Session 80: Shadows Loco in the Coco: Animaesus and Tarrasques
General Summary
Birdman, Amu, and Tenebris are still inside the right lung of the tarrasque, and they formulate a plan to get to the spinal cord of the beast, for surely more of that liquid might give some insight: Birdman expected a trial, but there is nothing but the flesh of the beast around them after Ssech has left.
Amu shapechanges into a flesh worm, and it takes an hour of slow, nasty regurgitation of the fleshy walls of the beast, towards the spine.
The poison and smell is thick, but seeing this will take some time, they elect to have a short rest. Amu continues to dig, and he rests at the top of his new found tunnel.
Once rested, the confer, and they agree to have Amu use his blade that has harnessed the light of the sun to cut through the remaining membrane, bone, and not nick key blood vessels or nerve centers in the process; they have been known to spark reactions from the beast that can overpower even the seals and bonds from the Binderlords.
With Birdman's aid, and with surgical precision, Amu get's to the spinal cord, and there is a slight incision made, and Birdman funnels the odd fluid into a sizable bottle from his gear. There is some debate, some warning before, but Birdman inevitably knows he must drink the fluid, that he must learn something, something like what Ssech must have learned. He is one of the candidates, one of the Shadows of the Beast.
The others see Birdman begin to have a seizure, and Amu tries to attend to him, but they can do little more than watch on and hope he doesn't bite down on his own tongue.
Birdman, however, is transported to a dark pleace, it seems, between realms. He sees an enormous dark figure, a figure with horns, and he hears the giggles and remarks of his former, kenku self.
The figure says, through images mostly, that Birdman is charged to take the territory and control of the title, the Shadow of the Beast. He must out a stop ot Ssech.
Yet, Birdman, wants to know why, and this irritates Jacq, this entity--Birdman reasons--so it kneels down, rather patronizingly, and explains the story of the beast. Its rise in the east, a chance to send it away, to change the fate, but the darkness of the tower took hold, and the insight of the mortals was far too short to discern proper steps. The beast must then follow its orignal trail west, and it must bring the change it was set forth to bring so many millenia ago. And, even though Ssech is not evil, he may be going too far with his lack of concern for the citizens who may die in the process of the beasts creation. He will, he may, use this Beast as a tool, and indeed the shadow may do that, as the hawk or bird leads a herd to its next water source.
Birdman awakes, confused and angry, and the group teleports back to the base of the 11th House tower. Birdman along the way explains to Amu and Tenebris, sort of (the Syth leaves soon to his own business upon arrival to the 11th House Tower). Feaky shadows, a man inside them, told him of a prophecy, of the Birdman's fate. The wood elf soon curls into the fetal position to put himself to rest, but he then leaves to the 4th House.
By this point Amu and Birdman are alone in the Beastcrown. Amu cannot allow Birdman to go alone, let alone with the spinal fluid, almost a twenty pound bottle. Birdman agrees to give it to Amu, and then as he does, as Amu mentions death and possibilites, another kenku visage appears to mock and laugh, to beckon him down an alley within the City of Salt.
With this, Amu returns to the 11th House, to beckon Amras, a guard and son of Faurwiin, to send to Pio, that he will be late to their meeting. Faurwiin agrees, and Pio confirms. Birdman has returned. Amu then runs to the tree, and realizes its core has been damaged, and that he may only have a few more chances to call upon its essence to transport him through plants, but he takes the risk. He teleports out of the City, to the north, by north east, to the lands of the Archdruid, the Druids of Spore.
With Faurwiin, he has taken most the day to finalize his last steps toward a new spell, but during that time, he also confirms with Pio that Birdman has returned, that Killian and Pio and Birdman are going to meet with Faurwiin at the 11th House. That they will find a way to resurrect the fallen binder lords, or find a way to find a new one. This is not over.
Tenebris returns upstairs, and even Faurwiin can pick up on the smell of the Tarrasque hanging about his apprentice. He talks of the trial of Birdman within the beast, of Ssech inside attacking seemingly indiscriminately, of Birdman seizing and falling drunk, after drinking spinal fluid and thus mutating with scaled skin. He was loco in the coco has he talked about the Shadow of the Beast. Birdman was asked of this shadow to let the beast, the tarrasque free, and he took some precious spinal fluid for his own. However, the weaselkin, Amu, took the bottle from him.
They, the Syth--Faurwiin and Tenebris, Master Gravitas and Lord Venator--they confer together, and they find that this creature must be one of the primordials. This shadow. Many of the primordial deities have always been fascinated with the structures of the Animaesus Lands, and one in particular has always had an interest: Jacq, the Change-maker, the Changeling Father, the Will of Nature. He has a create influence over the peoples of these lands.
They also talk of how Killian may have found means through his searches in the sewers and tunnels to further the Syths' goals and aims concerning cloning, themselves and others.
With this, Tenebris goes to his own research, his own forms and katas.
However, soon Faurwiin finishes his own research, and he helps test its limits with a sparing match between a handful of his sons, the Master Faurwiin fighting with his eyes closed, beginning in complete meditation.
He feels success from his new spell that allows to heighten his senses, and he sends his sons to continue ot practice. He then leaves, and he confirms his notes and studies as he leaves, and being distracted as such, he finds himself in front of Eember's door again. Thus invited in, he is shown a choice, and the essence of the tower congratulates him. He warns the next way down leads to a cut through it.
He finds on the next floor down, and he must cut through a adamantine statue; it takes him a few strikes.
Then further down, he finds a room with crystal shards, broken boxes, and a floating page from orcafor's book in the center, protected by five schools of magic and a powerful enchanment trigger. The shards of crystals must be dragonglass, a powerful resource from acroos the seas that can be a conduit to the Weave and its soures. With this, Faurwiin begins to learn the planar shift spell, and he must complete this taks before he can move on, downward into the towers secrets, Orcafor's lost spells, and the myths of Eember's former masters.
Birdman trails, meanders throught he City of Salt, the southern edges of the Beastcrown most close to the stagecourts fall. He follows the dark words, the giggles and cackles, the mimics and forgotten phrases, and he founds mound. They say, these kenku like cackles, reach inside, and when he does, it feels like the oily and thick fluids of the beast, the spinal fluid he drank just a little while before, that which mutated and changed him. He finds something amongst the muck, and he grips it. Something solid, and when he pulls it out, he cannot but help he remembers it from his life before, when he was the elf before the kenku, before he is what he is now... a bow, gorgeous, with magical elemental strings made from the tendrils of tarrasque flesh, and arrows igniting directly from the lunar light--a grace and worship of most wood elf heritage. He fires once to test its prowess, and then he runs off to the 4th House Binder Lord, Trundle, a bugbear warrior.
He finds the bugbear, once past the gathering of Ratuess lords and thugs, those outside founded by Aleplu, a powerful Cleric of the Weave of the Ancient Primordials, and once past his own gathering of Booyagh Goblins, and Hobgoblin, and Bugbear mercenaries and champions. Trundle eventually sits next to him after Birdman is served, and Birdman asks the Binderlord, this large bugbear in plate armor with an even larger greatsword, and he warns, that this civil war within his house will only lead to senseless violence, more turmoil throughout the city, and just, why?
Trundle seems unconcerned, but soon Birdman warns of the shadow, but Trundle just blows it off.
Later, after seeing the goblins and Trundle will not see sense, he returns to talk to the ratuess leader, Aleplu, and he warns him, and when Birdman explains the shadow, the bird warning of his own, the perspective--Aleplu uses it to his advantage, to rile and ralley his fellow ratuess and adventurers of the 4th house, and so riled up, they take it too far, and they begin to charge into the goblinoid haven, the place where Trundle drinks, and they scream, " You are the Shadow of the Bird"... "Beast!"... "Birdman, shadow and prophecy!"
Amu shapechanges into a flesh worm, and it takes an hour of slow, nasty regurgitation of the fleshy walls of the beast, towards the spine.
The poison and smell is thick, but seeing this will take some time, they elect to have a short rest. Amu continues to dig, and he rests at the top of his new found tunnel.
Once rested, the confer, and they agree to have Amu use his blade that has harnessed the light of the sun to cut through the remaining membrane, bone, and not nick key blood vessels or nerve centers in the process; they have been known to spark reactions from the beast that can overpower even the seals and bonds from the Binderlords.
With Birdman's aid, and with surgical precision, Amu get's to the spinal cord, and there is a slight incision made, and Birdman funnels the odd fluid into a sizable bottle from his gear. There is some debate, some warning before, but Birdman inevitably knows he must drink the fluid, that he must learn something, something like what Ssech must have learned. He is one of the candidates, one of the Shadows of the Beast.
The others see Birdman begin to have a seizure, and Amu tries to attend to him, but they can do little more than watch on and hope he doesn't bite down on his own tongue.
Birdman, however, is transported to a dark pleace, it seems, between realms. He sees an enormous dark figure, a figure with horns, and he hears the giggles and remarks of his former, kenku self.
The figure says, through images mostly, that Birdman is charged to take the territory and control of the title, the Shadow of the Beast. He must out a stop ot Ssech.
Yet, Birdman, wants to know why, and this irritates Jacq, this entity--Birdman reasons--so it kneels down, rather patronizingly, and explains the story of the beast. Its rise in the east, a chance to send it away, to change the fate, but the darkness of the tower took hold, and the insight of the mortals was far too short to discern proper steps. The beast must then follow its orignal trail west, and it must bring the change it was set forth to bring so many millenia ago. And, even though Ssech is not evil, he may be going too far with his lack of concern for the citizens who may die in the process of the beasts creation. He will, he may, use this Beast as a tool, and indeed the shadow may do that, as the hawk or bird leads a herd to its next water source.
Birdman awakes, confused and angry, and the group teleports back to the base of the 11th House tower. Birdman along the way explains to Amu and Tenebris, sort of (the Syth leaves soon to his own business upon arrival to the 11th House Tower). Feaky shadows, a man inside them, told him of a prophecy, of the Birdman's fate. The wood elf soon curls into the fetal position to put himself to rest, but he then leaves to the 4th House.
By this point Amu and Birdman are alone in the Beastcrown. Amu cannot allow Birdman to go alone, let alone with the spinal fluid, almost a twenty pound bottle. Birdman agrees to give it to Amu, and then as he does, as Amu mentions death and possibilites, another kenku visage appears to mock and laugh, to beckon him down an alley within the City of Salt.
With this, Amu returns to the 11th House, to beckon Amras, a guard and son of Faurwiin, to send to Pio, that he will be late to their meeting. Faurwiin agrees, and Pio confirms. Birdman has returned. Amu then runs to the tree, and realizes its core has been damaged, and that he may only have a few more chances to call upon its essence to transport him through plants, but he takes the risk. He teleports out of the City, to the north, by north east, to the lands of the Archdruid, the Druids of Spore.
With Faurwiin, he has taken most the day to finalize his last steps toward a new spell, but during that time, he also confirms with Pio that Birdman has returned, that Killian and Pio and Birdman are going to meet with Faurwiin at the 11th House. That they will find a way to resurrect the fallen binder lords, or find a way to find a new one. This is not over.
Tenebris returns upstairs, and even Faurwiin can pick up on the smell of the Tarrasque hanging about his apprentice. He talks of the trial of Birdman within the beast, of Ssech inside attacking seemingly indiscriminately, of Birdman seizing and falling drunk, after drinking spinal fluid and thus mutating with scaled skin. He was loco in the coco has he talked about the Shadow of the Beast. Birdman was asked of this shadow to let the beast, the tarrasque free, and he took some precious spinal fluid for his own. However, the weaselkin, Amu, took the bottle from him.
They, the Syth--Faurwiin and Tenebris, Master Gravitas and Lord Venator--they confer together, and they find that this creature must be one of the primordials. This shadow. Many of the primordial deities have always been fascinated with the structures of the Animaesus Lands, and one in particular has always had an interest: Jacq, the Change-maker, the Changeling Father, the Will of Nature. He has a create influence over the peoples of these lands.
They also talk of how Killian may have found means through his searches in the sewers and tunnels to further the Syths' goals and aims concerning cloning, themselves and others.
With this, Tenebris goes to his own research, his own forms and katas.
However, soon Faurwiin finishes his own research, and he helps test its limits with a sparing match between a handful of his sons, the Master Faurwiin fighting with his eyes closed, beginning in complete meditation.
He feels success from his new spell that allows to heighten his senses, and he sends his sons to continue ot practice. He then leaves, and he confirms his notes and studies as he leaves, and being distracted as such, he finds himself in front of Eember's door again. Thus invited in, he is shown a choice, and the essence of the tower congratulates him. He warns the next way down leads to a cut through it.
He finds on the next floor down, and he must cut through a adamantine statue; it takes him a few strikes.
Then further down, he finds a room with crystal shards, broken boxes, and a floating page from orcafor's book in the center, protected by five schools of magic and a powerful enchanment trigger. The shards of crystals must be dragonglass, a powerful resource from acroos the seas that can be a conduit to the Weave and its soures. With this, Faurwiin begins to learn the planar shift spell, and he must complete this taks before he can move on, downward into the towers secrets, Orcafor's lost spells, and the myths of Eember's former masters.
Birdman trails, meanders throught he City of Salt, the southern edges of the Beastcrown most close to the stagecourts fall. He follows the dark words, the giggles and cackles, the mimics and forgotten phrases, and he founds mound. They say, these kenku like cackles, reach inside, and when he does, it feels like the oily and thick fluids of the beast, the spinal fluid he drank just a little while before, that which mutated and changed him. He finds something amongst the muck, and he grips it. Something solid, and when he pulls it out, he cannot but help he remembers it from his life before, when he was the elf before the kenku, before he is what he is now... a bow, gorgeous, with magical elemental strings made from the tendrils of tarrasque flesh, and arrows igniting directly from the lunar light--a grace and worship of most wood elf heritage. He fires once to test its prowess, and then he runs off to the 4th House Binder Lord, Trundle, a bugbear warrior.
He finds the bugbear, once past the gathering of Ratuess lords and thugs, those outside founded by Aleplu, a powerful Cleric of the Weave of the Ancient Primordials, and once past his own gathering of Booyagh Goblins, and Hobgoblin, and Bugbear mercenaries and champions. Trundle eventually sits next to him after Birdman is served, and Birdman asks the Binderlord, this large bugbear in plate armor with an even larger greatsword, and he warns, that this civil war within his house will only lead to senseless violence, more turmoil throughout the city, and just, why?
Trundle seems unconcerned, but soon Birdman warns of the shadow, but Trundle just blows it off.
Later, after seeing the goblins and Trundle will not see sense, he returns to talk to the ratuess leader, Aleplu, and he warns him, and when Birdman explains the shadow, the bird warning of his own, the perspective--Aleplu uses it to his advantage, to rile and ralley his fellow ratuess and adventurers of the 4th house, and so riled up, they take it too far, and they begin to charge into the goblinoid haven, the place where Trundle drinks, and they scream, " You are the Shadow of the Bird"... "Beast!"... "Birdman, shadow and prophecy!"
Report Date
12 Oct 2024
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