Game Session #2

[Pikachu]

Game Session #2 (Given the craziness of this combat, I'm opting less for the silly route, and more for the serious, to make it a more interesting read, if you can believe that)

[told from the viewpoint of Sicarius]

We report in to Klavion and quickly receive new orders to go to the Keystone Factory to investigate. We cannot go immediately, however, because Shin is recovering from fatigue. I believe this is his side effect from going into those battle rages... as much as his strength is a boon, I cannot help but wonder how long he can last before he loses staying power, or his sanity for that matter. No one knows how much longer the Val might last after being cursed as such by Anaximandor like this. It could be later tonight, tomorrow, or decades from now - who knows? As an Illryian, I know better than any of the other races, or even more than any other Illryian, what being marked like that could mean. Unfortunately for Shin, I also know that there are those who are probably preparing for a contingency, should there be a day where the Val as a collective lose their wherewithal and forget of their self-appointed positions as protectors of the realm and go after friend and foe alike. Perhaps even the holiest of men are ready to let loose whatever dogs of war they have caged to eradicate the blue skinned brutes when the time comes.

Well, the noble Val have little excuse not to overcome this setback. Former humans have come back from worse, after all. If they do succumb fully, I wouldn't hesitate to put Shin out of his misery. It would be the respectful thing to do for a comrade.

Such were my thoughts as I meditated, waiting for my groupmate to recover. Humans and Fey may consider such thoughts treacherous, but they treat the necessity of death like an aristocratic woman treats mud and dirt. They are simply afraid to soil their hands with it.

Meanwhile, Lucia is playing with fire. Plumes of smoke begin rising into the crisp, clear night sky. I find it sad that he does not know to keep the skies clear himself, that he may appreciate the stars that are out tonight, and enjoy the bite of the cool breeze which is suffocated by his flames. He is a strange one, but I suspect that there is a method to his madness. No one attains any degree of appreciable power without this trait.

They find me first - Shin and Osmium - before finding a muttering and complaining Lucia. Osmium is another of the Demon Touched, who enjoys the shadows even more than many others of our kind. While I find the applications of his tendrils violent (yes, by my standards and potentially... perverse... I can probably relate to his brooding manner the most. As such, we have kept our respectful distances, well aware that we both bear many dark scars. He is sullen, indeed, but I have never met an Illryian who was upbeat, and somehow, I pray I never do. An Illryian who has cause to be so damn happy all the time is one that no one should trust.

We gather our gear and head out into the city, toward the Keystone Factory. I watch as the buildings surrounding us begin to degrade, until we have reached a particularly wretched looking factory - looking the same as the image I gleaned from the clown puppet's mind barely forty-five minutes before. But no one needed a psychic to understand the nature of such a place. Blood soaked dirt covers the front of this building, and the air smelled of torture and murder. I briefly soak in the aura of Killing Intent, savoring its familiar nature...

Perhaps you do not understand, reader, how to savor such feelings. One thing a person can learn, while under the tutelage of demons, is to intuitively understand the nature of death. What makes sentient beings so special is that sentience leads to purpose. Purpose leads to intent. A strong Killing Intent is full of will, passion, and certainty. It may contain hate, jealousy, vengeance, sadness, or pleasure. But nothing competes with a Killing Intent which desires to contribute to the higher order of death - the drunk revelry of power which has the authority to stop life.

[Pikachu]

Game Session #2, cont.

I begin to feel disappointment, and disgust. Taking in another's Killing Intent is like experiencing a forbidden fruit. Those who cannot handle such feelings may wither under fear if their enemy's intent is too strong. I expected better, even from these two-bit murderers, but their aura fills my mouth with the taste of sour, shitty wine. They have no true Intent - just a numbing hedonistic itch to scratch, nothing more. I feel the urge burning inside me to eliminate their stench from the face of existence.

We walk into the warehouse, our footsteps echoing faintly off the stone walls. I do not feel the need for subtlely here, not against such pathetic weaklings. Not finding any guards, our party casually explores the factory, following the trails of blood to a trap door leading underground. Quickly, we pop it open, expecting an ambush, but no such thing comes. Entering the passage, we begin hearing laughter, mixed with the pained moans of prisoners. I take no mind of the prisoners. They were not listed as a higher priority than dealing with the clowns. Shin and Lucia begin freeing the prisoners first.

I do not understand the counter-intuitive design of this place. Further down the corridor, at the end, I hear laughter that is unmistakably... clownish. Why would the prisoners' cells be in front of those who should guard them? I also do not understand why Shin and Lucia are in such a hurry to free the prisoners - they'll still be there after the fight. Should we somehow fail, there would just be more bodies in those cells, after all, and in a more traditional setting, the guards would need to be eliminated first before the freed prisoners can have a safe escape.

Fortunately, the need for order is unecessary with the chaotic, nonsensical clowns, and some prisoners are led out safely. Osmium and I, with our priorities straight, head down to the end of the hallway. I half expect Osmium to open the door first, thinking we could barge in and begin the slaughter, but he sinks through the door.

"Couldn't you have opened the door for me?" I mutter sarcastically.

"No," I hear from a faint Osmium-sounding whisper.

It figures.

I open the door, finding a demented circus of drug paraphernelia, marionettes, and those strange wooden boards with the moving blades* strewn about the floor. I casually draw my sword and wait for them to notice us an approach, that they may fall to my blade.

Us? Osmium?

Except, this is less "us" and just a lot more "me". Hmm. Osmium is nowhere to be found. The clowns immediately charge en masse. Great, I think to myself, this now has to be a little more difficult. Throwing up a barrier around myself, I am barely able to cushion the blow of a potentially lethal swing of a clown's scythe. I am instantly surrounded by four of these imbeciles. Osmium leaps out from the shadows and takes out one of his tendrils, wrapping it around a clown's neck, snapping it.

Thankful that there is one less out of more than a dozen to worry about, I ward off some pathetic attempts to attack my mind, while Osmium now grabs someone by their lower regions, and squeezes hard enough to pop his manhood. I knew there was something Osmium was hiding in his closet.

Taking a weak swipe at one of the scythe-wielding clowns, I feint another blow at him, and quickly change my target to another standing adjacent to me. Not expecting my attack, the clown's innards are spilled all over the floor, but he still manages a gurggling laugh as he slumps over. Once again, I feel those same wires tying me up. I look over to my right and see Osmium getting bound as well. More clowns keep rushing at us, but they are so weak in their attacks that they cannot harm two bound men. I knew they would be so useless.

Osmium picks up one of their strange blades* with a tendril, still tied up himself, and begins swinging it around, dismembering another clown in a bloody flare. I casually free myself of those wires and swing my blade downward, hoping to catch the scythe-wielder in front of me on the chest. He is able to lean back far enough to keep his organs intact, but loses a leg as my sword continues its arc toward the ground. Miraculously, the clown maintains his balance, and my brief moment of victory is dampened when I see the clown's leg move up off the floor and re-attach itself back to where it was.

More blows are exchanged, and a clown throws a colored ball near me. The resulting pulse weakens my defenses as I am on the receiving end of some unfunny punishment. I am not sure how much longer I can hold out, but then a fireball streaks past me and fries one of the arms from the clown I am still fighting. Finally, Lucia and Shin must be done. Though they are just seconds late, they are late nonetheless, and I am glad we can begin to roll over these clowns. I deftly slice the clown's other arm off, preparing myself to finish him off now that he cannot defend himself. However, the clown is a coward, unwilling to even kick me with his legs, using them instead to run back toward some jesters who help him reattach his lost limbs.

Meanwhile, Osmium delightfully takes off more genitals with his tendrils, and Shin becomes most angry, taking his rage out on a poor peon who is on the receiving end of a fist that takes him across the room, dashing his broken body against the wall. Before I can appreciate the designs Shin left on the wall, I sense two mental assaults on Shin. I watch him stumble momentarily and shake off the cobwebs... that couldn't have been pleasant.

I sigh as I fade my essence into the folds of space, briefly creating a tessaract in which I can move instantaneously towards the coward who ran.

"Going somewhere?" I ask him.

I do not wait for his reply, lashing out with my sword, aiming for the jugular. The clown twists and holds up his arms, and I hack off an arm yet again. In all my time, as a human and as an Illryian, I have taken off limbs, but I do not believe I have ever witnessed the same individual having their limbs taken off over and over quite like this.

The pain and shock are too much even for his demented mind to handle, and he falls over, twitching and oozing out a new puddle of blood that does not soak into the already saturated floor. All that is left are these pesky healers...

I am suddenly knocked back by a flash of light in front of me. Caught off guard, I feel myself lift off the ground, and I cannot fight the darkness that creeps into my vision....

[Meanwhile, Osmium continues in Wayne Brady fashion, while Shin finds out that a clown left room for his fist in his stomach... so he Schwarzenggers his fist through his stomach. The remaining marionette has tough as nails defense, as Shin flings himself into it, Osmium mushroom prints it, and Lucia tries to burn it.. all for naught. It even splits itself up into multiple images, and several phases are spent trying to blast it. While all this happens...]

I awaken in what is not more than a few seconds, to the din of fighting, and I try to shake off the shock by staying immobile, a tactic I have not had to use in years since being a mercenary. How terrible. Healers!?!? Since when have I made a habit of underestimating my foes and taking things so casually. I've become complacent, recognizing the weakness in another's Killing Intent, without even acknowledging the laziness of my own.

But I have suffered a wound, and I need to regroup. I fade from sight, and back off from the melee momentarily. I watch the rest of my group flail at the many images of the jester, barely denting the crazed marionette... even against a difficult foe, they are steadfast and persistent, qualities that my own Killing Intent have lacked while resting on my laurels. Even Shin, in a reckless attack, engulfs himself in his own explosive burst of energy to go down fighting, while I had gone down carelessly.

Suddenly, another set of double doors open. A ringmaster appears, and I know him to be Vaughn. Furiously, he scans his ruined "stage", frustrated at his fallen minions, and at the rude curtain call we have made. As he verbally demands our death, he rushes by me, launching a fireball at Lucia. In his anger, he misses wildly, but I cannot mistake it: the fury, the passionate anger at the demise of his show, the thirst for our blood.. a good Killing Intent. I quickly rush behind him, unseen in the nether. Him I shall strike down with all that I have. To do less, especially after what happened moments ago, would be utterly disrespectful to my enemies, my comrades, and myself.

I aim high. No more slashing off arms and legs. Yes, this anticipation of certainty, clarity, and sheer distinction of death is all too familiar, and yet it has been far too long since I have felt it this strongly. I feel the very pulse of Vaughn's arteries.. I hear the blood rushing through his body. Yes, the familiarity of a hunter knowing that he will give his prey the peace of oblivion. I allow myself to enjoy the privilege of being a part of death's designs as I assume my stance, letting loose my coup de grace. A brief twinge goes down my arm as I feel my sword slice through skull and brains, smooth as the caress of silk, as my own Killing Intent is fulfilled. I sheathe my sword and watch the ringmaster fall to his knees and then forward, his own blood covering the blood of his victims in penance for his crimes.

I stay unseen a little while longer to gather my senses, not allowing myself to be seen wallowing in the pleasure of the hunt, and gathering my bruised pride. We rifle through Vaughn's papers and discover that there are others like him. I take solace in having this hunt continue, that I may atone for my own weaknesses and further realize my own potential.

Edit:

* = note that these blades rotating on a wooden plank are basically chainsaws