“Sorry dragon guy!” Casidhe yells at me.
Yeferia also charges forward (do you get the sense of a common theme here?) and stabs at the creature, but doesn’t do much damage. Kira flails defensively at it, but can’t seem to hit it in a way that seems to matter to the big dragon. It seems fixated on Kira, and just doesn’t notice us for some reason (or at least, doesn’t seem to care about us). It is a polite dragon, and it’s speech is accented in some way I’m not familiar with. I move around to the other side of it, but I don’t do much good there, either. It ignores me when I run past. It picks up Kira in its jaws, and Iago runs away from it (a more sensible action than what we’re doing, to be sure!). Meric climbs on to the dragon, which seems logical to me. Casidhe seems a bit on the indecisive side, but winds up casting Dimensional Anchor. Yeferia once again stabs at it with her naginata, and manages to hurt it a little bit. Elora does something, and teleports to Kira, grabbing at him on her way to the ground, and teleports again. I’m not sure where she’s going, but I think she wanted to grab Kira and teleport away- but Kira remains in the jaws of the beast. Huffing to myself, I holster Magemasher and grapple onto the dragon’s big right toe. In response, it flaps its giant wings, shaking me and Meric off. It uses its wings in a burst of energy, leaping onto what’s left of Lavinia’s mansion, crushing it.
“Come back, you cowardly fiend!” I think Meric yells that, but honestly, I couldn’t tell. I was busy picking myself up off the ground.
With no effort at all, the dragon plucks off one of Kira’s wings with the sound of tearing bone and sinew, and it flutters to the ground like a piece of bloody canvas! Iago takes aim at the dragon with his bow, but misses completely. Meric looks at me, and casts his eyes back at the dragon. I think I get it, and nod and grin -well, all my teeth show anyway, and I hope it looks like a grin. Meric runs up to me and casts Bull’s Strength on me, while Casidhe tries to cast something, but instead opts to run to Yeferia. The elf paladin closes the distance, firing Tico’s new bow at the dragon (where’d she get that? Did Tico give that to her?). An arrow plants itself into the dragon’s scales. Kira, firmly in the dragon’s jaws, stabs his sword at its eye in stark defiance, but manages only to hit its eyelid plates.
Taking a deep breath, I plant my feet and grab Meric by the back of his chestplate, spin around, and fling him towards the dragon. I get some great distance, but not enough for Meric to reach the top of the dragon’s head. He pulls out his sword and axe, and digs into the side of Lavinia’s ruined mansion. The dragon clamps down on Kira, and grabs his horns and remaining wing. There’s a sickening tearing sound, and off comes the wing and horns, leaving gaping wounds that begin to cascade blood out of them. It flings Kira’s bloody mass off the roof, just as Meric calls upon some guy named Ramses, and we can all smell the flesh of the dragon burning. He finishes his climb up to the roof. Casidhe runs up to Kira, who seems to be going through death spasms. Yeferia does the same, shouting her rage at the dragon. Elora, back from wherever it is she went, casts her signature color orb of death at it, that I call the Kaleidosphere, and slams into the creature, but I can’t tell if it does anything to it. Startled, wanting vengeance, I take a running leap at the house, climbing up to the roof, just as the dragon smirks and tells us,
“Don’t mess with your betters.”
Leaving us with a very dead Kira.
Iago and Argyle conspire to bring back Kira. Iago shatters his orb, preparing a spell, standing over Kira delivering a long benediction to our fallen leader-by-default. Kira’s body body begins to re-corporate, and half of Farshore turns out to hear it. However, it seems to fall short of its target (there’s a lot of that going around today), and Kira doesn’t wake up.
A half-giant walks over, and begins examining Kira. She introduces herself as Meela Stormstomper, and I don’t know her- but oh man! I’d sure like to. But focus, focus!
Kira glows red hot, and even though Casidhe and Elora seem to know something, they’re not sharing. Meric walks over and picks of Kira’s weapon, and a funny look crosses his face. “Hey,” Meric says, “It turns out, Kira wasn’t crazy!” Is the weapon…talking to him? I just thought Kira was a nutjob, just like everyone else. Iago runs off with his henchman in tow, and I don’t see where they’re off to. Meric is talking to the katana and mentions going “into” Kira. Thinking about it, I think Walker (or was it the changeling guy? Even I can’t keep up!) wrote about this in the journal, about once going into an artifact and making some beast cry. It’s all about dispelling bad things in an artifact or space… but a person? Can it be done?
Mirri says, in short, that we have to go into Kira’s “soul refraction”, and that it’ll be hard. So what else is new? Since Kira is still currently dead or comatose, that means Yeferia is next in charge, and tells Meric we may get hazard pay, after he goes on and on about it. Meela decides to tag along, for whatever reason. I won’t complain much- the only eye candy we have is a half-naked elf and some girl who probably isn’t out of school yet (and I just feel dirty lookin’, to be honest), so I’m not minding that at all! Not that Elora isn’t attractive, but she looks like Meric, and they could trade off, and I’m just not into that at all.
“Let’s stop waiting around,” Elora exclaims, “Let’s go save the boss!” We all second it.
Mirri indicates for all of us to join hands, and Poth sits on Yeferia’s head, who has an orb.
“Please don’t tell me the verbal component for this is singing Kumbaya,” I say to Mirri.
She responds curtly with, “No.”
Poth, meanwhile, has a short conversation with Meric, and Spits the orb out at him. Meela hands some sort of kitty to Casidhe, who declines to go.
Mirri reminds us that we can’t come back unless we succeed. We all figured it was do or die anyway…none of us do anything halfway! A fog suddenly rolls in and covers everything, and…well, this is where things get weird.
Elora plays with the fog, and Meric suggests we think of Kira, and Mirri agrees. We decide to think of Angry Kira, but that seems to be a bad idea when a Balor almost materializes. I keep forgetting- when inside someone’s psyche, everything is metaphorical!
We discuss some other ideas. Lavinia, for one. She was close to Kira, and she may be able to help us out. That is, the Lavinia in Kira’s brain, not the one outside. Soon enough, we hear her boots clacking against the…something, dressed very much like a swashbuckler. She’s pleasant in manner and appearance, and we follow her to Kira’s Intellect, to a clearing. And there’s a ship captain here. They talk, and I’m a bit..lost? Something about a Leviathan killing Kira from the inside, and something about Self-Loathing and I don’t quite get it at all. I think the captain lady is talking about metaphors and feelings. She tries to explain it to me, but to no avail. If I can’t smash or love it, I don’t get it.
After the short visit, Lavinia and the captain lady take us to a tavern, and there’s a drunk guy waiting for us. He’s totally drunk, and admits to being a douchebag…but wait. This is in Kira’s mind, so there’s no telling if it’s true or not! He makes a pass at Meela, who threatens to pound him. Sexy.
“To the Flogging Room!” Meric exclaimed suddenly, and a huge shadow passes over us. We look into a pool of tears, I think, and we see Kira’s shortcomings with Lavinia, and her in some negligee. Cute. Not my type, though. She looks like if she misses one meal, she’s dead! But then again, a lot of the girls around us are unhealthy in their weight, I think. Mirri looks absolutely anemic- but then again, she’s an elf; she’s supposed to look like that. Sigh Oh well.
As we look into a pool, we see a memory of someone talking to Lavinia about Casidhe, but it seems not as geniune as the others. Could it be a plant? Meric suggests that we kill some of Kira’s negative attributes, which isn’t that bad of an idea. But instead, we seek a plan in Self-Doubt…but instead we find Yeferia. Well, another Yeferia anyway. This one doesn’t seem to speak a language I know, and something big comes swooping in and takes the half-naked elf before we have much time with her. So! Confused!
Failing that, we try to find Kira’s memory in an attempt to find Kira himself. We come to another clearing, and there’s nothing here but a huge block of holey cheese. There is also a gnome here, and someone thinks that Mirri did something naughty with that gnome on the outside. Who am I to judge? But, the gnome turns into a ferret (I didn’t know Mirri was like that I swear!), and it talks about the Leviathan, and Meela asks about Kira’s Loyalty. The ferret says they never met, but there is a good Pride and a bad Pride as well. We opt for good Pride.
We find ourselves in some kind of garden that has an old guy working the soil. There’s more talk of finding Loyalty, and Iago hits on Meela. Off to find Loyalty we go, but Iago thinks that we should kill Kira’s childhood, on the off chance that all his problems stem from those ages.
We find a grubby druid, that from Walker’s journal’s description, I can tell it’s Axtli. He and Yeferia talk about getting rid of Kira’s infernal heritage. Feeling there’s no other way to grab Kira, Axtli screams for help, and lo and behold, Kira shows up! There’s more discussion that goes way over my head, and he points to some kind of monster in the fog, or “mother” as Axtli puts it. He seems to think it’s Kira’s mother, but in this mixed up world, it could just be a cheeseburger or something!
Elora asks about how we can help, and the old guy from the garden shows up, saying that we could try to kill the parent or try to aid Kira in some other way. This plan, I like. Iago, however, says something to Kira about just giving up, which nudges Kira out of his funk and into action. After some argument (cough Iago cough), we charge the demon/devil/cheeseburger thing.
I leap into the air, cleaving pieces off the thing, and Meela charges in to do the same. Her twin swords bite deep, but the wounds close up almost as soon as they’re done. “Bitch!” screams Iago, and slaps her (the devil thing, not Meela). It’s the most macho thing I’ve ever seen him do, but it has no effect- if there was even an effect he was going for. Mirri casts Shield on Kira- if my knowledge of the arcane holds true- and Kira charges into battle, screaming something about that thing not being his mother. Well, damn. I guess we are fighting a cheeseburger. Unlike us, though, when Kira slashes into it, the wounds he makes stays around. Elora readies another Kaleidosphere, and it crushes into the creature, but doesn’t do anything to it. But…Kira’s blow landed. Perhaps we should try shoring up Kira’s psyche instead?
The other bits of Kira are there as well, and Lavinia seems uncertain. I place my trust in Kira instead of attacking, and Meela begins to sing all pretty like. Iago tries to shoot the demon, putting an arrow into her chest, which doesn’t seem to damage her, but it stuns. Just as well, if you ask me. Mirri pulls out a wand of true strike and casts it at Kira, and Meric seems to be dwelling on the battle against Khala. Elora does much the same. Yeferia also give Kira her vote of confidence. So empowered, Kira slices into the foul demonic-devilish-cheeseburger-thing, and sinks the blade in deep, though the other blade lands sharply at my feet! The creature itself falls apart in several sections. That’ll teach it!
Tico the dinosaur shows up, dragging some bulbous thing in its teeth to Kira. There’s a giant sword in its side, with a draconic rune that says “Duty” on it. Kira walks up and pulls the sword out of the lump, and Tico drags it away again, leaving Kira with the sword. I dare to hope that we’ve actually pulled this off. The Lavinia figment throws herself at Kira, and begins smooching him. He and Yeferia bicker, which ends in Yeferia violently expelling her clothes from her body. If only this were under better circumstances! Lavinia tells Kira to love her, even though he already does. Does she mean to give her love or return her love? It just goes to show you that, even though you may travel with a person, you don’t know all about their love life. For that, I just might be grateful.
We all suddenly find ourselves back, but Cass doesn’t seem to think that that much time has passed. When Kira comes out of the tent erected over his corpse that was dropped into the middle of the street, he is bald and wingless and hornless, and his scars give him a very painful looking appearance.
“You are no longer a child of Set,” Meric says. I don’t know what that means, either. It’s just not my day.
Kira tries flying, and Meela tries catching him when he falls, and they both just kind of…fail. However, he suspects that Vanthus (whom I discovered is Lavinia’s dead brother!), may be behind the dragon attack, and everyone including myself find this perfectly plausible. Mirri may try to scry on him later, but he could be readying a trap for such an occurrence. But, if this Vanthus is alive, he’s not counting on Kira being alive, which means we may have a shot at surprising him. Kira’s ship arrives in Farshore, and it won’t be long before we’re ready to move out.
I don’t know this Vanthus Vanderboren, but he’s hurt someone I care about. When I get through with him, he’s gonna wish he was dead…again!