Session Report: 7 April 2023
Right Hand, Outstretched
General Summary
In this session of Tsuwamono, the following events transpired:
The Left Hand of God (Part 3 Finale)1559年11月17日 17:45 (Afternoon)
Assiah
Historical Entry: The Left Hand of God (Part 3)
The tide of battle flowed now in the human cohort's favor, but their trials were far from over. Even in her light-enhanced battle armor, Ariel risked being overwhelmed by unrelenting attacks from the Power and Virtue flanking her. The soldiers of Geburah showed no qualms about striking to kill other angels; it seemed their injunction against fatality applied only to humans. Small as she was, however, Ariel was several orders of magnitude more powerful than either of her foes in the angelic hierarchy. With a swing of one mighty gauntlet, she crushed through the chest of the Power and sent its marble pieces scattering behind. Then, turning, her metal knuckles flashed three times as they impacted the too-slow Virtue's armor. Finally, a sweep of her leg carved out a full section of the creature's armored thigh, sending it crumbling to the ground in inert chunks. "Give in, Adathan!" Ariel shouted as she sped through the falling debris of her foes to flank the other Cherubim. "You're no match for the Full Armor of God." In response, Adathan opened her hand and let her great hammer fall. It dissolved upon release, ice shifting in the air and reforming into an enormous gauntlet on the angel's own fist. She grinned, flexing the new weapon's fingers. "You aren't the only one blessed with His will, Ariel. It's time someone taught you some humility." Ryūzaki Sanosuke sensed the attack before it came. Preempting Adathan's motion, he slipped with preternatural speed around her back and reached up, attempting to grip the wings high on her back. She half-twisted in response, pushing the gauntlet on her left hand into Sanosuke's chest... A titanic struggle ensued, human and angel both far more physically powerful than their forms should allow. By inches, the Silver General managed to push forward and get a grip on the wings, shaking off Adathan's divine restraint in the process; however, one flex of her powerful back muscles forced Sanosuke's fingers apart and he lost his grip, falling back. "You may be quick," she glared at him, "But none can escape judgment forever." Alas, he'd been unsuccessful, but Sanosuke could hope that his brief struggle would be enough to distract Adathan for a vital blow from another member of his party to land. Haro Uin, at least, could not be that person. She was too distracted dancing amid the crowd of Powers slowly advancing up the rightmost staircase toward the huddle of noncombatants. With a graceful twirl, she brought her foot down in an axe kick that cleaved straight through a Power's skull, splitting it in two. Bright-colored gumballs tumbled from the breach, spilling all about its feet as it collapsed. She moved on, then, to strike at a Virtue, but the armored giants were more formidable in their defenses. Uin's first strike caught her foe by surprise, but was nevertheless deflected with a puff of white light from the thing's armor. With a flip backward, she leaped straight into the air as only a kyonshi could and lashed out with the edge of one slender hand. That blow found a gap between the Virtue's armor and its helmet, slipping through and impacting marble instead of metal. There was a crack of breaking stone and the immense knight faltered, but did not fall. In the time this took to happen, Adathan had already recovered. She eyed Sanosuke for a moment, but seemed to recognize Ariel as a greater threat. Turning on the smaller angel, Adathan grasped out with her Gauntleted Left Hand of god. As it seemed the Armor of God was too inflexible to permit graceful dodges of the sort she favored, Ariel took it full in the chest. The damage itself wasn't critical; Ariel's armor cracked but held strong. It was the divine restraint which worried Sanosuke. He could only watch as his ally's movements along the ground slowed nearly to a stop. Adathan pulled back for another strike... By some miracle, perhaps a true sign of God's favor, Ariel held against two more restraints. She could hardly move more than a few feet at a time, yet she could move. Adathan scowled in the sure knowledge that, by the time she found another opening, her foe would have recovered from this assault. The window for ending Ariel as a threat had closed. "Tch," she muttered out of the corner of her frown, "...Probably shouldn't be using this on other angels anyway..." Meanwhile, on top of the dais at the front of the room, Aotsuki Tsukamoto had interdicted himself between Momose Nao and the remaining Virtue. With Haro Uin on the other side, the thing was trapped, but the young daimyō reminded himself it still presented a threat as he cast eyes down at his fallen companion's unconscious visage. Indeed, it seemed even Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi's sacred steel could not pierce the Virtue's divine armor. After a quick exchange, longsword and greatsword flashing as they clashed, neither Aotsuki nor the titan had been harmed. As the Grass-Cutting Sword rose for another slash, it was interrupted by a sudden cry from elsewhere in the room. Adathan, so haughty and collected until now, suddenly staggered forward with a visceral screech. Her eyes narrowed to hateful slits, tracking something across the room which no one else could see. "The Black Blade of Doom! You came?!" It was Adriel, whose expression of mock surprise couldn't entirely hide a knowing smirk at this strange display. "At your service!" said no one, because the Black Blade was clearly not here. "There are more of you humans?" Adathan growled. She reached up to her left wing, pawing tenderly at a wound no one else could see. "And to cut my wing off with that black blade...this one is dangerous." The smell of burnt feathers did indeed fill the air, however, as embers began to chew at the edges of Adathan's feathers. "Get back here and return my halo at once!" Mary Lyn, who, even despite her extensive experience hadn't seen the illusion spell Adriel cast, muttered a word of surprised admiration. Her attention, with everyone else's, was focused on Adathan. This made it the perfect time for Amenotokotachi to strike. She'd been watching Haro Uin's previous attack, and so the corpse princess' arrow pierced straight through the gap between the Virtue's armor and helmet. It impacted on the base of its neck, causing the statue's head to snap forward with a resounding crack of marble. That one had hurt it, insofar as these creatures were capable of feeling pain. However, the Virtue's head did not so much as turn to seek its attacker. It raised its greatsword instead, slamming down onto Aotsuki with titanic force. The young daimyō's crested shield met the blow and protections both earthly and holy held back the blow. Indeed, with a flash of golden sunlight, the Virtue found its force turned back on itself. All the strength it had put into the strike blew back upon itself. A crack appeared on its helmet, splitting the air with white sparks as its head crumpled within. The armor stood still for a moment, then fell ponderously backward into a rising cloud of marble dust and angelic soul. Apparently unconcerned, Aoki Michiko walked up to the fallen creature and continued to study its armor. "Languages aren't really my forte," she mused, sorting through the pouch around her waist, "but if I had access to the Archives I might be able to make something of this..." Producing a sheet of parchment and a lump of charcoal, the scholar proceeded to take a rubbing of the Abrahamic runes engraved upon intact portions of the Virtue's armor. Oblivious to her last ally's defeat, Adathan's eyes were still scanning the room for an unseen foe. Her distraction proved to be her undoing. Sure and inexorable as a rising star, Ariel's fist caught the other Cherubim full in the stomach. It drilled upward, cracking the marble body around it in half. When the rising rift reached her neck, Adathan's head fell simply away, rolling across the floor before coming to a halt. Her lips, already pooling with soulful matter, uttered one last invective: "Damn you, Black Blade. I won't forget this..." "What the #@%$?" Sanosuke whispered. "Who the heck is the Black Blade?" Ariel asked as she removed her helmet and shook her long silver hair free. The reset of the armor followed, detaching with mechanical sounds from her body before turning once again to light and vanishing within her suitcase. "He's a pain in the ass," came Sanosuke's answer. "I don't know if we should be thankful or afraid that we don't know what Adathan was talking about." His eyes scanned the hall, still pristine except where piles of marble rubble and splatters of dust covered the floor. "By the way, is that stuff..." He pointed at some of the wispy white substance wicking off the ruined bodies. "Can we take some?" "Drat, it's more damaged than I'd hoped..." Ariel blinked, then seemed to consider the question with a pensive look. "Collect...what? That's the essence of an Arbiter, until it makes a new body. What'd you want that for?" "I don't really care about it, but I have a feeling someone else will be disappointed if we don't bring some back for him to experiment with..." "It would be improper for us to allow you to capture the essence of another angel," Adriel cut in primly. "So, if you must, do it whil our back are turned." "I don't really care, but yeah," Ariel agreed, "It does put us in an awkward position." Unseen, and at Sanosuke's unheard suggestion, Mary Lyn scooped a Virtue's essence within what could only be a Demonseal Bottle before stashing it in her robes once again. Just behind her, Aotsuki poured his ki into Momose Nao's supine body. "What hit me...?" the youth asked as Aotsuki helped him to his feet. "One of these statues that you see crumbled to the ground." "Damn..." Nao squeezed his eyes shut. "I wasn't able to transform in time." "I know," Aotsuki's tone was kind, "And I'm sorry. You were only holding back because I asked you to." On the other side of the hall, the Gate of Heaven had cleared. Those swirling, multicolored clouds which once blocked entrance were vanished, revealing a shining street lined with gemstones and a brilliant sky beyond. Each of the party members reconvened at the entrance, however, before seeking to step into that wondrous city. Michiko showed Sanosuke her charcoal rubbings while Aotsuki and Kagami tended to the wounded. A general air of relief and a battle well-won suffused the group. Until it was suddenly shattered. An impossibly huge marble arm, surely to the scale of a castle in itself, reached through the newly-opened gate. Its tower-sized palm opened, reaching down to grab the collected cohort or press them into the carpet below. "Shi–!" Ariel cried. Just before the titanic hand was upon them, a flash of light appeared before it and held it fast. Another angelic figure, this one the size of a man but with splendorous wings arching from his back, turned his attention to the cohort. His face was hidden by an ornate helmet and his body by formal attire of an exotic cut, but an indescribable gentleness seemed to pass from him to the humans. "With the First Gate of Heaven opened, the Archangel Michael is pleased to sned you his regards." In a jolt of sudden acceleration, the robed figure pushed the cyclopean arm back and out of the gateway. A vision of a truly titanic marble statue flying into the distance was briefly visible before being swallowed by the clouds beyond. The party released a collective breath before realizing their apparent savior had vanished as well. "Yes!" Ariel punched the air. "I was hoping Michael would help us out." Noticing the blank expressions around her, she attempted an explanation. "That was a Dominion. The highest rank of angel that still hasn't cast off its Qlippoth. Basically, it's a supersized, superpowered version of those statues we just fought." "Separating from a Qlippoth means tearing away part of your essence; your power," Adriel added. "That means Dominions, although technically of lower rank, can sometimes rival even the Divine Councilors in sheer power. Fortunately, a Dominion of Mercy stepped in." "I'm not going to ask if Michael's a good guy," Sanosuke stated flatly. He couldn't help but think they might still be more worried about the angels with individuality rather than superpowered mooks. "Anyway, we're all clear now, huh?" "He's like..." Ariel started in response to the question Sanosuke had not asked. "If the Arbiters we just fought are the left hands pushing you away, Michael is the right hand pulling you in for an embrace." "Shockingly poetic, Ariel," her sister teased. "You know he'd appreciate it." Then, noting her wounds had somewhat lessened, she reached down to ruffle Kagami's hair. "Thanks, little one." "Then...we're fine to proceed?" Mary asked. As if in response, a jovial voice echoed in from outside the door. "Hello? Is anyone alive in there?" The question sounded friendly, perhaps overly so. "We've done our best to stay alive, yes!" Aotsuki called back. He stepped forward with Sanosuke, the two putting themselves at the front of the cohort to face whatever new threat this may prove to be. First, a gold headdress poked around the edge of the door, followed by a head of flowing hair and a face-eating mustache. The mouth below that distinguished facial hair broke into a wide grin as its owner saw Sanosuke approaching. "Capital! Capital!" this new angel cried. He offered a low, dramatic bow. "On behalf of the Splendors of Hod, allow me to be the first to welcome you to Assiah proper!"A Horse and Her Boye
1559年11月17日 18:00 (Evening)
Shima Province
Historical Entry: A Horse and Her Boye
On the northern slopes of Shima Province, the sun beat down hard upon the skeleton of what would soon be a watchtower. It was bizarrely warm, unseasonably so. Sweat dripped down from Boye's forehead and caused him to squint his eyes. Levering one more heavy wooden beam into place, he all but fell backward onto a handy rock and wiped his forehead judiciously. Sure, he was desperate for work, but how was he expected to build this damnable thing alone? Well, not entirely alone. Boye stopped himself from flinching as another heavy "thud" sounded from behind him. He turned, already certain of what he'd see, but yet unwilling to accept it regardless. Sure enough, a horse stood there. She was a magnificent mare, standing as tall as Boye at the shoulder and black as night. Fully barded, like a warhorse, and boasting a wicked-looking steel horn atop her helmeted muzzle, she would be a steed to strike fear into the hearts of any on the battlefield. And yet here she was, delivering wood. That thump earlier had, indeed, been the horse laying another heavy wooden beam down at the base of the tower. Boye watched. The horse looked back. That beam was far too large to fit in her mouth. How else would she manipulate it? It wasn't like she could pick it up with her hooves and put it on her back to carry it here. Was she really a horse at all? Kihaku looked back and offered not an answer nor a whinny. The distance between them seemed to lengthen. Boye felt himself on a precipice. Below him was an unknown world where a horse had been assigned as his construction partner and, worse, seemed to be better at it than he was. Behind him was firm ground; the sane realm in which horses ate grain and carried their riders around, nothing more. Boye stared. Kihaku stared. Boye blinked. "Thanks, girl," he said, getting up to pat Kihaku on the neck. She nickered, and the tension between them faded away. So what if a horse was delivering lumber and constructing scaffolding while he wasn't looking? That just made his job easier, didn't it? And he'd still be getting paid. On his metaphorical precipice, Boye took neither a step forward nor back, but kept his feet planted just where they were. By the time the sun had set, they'd made fantastic progress. It almost seemed ridiculous, that a mere migrant worker and an inexplicably capable horse had built the frame of a watchtower all by themselves. Yet the evidence stood right in front of them. It wasn't quite finished, not yet, but they'd have it ready by lunch tomorrow if he was any judge. "Good work, Kihaku." Where had that name come from? Why had he known to call the horse by it? Boye stroked his scraggly beard and chuckled. He'd have to convince himself into just accepting things in this curious country, it seemed. He sat back down on his rock and Kihaku came to loiter beside him. Together, the worker and the warhorse looked down at the valley below. Cast in a beautiful orange sunset, a walking castle slowly picked its way across the land as the clocktower at Makami-jō sounded the hour. Yes, curious indeed, but Boye thought he might just be able to get used to it.Rewards Granted
Aotsuki Tsukamoto
Ryūzaki Sanosuke
Hashinara Yoshitakatomo
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Report Date
07 Apr 2023
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