General Summary
Scene: Below deck on the Shining Sails.
Stelsor Bladed Tornado asks what’s going on and Dark Bonbon of Perdition, champion of Shines-in-Numbers looks like she is speaking but we don’t hear anything.
Fortifier of Hearts & Bones uses Celestial Overseer Concordat to ask “What is their purpose here?”
The bubble of Wyld energy that she exists in was summoned.
Stelsor asks if she can hear us. She indicates she can, but we still hear nothing.
Dreamflower is able to decipher the words Bonbon is mouthing. She is saying for Byorn to calm down because she is safe.
Factor Byorn looks at her and his eyes turn entirely black and his head turns unnaturally far.
Fortifier’s Celestial Overseer Concordat/Essence Flow Detection shows Shines with the Glory of an Unheralded Gleam and Dark Bonbon of Perdition, champion of Shines-in-Numbers are Raksha nobles.
Bubble of essence protecting a Deep Wyld pocket.
Fortifier asks Shines how his state is different from Bonbon.
Shines explains he is in kind of the inverted form of dematerializing. Playing at materializing in Creation.
Bonbon isn’t material at all. She is still in the Deep Wyld, merely being projected here.
Stelsor jumps over the table with his knives out. Asks if she wants help out of this, thinking there might be a way to free her with essence acupuncture.
Fortifier explains she isn’t materially here.
Dreamflower discerns whoever is projecting her couldn’t be able to do this from Creation and must be in the Wyld, Underworld, etc.
Stelsor suggests sending Bears-Fangs-at-the-Sun and Shines with the Glory of an Unheralded Gleam to the Wyld to rescue Dark Bonbon of Perdition, champion of Shines-in-Numbers.
Bears-Fangs asks Shines if he has a way to punch a hole in reality to reach the Wyld quickly.
Shines initially denies it being possible, but then mentions that he does have a method just that his monarch told him not to reveal it.
Combative Mattresses brings up his adoptive daughter and that her aunt is Windblown Snow ’s sister. This woman is the mother of his nephew, Nepo Tirpitz, who was the TZ member who died in the opening shot of the gang war.
Nepo, though born into the Tang-Zen Crime Syndicate family, wasn’t trusted. So he sent letters to both the Guild and the Coin to introduce this new drug he and his girlfriend developed: Black Sunshine.
The Guild now controls the Black Sunshine trade.
Shines opens up a portal, a hole in reality leading to the night sky.
Shines has a silvery sheen around his portal.
Bears-Fangs strongly insists on Shines going ahead of him.
Scene: Bears-Fangs and Shines step into the Wyld
From past experience in the Wyld, the environment feels unusually stable for somewhere this deep into the Wyld.
Meanwhile, back at the ship
Stelsor asks how we split up the land where the Guild Ziggurat used to sit?
60-40
Stelsor asks how we could extract the vitriol contamination from the soil?
Combative Mattresses suggests working with Trances of Vitriol and Warpstone.
Meanwhile, in the Wyld
While walking, Shines trips on a snake in some tall grass and becomes frustrated.
Shines sings out in an incomprehensible tongue, reaches up and pulls down a star from the night sky. This becomes a conveyance of sorts and he beckons Bears-Fangs to climb on as well.
They fly the star to a fairy tale castle, a lone building in miles of wilderness.
Meanwhile, on the ship
Fortifier asks Anacreon Thousand Brushstrokes if he has ever encountered a dead Raksha in the Underworld.
No, live Raksha are scary enough in the Underworld. In a way it is less alien to them than Creation. The Underworld and Malfeas are echoes of Zen Mu.
During the war in heaven, Zen Mu was abandoned and Yu Shan becomes the new heaven.
Fortifier asks if the Wyld bleeds into the Underworld. Thousand Brushstrokes isn’t sure if it works that way, but some Raksha know how to get there with Wyld magic. The membrane of the Underworld seems thinner to them than Creation.
Thousand Brushstrokes mentions Balor proved the Raksha can walk in Yu Shan. He implies Luna brought Balor there herself. Fortifier is skeptical that such a potent Raksha could hide under the nose of the Bureau and gods. Thousand Brushstrokes points out this would be no challenge to an Incarna so skilled with shapes.
Dreamflower asks about Luxana’s amendment to the peace talks: the requirement that Nurlissa’s masks must be marked as a ritual to Shalrina before they can be used to impersonate council members.
Addresses Selene (in her guise as the priestess of Luxana) about adding this to the agreements.
Blue Eyes asks how reliable this marking would be. Dreamflower points out that it would be disrespectful to the goddess who empowers these masks if one were to go without this mark.
Blue Eyes body language seems to become more guarded, so Dreamflower tries to Read Intentions.
The amendment is put to a vote and carries without challenge.
This is strange considering how deeply invested the Guild had been in the masks.
Byorn has been bound in restraints so he hopefully won't cast more spells.
Meanwhile: in the Wyld
The castle rises on a hill surrounded by impenetrable brambles. Since they are flying, this isn’t an obstacle.
They land inside the castle and go inside.
Shines mentions the décor seems to have changed: They encounter a carpet running down the corridor that seems to be a stream of blood.
There are 8 1-foot tall translucent amber runes on mahogany double doors. There are bees moving in and out of the runes.
Bears-Fangs recognizes these runes appeared on a desk in Liveeasy in the office of Miribadi Ghostlover.
Bears-Fangs tries to push the door open, but Shines notices it is a pull-door. From the open door, an extremely icy wind blows out.
The room appears to be a princess’s bedroom but the bed is unoccupied.
Shines says he still senses her presence.
Bears-Fangs searches with his animal-like sense of smell and someone does seem to be here.
The pair enter the room and Shines calls her full name 3 times.
They hear a tiny sound. The squeak of a mouse from under the bed.
Shines tries to lift the bed-skirt but it isn’t working. Mentions this place seems to be manifested partially from Creation
Bears-Fangs tries to look under the bed and has no issues lifting the fabric.
Under the bed is an orange mouse.
Bears-Fangs addresses the mouse as Bonbon and it squeaks a bunch.
The mouse seems angry at Shines.
Bears-Fangs asks if this is her normal form. Shines says it isn’t but maybe some of the sorcerers back on the ship can remedy this.
Bringing the mouse, they return to the gate they entered from.
When the arrive at the gate, a rectangular mausoleum door of made of soulsteel is over the round stone portal that is the gate.
Bears-Fangs assumes his Deadly Beastman Transformation and rips the doors off. The transformation also manifests some tentacles and other things because of the depths of the Wyld here.
Once broken, the doors seem to dissipate to nothing.
Shines activates the portal and dashes through but then it immediately starts to close.
Bears-Fangs, in his spirit shape, is able to leap through in time, carrying mouse Bonbon.
Everyone Back in Creation
The whole trip in the Wyld feels like it was 5 hours, but it has only been an hour or two when he returns to Creation.
Bears-Fangs accuses Shines of trying to leave him behind.
Shines explains he didn’t expect it would close so quickly and might have been the blocking spell reforming itself.
Bears-Fangs mentions the soulsteel door, and Shines explains that wasn’t what it looked like, just the Wyld giving physical form to the blocking spell on the gate.
Dreamflower uses her knowledge of Wyld Shaping to coax Bonbon’s form back into its normal shape.
Bears-Fangs asks what Miribadi had to do with this, loud enough for everyone to hear.
Bonbon admits this was Miribadi’s handiwork.
Bonbon asks where “daddy pants” is. This is apparently her term for Byorn.
She goes to Byorn, holds him and tells him they need to do something about Miribadi. Byorn is still gibbering, but less frantically.
After all the excitement of portalling to the Wyld and such, Essence of Spice Trade suggests adjourning until tomorrow.
Back at 12 Carnelian Peaches for the evening
Stelsor goes over what goals still remain.
Stelsor talks to Selene about trying to get in touch with the other Sidereals she mentioned.
Selene says they’re not really accessible to her but if we encounter one of them in Nexus, we would be able to address them with Infallible Messenger.
Bears-Fangs goes back to his textile shop and handles business there. Ends up sleeping there hanging as a bat.
To treat Byorn’s condition, Fortifier decides he needs to learn more about the Maw of Oblivion. As an esoteric and dangerous topic, the library at 12 Carnelian Peaches doesn’t cover it. Fortifier talks to Filandro and Nyeah about where he could begin researching this.
Nyeah reiterates how dangerous Thousand Brushstrokes can be and is uneasy about why he would withdraw from Nexus fully.
Fortifier asks if that’s in Thousand Brushstrokes’ interest; doesn’t the Coin need the living to make offerings and to trade, so they wouldn’t want to choke out the city entirely.
Nyeah explains that much of the Coin’s wealth comes form extorting the dead.
She is concerned there are aspects of this we don’t know. She mentions it might be the Lover, words that seem to physically pain her.
Fortifier points out the Lover probably is top of mind for the Coin. We just learned more about what Miribadi was doing.
Nyeah is skeptical that Miribadi’s necromancy alone could force a Raksha noble into a shape they didn’t want. She thinks that would take stronger and different magic than Miribadi commands.
Dreamflower uses her carpentry to craft items to beautiful items that she can burn to generate Will.
Scene: Just past sunrise, returning to the ship
Something strange is going on near the ship. This is detected by magic Selene placed on the ship the day before.
We use an Infallible Messenger to alert Bears-Fangs, who transforms and flies there.
Dreamflower weaves a Cirrus Skiff to carry Stelsor, Fortifier and Selene there.
The commotion is on the dock where there’s a panicked crowd.
The two undead from the Coin hadn’t left the ship.
Dreamflower detects 2 sources of Essence on the seafloor of the harbor.
This seems like it was the 2 undead.
There are two men arguing and they seem to be the Sidereals, a younger one has a crystal headpiece and an older one in dark grays with purple glasses.
Dreamflower discerns neither of these Sidereals seems to be in charge.
The two seem to both be using Essence to whip up the crowd, which have formed into parted into two angry mobs opposing one another.
Bears-Fangs arrives and lands on a roof nearby.
Stelsor moves forward to address the Sidereal of Endings. Stelsor explains this is where we are organizing peace talks.
The Chosen of Endings mentions he recognizes Stelsor from somewhere.
The Chosen of Battles steps in because he hadn’t finished his beef with the other Sidereal.
Fortifier asks him why he has brought so many people to the docks. Is he trying to start a riot?
The Chosen of Endings says he wasn’t trying to start something and the Chosen of Battles may have.
Fortifier tries to instill some concern for the people of Nexus, but they shrug him off.
Dreamflower uses some charms and starts glowing which begins to distract the crowds and
Selene finally moves out from hiding behind us to pull rank. She explains that Heaven decided one of the undead has evaded their final doom for too long; these two Sidereals are fighting over who gets to end him.
One of the Sidereals suspects the undead went under the water because they anticipated this and hoped they could see their attackers coming.
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