Season 10, Episode 1: "As Sheep That Have No Shepherd" Report
General Summary
The Dream Team tossed within their stasis pods at the medical bay of the Aga Jain, troubled by the work of the Haze as it delivered news of the world around them (see It Won't Be Long - Season 10). They woke under the care of Dr. Lebowitz, overseen by Leto Xhao and Wyatt, with two powerful auras radiating from the waiting room — those of Caesura and Maximus Erebus.
While stretching their aching muscles, Flay cautiously explored her new System menu, now augmented by her status as party leader, and questions erupted out from the group. Wyatt recounted how he and Carrot had faced off against some Daemon-Demon hybrid outside of the Aga Jain once they'd gotten separated, and that he'd struggled to find them afterwards due to Crow's abilities. He then explained that he'd recently quit his position at House Terris, leaving with the magical equivalent of a "fuck you NDA", and that he'd like to work for the team instead.
Flay immediately added him as a "companion" of the party using her new menu options, and interrogated the man some more before reaching out to Cromwell. They discussed their intentions to try and save Isra from the Boneyard, and that the System had given them a quest indicating they'd need Delilah-9 to do it. He agreed to speak with her, and offered his own aid on the quest, along with any others he thought up to the task (briefly revealed to be Mu Draconis). Then the crew invited in their other guests, and prepared for another wave of strange tidings.
Caesura confirmed the fate of each of the party members, and explained that he and Chess had stopped members of the Cult of the Elder Mythos from taking over Dawnshore spaceport (which would have given them control over Mataras). He gave MaMa an invoice for his services (for a phone call with Carrot and a jar of pickled strawberries), and traded news with Lockette before she was silenced — but not before she let slip the involvement of the Men Who Move Like This, after which he fled in delight.
Then Max took the stage, revealing that Ceres had asked him to give the crew the Moon Key, and that in turn he'd decided to grant them the Crow Key. When asked why, Max explained that it was time for him to return to Bast and it was likely that he would not return, at least not as he stood there today. Rather than letting many of his accumulated powers fall into the wrong hands, he gave the Dream Team his literal and metaphysical blessing — favors granted to him by the Saints, motes of his own divine power, a strange Lantern (last seen in Amalgam), and the Eclipse Malkin in the form of an arrow. At last, he asked the crew to convey his apologies to Isra, and then disappeared into a swirl of shadows.
From there we changed perspectives, picking up from a recent vision in Paradise. Mist and Abelina supported each other through the initial shock of their friend's death, and shoved their emotions below the surface in order to survive this strange land, guided by the peculiar Kikimora. Happy for the company and conversation, she talked the duo's ear off about her home, and led them to a comfortable cave to get their bearings. While mostly open to answering questions, when asked about a way to recover Chamas from Crow, or the true nature of the Drift, she shared that Annabell knew the answers, but that Kikimora had promised not to share them with others. To sate their curiousity, she showed them the Kinder lost in Paradise, overtaken by an effect similar to the Bleaching of Gnomes, but didn't allow the Mist to touch them. However, he noticed one of the children had a butterfly similar to that seen in the The Howl, and that another clenched a worm the color of grass. Then Kikimora took them up a road across the stars (literally), and to her cottage at the edge of a river. While initially looking to introduce them to her friends, she became alarmed as a presence crashed into her home, soon discovered to be the capsule sent by Dr. Oculet in a recent vision, which contained both the contorted body of Sir Hemmington and Mist's completed bow, Heartstring. The aspect of Bard sang as it became whole again, Mist reveling in the energies as he attuned to the bow, just as the tip of a blade touched the side of his throat...
Back on the Aga Jain, Leto finally got the chance to say his piece, and announced that he wanted Anastasia to leave the Dream Team. He claimed that they were too dangerous, but when challenged by Lockette his arguments slowly fell apart, and he relented after Anastasia stated she wasn't quitting. Instead she'd decided to go to Jedarat, and investigate a thread left untouched by the crew for months. Leto was coerced into going with her, and the two set out to pack before leaving on the Tempest. Then MaMa asked everyone to join her in the conference room for some privacy, which prompted Lockette to do some quick repairs to the ship. Meanwhile, Flay confirmed that Unari's Spectacles were empty, and the Mercenary received an interesting letter from Vaughn Blackblood (written before he left for Norn), delivered by a friend of Wyatt's named Paulie. When they finally secure and alone again, MaMa walked her friends through all they had seen in recent events, tying them back to the clues and prophecies that plagued their dreams. Of note, she drew interesting parallels to Cornelius's death and The Owls of Dylath-Leen, the duality of Amphisbaena and the prophecy of the Mourning Lord, the confusion between Hell and the Other Side's historical name for Tyrnog (see What The World Has Lost), and Isra's connection to Windows and "breaking the sky" (see Lost But Never Found). Lost in contemplation, the Mercenary wondered the purpose of these words — many he was seeing for the first time — and questioned if they were about love.
Kikimora crowed at the woman standing behind Mist, her Iokin friend Deva, and a guardian of Paradise. Relieved to see that Mist and Hemmington were friendly, she happily began discussing the nature of this strange place to Mist, and invited him and Abelina to explore her expansive library. She proudly explained that where others traded for power or entered in deals not to share secrets (looking pointedly at Kikimora), Deva had earned all of this knowledge herself, gathering books that washed up on the bank of the river for thousands of years. Once an adventurer herself, she and Mist shared in their lament around the confusing nature of gods and Fey, and Deva promised to share something that would be of actual use. She explained that Paradise was not necessarily a place but a "moment", pure "dream-stuff" that Bast had suppressed, and was likely the only memory he'd failed to remember after recent events. At his request, Deva took Mist to this moment — the very center of Paradise — to see what the Godhead had built an entire universe trying not to remember. On a plain of ice surrounded by the black fog of the Maelstrom, Sara No-Name (a red-haired woman in her late twenties) battled in a duel of True Names with Bast (a scrawny boy no more than fourteen), attempting to murder him and take his place in prophecy. Only defending himself, Mist watched over and over as Bast tried to stop Sara, and then was eventually forced to rely on his patron — the corrupted Beast of Armageddon that Crow had become. In this moment, Bast also reached out to Azkhrumdar, corrupting the weapon with a virus that Deva believed plagued the System to this day. Mist eerily recalled the prisoner BRANCH had taken him to, of a tree with crimson leaves, and wondered if the two were one and the same. Following that same thread, Mist wondered aloud what they could do to help them, and Deva explained her own theory... That while Bast and Crow had created most of the life on the Infinity Petal, the System had been hard at work trying to rid Bast of his corruption, but was itself being limited by the virus. In response, she believed that ROOT had created "antibodies" she called Systemspawn, whose sole purpose was to kill the virus and save Bast. Curious, Mist tuned to the Song using his newfound powers, stretching his conscience out into the world, and sought to find such individuals in existence. A powerful vision overtook him, showing Helen, Kesil, and Asmodeus on Golarion, Caesura at Absalom Station, and Ferro and Tera at the Outer Gates (alongside all of the other Guardian Fae). He saw ROOT, BRANCH, TRUNK, and LEAF, the Chompians that acted as moderators for G.O.L.A.R.I.O.N., and at last — the hunched form of old Cromwell, sitting across from Delilah-9 and Mu Draconis, begging them to help save his daughter.
From there we changed perspectives, picking up from a recent vision in Paradise. Mist and Abelina supported each other through the initial shock of their friend's death, and shoved their emotions below the surface in order to survive this strange land, guided by the peculiar Kikimora. Happy for the company and conversation, she talked the duo's ear off about her home, and led them to a comfortable cave to get their bearings. While mostly open to answering questions, when asked about a way to recover Chamas from Crow, or the true nature of the Drift, she shared that Annabell knew the answers, but that Kikimora had promised not to share them with others. To sate their curiousity, she showed them the Kinder lost in Paradise, overtaken by an effect similar to the Bleaching of Gnomes, but didn't allow the Mist to touch them. However, he noticed one of the children had a butterfly similar to that seen in the The Howl, and that another clenched a worm the color of grass. Then Kikimora took them up a road across the stars (literally), and to her cottage at the edge of a river. While initially looking to introduce them to her friends, she became alarmed as a presence crashed into her home, soon discovered to be the capsule sent by Dr. Oculet in a recent vision, which contained both the contorted body of Sir Hemmington and Mist's completed bow, Heartstring. The aspect of Bard sang as it became whole again, Mist reveling in the energies as he attuned to the bow, just as the tip of a blade touched the side of his throat...
Back on the Aga Jain, Leto finally got the chance to say his piece, and announced that he wanted Anastasia to leave the Dream Team. He claimed that they were too dangerous, but when challenged by Lockette his arguments slowly fell apart, and he relented after Anastasia stated she wasn't quitting. Instead she'd decided to go to Jedarat, and investigate a thread left untouched by the crew for months. Leto was coerced into going with her, and the two set out to pack before leaving on the Tempest. Then MaMa asked everyone to join her in the conference room for some privacy, which prompted Lockette to do some quick repairs to the ship. Meanwhile, Flay confirmed that Unari's Spectacles were empty, and the Mercenary received an interesting letter from Vaughn Blackblood (written before he left for Norn), delivered by a friend of Wyatt's named Paulie. When they finally secure and alone again, MaMa walked her friends through all they had seen in recent events, tying them back to the clues and prophecies that plagued their dreams. Of note, she drew interesting parallels to Cornelius's death and The Owls of Dylath-Leen, the duality of Amphisbaena and the prophecy of the Mourning Lord, the confusion between Hell and the Other Side's historical name for Tyrnog (see What The World Has Lost), and Isra's connection to Windows and "breaking the sky" (see Lost But Never Found). Lost in contemplation, the Mercenary wondered the purpose of these words — many he was seeing for the first time — and questioned if they were about love.
Kikimora crowed at the woman standing behind Mist, her Iokin friend Deva, and a guardian of Paradise. Relieved to see that Mist and Hemmington were friendly, she happily began discussing the nature of this strange place to Mist, and invited him and Abelina to explore her expansive library. She proudly explained that where others traded for power or entered in deals not to share secrets (looking pointedly at Kikimora), Deva had earned all of this knowledge herself, gathering books that washed up on the bank of the river for thousands of years. Once an adventurer herself, she and Mist shared in their lament around the confusing nature of gods and Fey, and Deva promised to share something that would be of actual use. She explained that Paradise was not necessarily a place but a "moment", pure "dream-stuff" that Bast had suppressed, and was likely the only memory he'd failed to remember after recent events. At his request, Deva took Mist to this moment — the very center of Paradise — to see what the Godhead had built an entire universe trying not to remember. On a plain of ice surrounded by the black fog of the Maelstrom, Sara No-Name (a red-haired woman in her late twenties) battled in a duel of True Names with Bast (a scrawny boy no more than fourteen), attempting to murder him and take his place in prophecy. Only defending himself, Mist watched over and over as Bast tried to stop Sara, and then was eventually forced to rely on his patron — the corrupted Beast of Armageddon that Crow had become. In this moment, Bast also reached out to Azkhrumdar, corrupting the weapon with a virus that Deva believed plagued the System to this day. Mist eerily recalled the prisoner BRANCH had taken him to, of a tree with crimson leaves, and wondered if the two were one and the same. Following that same thread, Mist wondered aloud what they could do to help them, and Deva explained her own theory... That while Bast and Crow had created most of the life on the Infinity Petal, the System had been hard at work trying to rid Bast of his corruption, but was itself being limited by the virus. In response, she believed that ROOT had created "antibodies" she called Systemspawn, whose sole purpose was to kill the virus and save Bast. Curious, Mist tuned to the Song using his newfound powers, stretching his conscience out into the world, and sought to find such individuals in existence. A powerful vision overtook him, showing Helen, Kesil, and Asmodeus on Golarion, Caesura at Absalom Station, and Ferro and Tera at the Outer Gates (alongside all of the other Guardian Fae). He saw ROOT, BRANCH, TRUNK, and LEAF, the Chompians that acted as moderators for G.O.L.A.R.I.O.N., and at last — the hunched form of old Cromwell, sitting across from Delilah-9 and Mu Draconis, begging them to help save his daughter.
Rewards Granted
Tarot Deck
- Lockette, the Mercenary, MaMa and Flay gained a Card of Good Hope — the latter two spent theirs to gain points of Divinity.
- MaMa gained the Blessing of the Ritualist, and is holding onto the Blessing of the Gatekeeper for Isra and the Blessing of the Shield of Light for Mist.
- Lockette gained the Blessing of the Beekeeper and the Disciple, and is holding on the Blessing of the Arcanist for Abelina Tremont.
- The Mercenary gained the Blessing of the Challenger and the Hunter.
- Flay gained the Blessing of the Matriarch and the Roaring Justice.
- Mist gained his completed bow, Heartstring.
- MaMa gained a strange Lantern.
- Lockette is holding onto the Astral Flintlock, Logan's Sickle, the Gum Drop Button, and the Infinite Band until they have a designated user.
- Flay has the Eclipse Malkin (in the form of an arrow) until they find Mist.
Created Content
New and updated articles for:
Flame in the Night
Tesin Movahesh
Thunder in the Mist
Lockette Endrinmaster 12 2.0
Report Date
07 Jan 2023
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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