S76 Recap: The Sound, The Star, & The Saint | Ep. 19: The Perfect Chord

General Summary

Okay! Our starting itinerary are Isati talking to Coro, Kirin listening for footsteps, & Nova talking to Rekca about Rhea > Begin! > Coro explains how she was raised with a very generalist education but a focus on more traditional arcane practices for the most part. But one day during her music lessons, she sang a note so strange, not bad, but unique. And like it had been waiting there for it; this overwhelming force appeared and began to flow through the space, capturing the noise. Having every sound that had ever been made throughout history flow through her was too much for Coro's body to handle at her then young age however, leaving her disabled by constant and intense vibrations. No longer able to perform the magic she had spent her life learning up to this point, she instead looked to the new doors this entity had opened for her. Oh yeah also some other bitch ass rival faction conspired to get her and her family framed for treason against the Sierran Republic so they had to escape the country, eventually making a place for themselves in northern Melkial. “I actually came to this event to confront some of my old fears in a, uh, safer setting as it was.” > This is in no way foreshadowing. > Isati sympathizes and speaks about the tremors she suffered in the wake of her revival and how she met her own patron. > “In the lull of this conversation, you notice the myriad lights and sounds of the rest of the city continue to grow louder over the course of the evening.” > Kirin has been keeping her ears open for Zaotl while this is happening, and tho she hasn't had any luck pinning down their location, she has started to pick out sounds that are kinda strange. She immediately excuses herself and goes to get geared up. > #KirinDon'tTrustLikeThat > Nova and Rekca also get to talking about Nova's mom > #MomI'dLikeToFollow(Religiously) > Rekca then begins to just read Nova for absolute filth: “You have the pride of a lion, hidden beneath the surface –tho I do not know how far beneath. Why do you shirk? Your confidence, your emotions, your certainty?“ (Nova be like uhhhhhhhh) “I come once more to one of those questions that might be presumptuous, so please, do not answer if you do not want to; but why do you carry your chains?” > #AskingBigQuestionsTonight > Nova demonstrates that the shackles are frostbitten to their limbs only for Rekca to drop the biggest fucking bomb regarding Nova specifically that I've been sitting on / hinting at for a loooonng while > “ You are aware you're a shape shifter, correct?” “Bonds Can Not Hold You. If You Do Not Choose To Take Those With You, They Will Not Come.” > #BOOOM #NoBondsCanHoldADruid #I'veSaidItBeforeAndI'llSayItAgain! > (Moth: “Oh fuck.) (Camillo: “Novaaaaaa? Have you been thematically and quite literally physically carrying your trauma around and not realizing it so now you gotta learn to let it gooooo?”) > #CommentsFromTheLocalPigeonPopulation > “…You can and Will do what you need to protect Your Pride. And I don't mean the emotion.” > #FuckinCallThisBitchRawQuotesRekca > Okay, but actually he literally just keeps going with shit like that until he fucking tokyo drifts into giving Nova relationship advice (while also throwing shade at Kirin in the same breath lmao) > #SuccessfullyWooedHisHusband #HealthyCommunicationKing2 (Irati is #HealthyCommunicationKing1) > DM: “ In this moment of silence, bright lights that you can only assume to be sparkstars flash and swirl about in the sky like an aurora, only just visibile over the high walls of the villa.” > The players have started to pick up on the Vibes so now its Cutscene Time! (Which I'm literally just gonna include in full with the parts that y'all fucked up caused alterations to crossed out with major changes in italics):

Cutscene:

Your conversations continue on but slowly, one by one, each of you start to realize a feeling of unease as crept into each of your minds... All through the night the you've seen the lights and heard the sounds in the periphery of your perception. But there is no consistency between the two; at least not in the ways there should be. The flashes of light don't line up at all with the explosive sound of sparkstars you'd heard previously. The sounds of singing are not just the usual hymnals or songs of merriment but also droning dirges, and the paralyzing drummings of war. Rustic lullabies accompanied by orchestras of every instrument played throughout history. The auroras of swirling lights not moving in time with the noise but conducting. What's more is you've all begun to realize that a majority of the noise is not in fact coming from the city, but instead originates in the opposite direction. Pulsing out from across the lake and only echoing back down from the city as it hits the hillside. But just as you've been seeing the lights for hours, so too must have the rest of the city. But than why? ... Why is it only now that the keener eared among you have begun to hear noises of concern from the outside of the city. Why have you only just noticed that the steady atmospheric buzz you've felt through to your core was a magical resonance so strong that even the untrained around you are visibly affected. A noise escapes Coro. Not a new one. Not one that breaks the tension or pushes it to crescendo. But a noise of fear. As you all turn towards her you see she has collapsed to the ground, her canes now ringing against the stonework with a resonant vibrato. Her voice and limbs both shaking with terror and dread fear, you hear her say,
“There was supposed to be wards. It wasn't supposed to be able to get in. How did it get through the wards.”
This is when your realize why. The why's you'd kept asking yourself. The impetus of change that had alerted you all to the ever rising tension. With all the noise filling up your ears it was only subconsciously at first that you all had processed a single sound among millions of notes. A haunting melody. Like a strong breeze blowing through a deep deep chasm. Easy to miss in the harmonic din of The Perfect Chord. But Coro is not the only one among you to react so strongly. Isati. The astral owl held tight within your arms begins to swirl with power. The central star within her form collapses in on itself as you register a sound that has been described to you a great many times since that fateful encounter on those glowing shores. A defiant song, filled with life and hope and glorious righteousness. And as the he stars implosion reverses, it projects out a rapidly spinning ecretion disk. Stealing all the starlight given off both by you and your familiar until the lights that radiate out from the cracks in your chestplate coalesces into a familiar radiant woman. His face the picture of rage fueled by a devastatingly empty sadness. Starlight tears flow in reverse, pulled into the Fallen Exile's void like eyes by an inescapable gravity. The sheer weight and mass of the banished star's sadness forces all but Isati down and you can feel your very souls being pulled towards the alrisen. A silent cry rings out in a timeless silence. Rejoice. Regret. Wrath. His silent scream a wish to hear her sing again coupled with the pain and fury of knowing it's only a recreation; a recording. But by this desire we hear the song of his paramour grow so loud it overpowers every other noise in the night. ..... ..... Your senses come back to you. None of you know what just happened but you can judge that a short time has passed by the Paramour's song. The Fallen Exile is no longer where he once was but a void of light cut through the swirling auroras guides your senses towards the lake. Not that you would need such clues to know that when the waves of natural energies exploding out from a direct clash between two alrisen class entities can be felt across the world. It requires all of your focus just to settle your own internal energies long enough for a moment of deliberation; What are you all doing?”

Recap:

Selah: “Don't worry guys, I'm a bad bitch. >:3” > ok that happens a lil bit in the future, lets rewind a nyoink > Kiri, the only one fully geared up, assesses the state of everyone around and starts convincing Isati that she is the only one capable of helping right now > #OopThat'sTheMagicWord > The punks then gather together while delegating care of the civilians to the rest > Camillo: “Corayas is trying to figure out if there's even anything he can do right now” / DM; “The Fallen Exile is a being intrinsically tied to the astral sea, which in this setting is Hypnos, and his presence combined with the already unstable planar boundaries is causing that barrier to be incredibly thin right now.” > Selah: “Oh there's a lot of overlap with the plane of dreams? Don't worry guys, I'm a bad bitch. >:3” > Kirin then proceeds to call on The Shadowcat and the inkcat within her (with a little bardic inspiration from Iun'Dal and wisdom of the owl from Nova) FUCKING TURNS INTO A BIG ASS COLOUR INVERSION OF HERSELF, THROWS THE ENTIRE PARTY ON HER BACK AND PIERCES INTO THE INVERSE USING THE BLACK HOLE IN GYLFIE AND THE AMBIENT WILD DREAM MAGIC OF CORAYAS TO CARRY THESE BITCHES THROUGH THE SKY AND TO THE BEACH!!! > #SelahBreaksTheWorldWithHerBullshit #Classic

Cutscene:

As you all make your way out of the villa and into the streets of Valley, you glean your final revelation of the night. There is absolutely nothing you can do in the face of this, The very world has been turned on its' head. The surface of the lake an inky blackness a shining white, reflecting nebulae of light darkness. The whirlpool in the center a black hole devoid of light shadow, orbited by a blazing inky star at a speed so fast he's motionless. An infinitesimal mass drawing in the infinite and unfazed sound creating images of a lighthouse amongst a coast where grass-topped cliffs meet crashing tides; inverted such that they hang from the heavens, reaching downwards to the starry skies below. As all as of you land on the shores, there is an important note, that shouldn't be visible, but is, in that as you are coming down you can see… The Everything, & The Nothing, that is Always, Everywhere. The Hand of Salles. Slowly adjusting and moving things around, unseen. Keeping the two alrisen in a way, that does not break the balance. And then you are on the beach. Not on Kirin's back because Kirin is not big enough to carry you on her back. And the four armed, sword wielding, armour wearing entity not in sight. Even further in the distance, you catch glimpses of raw magika arcing between seemingly arbitrary points in space. Quite possibly the aftermath of however The Perfect Chord passed through the wards Coro spoke of in her terrified rambling earlier. Mages of all kinds flood the sky with rune arrays and spells of higher degrees than any of you can even begin to comprehend in your current situation. Activating more wards, and directing civilians to safety. And yet even with all of these individuals of immense power relative to other mortals, none dare interfere with the alrisen. But just as these sheer forces of reality are beings beyond you, there exists beings beyond them as well (which you have seen early). In this calamity of song and sorrow, a new noise graces your ears. The buzzing of gilded wings dampens the maddening beauty of The Perfect Chord and rebuffs the gravity of The Fallen Exile's rampaging storm of passion and emotion. Beams of Light, unaffected by the ravenous sphere of darkness occupying the center of Lake Atlas, refract between the two clashing entities into a radiant aureole that hangs behind the head of a massive armoured figure. Not created, nor transported, these refractions of light simply allowed those observing to understand that the new being was in fact already here. The Hand of Salles. The Warrior-Saint. And as suddenly as they appeared, the chaos comes to an end. The Exile is ripped from his orbit and cast into their own void moments before that very black hole is itself cast back to it's rightful place in the heavens but as he was to be hurled into his own black hole, the hand diverts, and a shooting star is sent flying, back towards you on the beach, slowing down as it approaches, gently cresting into the black hole in Gylfie instead; refilling the heart with light. In that same motion, the second arm on that side of the body grips the black hole that rests at the center of the lake, and returns it to its spot in the constellation of Virgo. And as you all of these sounds, the song of The Exile's paramour, fade out, the remaining arms swing The Warrior-Saint's great blade, cutting off all sound coming towards the city. With a now silent motion, gesturing with the arm that gently tossed The Fallen Exile towards you, hand spread, and slowly pushes down. The lights of The Perfect Chord then flow down the spiralling vortex at that final gesture of the Saint. And it ends. The Warrior-Saint turns briefly, granting you all not only a moment to gaze upon their figure, but also making eye contact, and nodding. For those of you who've never heard nor know of what The Warrior-Saint is, it appears as a humanoid, both muscular and lithe, with an androgynous face that is as unyielding as it is implacable. It carries with it a mighty blade of starsteel, forged within the embers of a dying world, capped with the gemstone heart of that world’s deity: In the Sallesian realms this blade was reforged by The Rebalancing, and that reforging was what created a permanent instance of The Warrior-Saint in this reality, not just a visitor, or an arbiter, but a facet. Free to travel even through Ouranos' skies. This is the alrisen that basically everyone knows, as they are the steward of Salles. The Entity that stands at his side, that carries out his orders, and who works in tandem; his advisor, and as I said before, his hand. And then they dissappear. (End Cutscene.) ---
Oh fuck we're only like an hour and a bit in... > uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh > SPEED RUN STRATS 2K18!! > Our favourite but problematic he/him lesbian is sad and gay and also Isati is also gay because she asks to talk to Kirin later because she has now realized some #Feelings for kirin and then fucking Belladonna Silmaris shows up goes “Sorry to interrupt but I'm already working overtime so please come with me and answer questions” and then we do (Corayas: “Nova, I know we're not talking right now but can I get on your shoulders”) and without another word corayas is on their shoulders and also along the way we see that a lot of people are pretty shook up (The party is also pretty shook up) and have been evacuated to the colliseum but nobody died apparently which is really lucky and also the party once again is reminded they still have Belladonna's diary that they bought from Knick-Knack (Moth: “I love this bat shit fucking game”) but yeah no the entire city is working together in a display of immaculate reasonable government to a disaster that none of us have EVER seen irl which is only just a little depressing but also hey it's Knick-Knack! Anyways we know exactly where Gwyf is and they're here so they're safe and Corayas casts sending and beats the 50/50 surge chance and just sends “are you okay?” which turns into a bird and zooms away at the speed of corayas! Anyways they're ok, confused but ok. Romad is anxious now. Also some prayers among the devote, with responses in kind. Nova then asks Corayas to send a message to their druid circle, corayas readily agrees and then it's us with “Oh yeah, does this mean we're talking again?” > That's All Folks! See Y'all Next Week In A Few Seconds!

S76 Crit Count: Nada