Rescuing Julien--Hazlan

General Summary

Mostly combat here, which doesn't lend itself to session reporting so well. Vanya is extremely injured, Constance has kicked the poison but taken some strength damage (4 points, I think?) and is currently a cloud, and Rose is doing pretty well for herself but is out of wild shape for the day. You also beat the crap out of Iskander. The imp or quasit or whatever was grinning from ear to ear while Iskander was in Constance's belly, but you don't know whether that was because there was some horrible insidious thing happening or because the thing hates Iskander's guts.
Things that happened beyond the combat:

• When you got there, Julien was still staring into the fire and bleeding from his eyes, muttering things like "In the Palace of Delights it feeds, and feeds, a thousand thousand mouths and all of us but meat slithering down its throats" and ""The field of flesh yields its agonal crop; irrigated with blood, they scream as they are harvested…" Every now and then, even before you disturbed the circle, he would blur, vanish, and reappear screaming before going back to his apocalyptic muttering. It reminded Rose of when he would appear in her bed at night during his nightmares.
• When you broke the circle, and even when you went into it and spoke to him, Julien didn't react in any way; he just kept staring into the flames, occasionally blinking out and returning. Iskander said that he wouldn't try to escape because he'd been tamed; he knew that disobedience would get him another taste of what Iskander had already given him. He also asked if you worked for Kourdara. You didn't bother answering him, because screw that guy.
• When Rose took Julien out of the circle, he got a look on his face that she immediately recognized; she'd rescued her fair share of animals from traps, and they all got the same panicked expression right before they bit her. He didn't know friend from foe, and in his fear and rage he was going to lash out at whoever was closest.
• Vanya came out as Rose went back in to get Constance and tried to use inspire courage on Julien. Julien lunged for Vanya and kissed him, and Vanya felt his life draining away it had when the Gentleman Caller had kissed him in Mordent. Unlike the Gentleman Caller, there was no finesse here and no magical attempts to make the drain feel pleasurable; it was pure hunger.
• Rose sent the air elemental to smash the brain orb so this wouldn't happen again, then came back up to see Julien pinning Vanya down and kissing him as Vanya struggled to escape.

Related Reports

Previous session: Scouting Iskander's Sanctum--Hazlan Next session: Rescuing Julien wrap-up--Hazlan

Report Date

20 Nov 2022

Primary Location

Hazlan

Related Characters

• Iskander
• Julien