.
Ahhh! The captain hears klaxons upon klaxons in his mind, and scrambles at the controls!
Prepare to ingurgitate!
Aye Aye, captain!
AOOGA! AOOGA! Red lights flash as the MEGA swims inso position, its "mouth" opens wide… wider… wider…
Position fixed, targets locked!
MEGA FUNNEL! Now!
A leshy ensign slams a big red button and a fan inside the mouth of the MEGA fish starts violently sucking in water. The fan crackles with caged lightning, electrifying the water…
MEGA FUNNEL activated!
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
SMITE MEGA
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Kiri
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
Akoril gets zapped and pulled forward.
Akoril does at least manage to avoid getting shocked by the cloud.
Akoril does his best to swim back, getting about 50 feet back, before focusing his energy into a telekinetically aided arrow.
Chimwemwe manages to endure the worst of the electrical discharge. His armor absorbs as much as it can and converts it into fuel for its magitechnical powers. One such is superheating the boss in front of his shield. He slams the bulky implement toward the giant fish ship, and the water boils around the boss.
He drifts back a smidge and draws the ivory spear.
+
Kiri twitches with the electricity of the funnel, but manages to slip away from the mouth enough to take up a flanking position and slash at the giant submarine.
Whirlpools swirl above as the combatants are repositioned and shocked. The crowd gasps and cheers!
Enemies closing! Activate Anti Melee Defense System! A Leshy slams a button as Chim swims closer. A.M.D.S. activated!
When the inventor misses by a wide margin, the tail lashes out!
The crowd's cheering dies a bit as Chim is whacked, Kiri whiffs, and they go quiet when Akoril's arrow sinks like a dead minnow.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
SMITE MEGA
Chimwemwe
Kiri
➤ Wisps
Akoril
Wisps swims forward.
"We've got them right where we want them!"
Wisps inspired, burbling encouragement. The crowd cheers as he swims forward.
Jaws strike! The leshy captain yanks on an lever and he flips around and strikes at Chim! The inventor can see little teeth inside the MEGA JAWS!
Set hook!
The crane atop the MEGA swings over. Chim can see a fish hook shaped anchor on the end, and it drags along his armor…
It finds purchase in a chink of Chim's armor.
HOOK SET, CAPTAIN!
The captain cackles with delight as he pulls a cord above his head. Another. line shoots out of the metal maw and wraps around Chim's legs and begins pulling him in.
Excellent work, ensign! Begin Ingurgitation Protocol #2!
The mouth clamps shut around the inventor.
Bad news… Chim is swallowed whole. Good news… the MEGA probably can;t use that 60-foot cone attack while it's holding someone inside.
The crowd boos as the MEGA ingurgitates Chim. The leshies insde giggle and pull levers within the submersible, making it waggle its tail in a rude gesture up at the grandstands. The crowd boos louder and the leshies grin, thoroughly enjoying playing the heel.
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
SMITE MEGA
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Kiri
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
Akoril casts haste on themselves and fires off a shooting star at the MEGCHAALESHY
Chimwemwe considers the ignominy of being swallowed by the mecha-goldfish. He also considers that he is inside the mechanical contraption and wonders if the leshies provided adequate reinforcement to the inner workings of the submersible. He lets go of the spear and tries to maneuver his arm into position to touch the correct runes and stones. Hoping that he did it correctly, he slaps his hand against his breastplate and erupts in a bubble of sonic force.
Wisps swims around the electrified area, keeping her friends inspired.
Kiri slashes at the giant fish, hoping to sever some of the mechanism that holds shut the jaw, then weaves a quick defensive ward.
Chim tries to rupture out; the metal mouth dents but does not rupture. However, Kiri's second sneak attack manages to break him free.
The MEGA spins and spans at its prey!
Leaving the rogue bloodied but not down, the leshies swim back. Charge MEGA FUNNEL!
The submersible hums with electricity as lesy ensigns fiddle with capacitors…
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
SMITE MEGA
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Kiri
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
Akoril casts True Strike and fires from afar.
Wisps swims closer, keeping her friends inspired.
Chimwemwe swims a little closer to the titanic construct. He begins to speak and draw shapes in the water. The shapes linger as faintly glowing sigils that begin to orbit until a four-symbol sequence aligns.
A ray of orange light launches through each symbol and toward the wooden fish.
Trying to get out of another potential cone, Kiri swims around the side of the fish, weaving a spell to heal some of their wounds as they go.
Chim's ray shoots wide; the surface of the water glimmers and shimmers!
Wisps inspires, spreading out and Kiri heals themself.
Akoril's arrow slams into the MECHA, lightbulbs inside the chamber shatter and gaskets spray water. More klaxons inside go off. AOOGA! AOOGA!
The captain shouts: When is the MEGA FUNNEL ready?
An ensign, standing under a jet of water blasting out from a seam in the hull, frantically pounds on a sizzling capacitor with a log: Just another moment, Captain!
The captain growls. Blast it! Get in position! The MEGA surges diagonally and then reverses port engines, swinging the mouth around and pointing straight at Akoril.
Ramming Speed all forward! Target: Akoril! The corkscrew propellors spin furiously as the MEGA surges ahead!
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
SMITE MEGA
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Kiri
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
Kiri casts another quick spell, disappearing from sight before immediately reappearing to the south of the mecha-fish. They quickly slash out at the construct, aiming for the most exposed parts they can find.
Akoril gets slammed into by the Sub. Without many other options Akoril tries to get loose.
Slipping free, Akoril swims away twice before taking a shot.
Chimwemwe draws his fingers across a series of runes. Thin metal rods emerge from his armor and begin to arc with electricity. He slams his hand against the center of his breastplate, and a lightning bolt skitters through the water, through the electric net, and through the wooden fish. Unfortunately, Chimwemwe is slightly burned in the process.
He raises his shield in defense.
Wisps sends some soothing energy toward Chimwemwe before addressing her allies.
"We've almost got them now!"
The MECHA is falling apart… likely, unable to withstand another zap, slice, or cut but the leshies frantically shove levers around and avoid Chim's megavolt altogether. The crowd hisses… the leshies hang on desperately…
Get me that MEGA FUNNEL!
System online, capacitors charged!
The great fish flips over in the water swimming into position…
MEGA FUNNEL!
──────────
BOLD IS UP!:
──────────
SMITE MEGA
➤ Chimwemwe
➤ Kiri
➤ Wisps
➤ Akoril
Kiri is shocked, but manages to avoid the worst of it and resist the pull. They don't wait for anyone else this time, instead swimming forward and slashing again at the mecha.