The Demon and The Samurai

Historian: Caleb. Date: 8/05/2025.

TLDR – We refuse to kneel to Jubilex, and Jericho shoots it, beginning combat. Alphie uses quintessence magic to create an exit for us, and Gwyn convinces Stargazer to let us go, as he owes Astranna that much. Prudii arrives, saving Alphie but getting beat to shit in the process. Alphie drags him through the window with her, and we land outside Gezep, Alphie’s hometown. We learn more about Prudii as we go to Alphie’s house, and are introduced to their family.

• Date: 49 Lionnir 777 AR.
• Jamie gives the recap.
• Jubilex asks us again.
  • “Will you kneel? Or shall you become unsung? [...] These are your choices. To kneel to us or become us.”
• When all of us are silent, Stargazer pleads with Astranna.
  • “Their power is greater than anything you can possibly imagine. It is inevitable.”
• She doesn’t want to believe it was inevitable, but he insists they would have come back no matter what, and that this is the only option for them to survive.
• Astranna still refuses, saying she can’t. Jubilex doesn’t like this, but before he can do anything, Jericho shoots him, beginning combat.

Combat begins

• Order: Stargazer → Jericho → Alphie → Anja → Astranna → Gwyn → Jubilex

Round 1

• Stargazer goes supernova on Alphie, before dark matter dashing through Gwyn and hitting her with a gravity blade. He then shoots 40 ft up in the air, and firmament slams down on Anja. He stands over her, sighs deeply, and turns to Jericho.
  • “I liked you. This is a shame.”
• He activates his hungering nebula on Jericho – if you begin your turn in the aura, your speed is halved. You lose 100 sp for every 5 ft you move, and if you don’t have the sp, you can’t move through it.
• He attacks Anja, going nonlethal – he doesn’t want to lose his cursed energy supply.
• Jericho attacks Stargazer.
  • “I have seen this in the stars. Do you really think you could hit your teacher? […] Perhaps one day you’ll see it my way.”
• Alphie gives guided soul to Astranna, before activating their Shameless power.
  • “Astranna, your dad sucks, and I wish you were an orphan!”
• Alphie attempts to use quintessence, and gets UPQSDPGW. Dalton comes in clutch with “dup”, which allows Alphie to create a window for us to get out of here. They’re able to bargain for a power score number of windows.
• Unconscious, Anja awakens in a great plain of mist, and black, inky darkness. She hears a voice.
  • “One question. You have one question. One question to ask and I will answer.”
  • “Why did you choose me?”
  • “Choose, choose. You were there, I saw potential, potential to be great. You always wanted to be loved, I can make you loved.”
• Anja says she doesn’t think it can help her in the way she needs. It says it can make her happy, and give her the world. She sees flashes around this space of people all around her, she who is loved and praised, famous for art, knowledge, and wisdom. Her old family back together once again.
• Astranna approaches the shimmering, void-like portal. Stargazer calls out to her.
  • “Astranna, don’t! We can be together!”
• She grimaces, but jumps in. Alphie’s sending us to their hometown, but for now, Astranna is subject to the strange, raw, uninterrupted magics of the Skybound Lands. The Breezestone hasn’t been in this space, so she’s just tumbling.
• Gwyn turns to Stargazer.
  • “Please let us go. You owe Astranna that much.”
• This seems to actually hurt and affect him. She gets +1 hero point. She drags Anja into her window, and feels quintessence pulling at the breezestone’s magic. She allows it, and holds Anja close, looking for Astranna.
• The GM rolls a 1d6, and tells her to call odd or even. If she calls correctly, we get Gezepp. Otherwise, we get a random location connected to all of us. She correctly calls odds, and we fall down, down, down.
• It’s Jubilex’s turn! He’s half-focusing on Jericho, half on Alphie. Its voice is echoed a hundredfold.
  • “You with the Gellid Engine, a galaxy within a galaxy, yes, you will be a great addition. You and all within, joining the Abyss.”
• Jubilex fires out 20, 30, 40 tendrils at them… they’re going to be absorbed.
• Except something happens. How does Prudii interrupt?
• A shadow of black races across the field, a glint of steel spinning and carving up, before sliding down Jubilex’s side.
  • “We have to go! Now!”
• Jubilex seems confused, but angered, and its attention turns onto the new individual, sending 6 attacks into Prudii, each at Sheer 9. They’re slammed around, their body completely mangled, bleeding, a little bit blind, deaf, stunned. But somehow alive.
  • Their coat is black, melding with the rest of his armor and clothing, almost like it’s one single piece. It has red stripes along it.

Round 2

• On Stargazer’s turn… due to Gwyn’s words, he makes a roll. He looks around at all that’s going on, and her words ring out in his head. He rolls a 2, which is good – we wanted low. His loyalty slips, falling away, and he gives a long sigh. He lets the nebula fade, standing there almost stunned.
• Jericho activates sprint to go get Piero, then goes through the window.
• Alphie drags Prudii into their window, repeating, “I hope you’re not evil”. They make a phys check (3 successes) to close the windows. What does it feel like as they attempt to rip their magic back to them?
  • It feels like when you’re falling in a dream, and feel the impact upon waking up.

Combat ends

• We’re going, going, going, and Gwyn feels a sense of calm that not many other people would feel. She sees the clouds, the pure, open sky around us, as we fall and tumble, end over end. She sees Gezepp, and activates her anti-crash. We land about a mile out.
• Jericho takes shreds of his cleanest blanket to staunch Anja’s bleeding. She comes to consciousness. We’re in a small glade outside town. We look at Prudii.
  • Prudii (Keenan) – About 6’7”, seemingly covered in bamboo armor. Once we rationalize how the armor should look on him, we realize it’s prosthetics. He’s covered in black robes, and has very dark kenpo (?), a barred face with fangs jutting out from the top and bottom. He wears a straw hat, and between the kenpo and straw hat is the smallest amount of skin, where we see glowing gold veins. Whenever we see him open his eyes, they also glow gold.
• Astranna would be able to clock that his getup and uniform are very Arketian.
• Anja tries her damndest to make a healing potion. She comes up with another luck potion.
• Jericho uses the rest of his blanket to patch up Prudii. He notices Prudii has a gold katana, very beautiful, with an aether-blue glow along the edge of the blade. It has runes on it, though he can’t decipher them. He recognizes them as very ancient, and very strong. Not a normal katana. His prosthetics also don’t seem to be Morgen’s handiwork.
• After about half an hour, his golden eyes open, looking around.
  • “Where am I?”
  • “The Titanic Ring.”
  • “What’s that?”
• Astranna asks about his armor, and he says an artificer in the Skybound Lands made it. He urges us to go back – he can be ready in a day.
  • “The people need to be warned. We have left them. We have to go back, now.”
• We tell him we can’t leave immediately, but we’re going to contact someone for help.
• Prudii tells us he comes from Sweet Meadows – he apparently showed up as an infant. The village took him in and took care of him, raising him.
  • “They’re gone now, but… that is discussion for another time.”
• We find out Geldorf is like a day away (overnight) by train! Yippee.
• Alphie suggests Astranna get some rest. It’s been a long time for her.
• Astranna looks up at the stars as she walks. The stars twinkle and flare, as if the sky is very active.
• Gwyn asks Jericho if he has a message he’d like her to deliver for his friends.
  • “Just let them know I’m alive, and I’m sorry.”
• Jericho checks on Piero, and asks if he’s okay. Piero gives a small nod.
  • “Yeah, boss, I’m fine. That was a close one.”
• Piero continues attempting to talk, but the sound shifts and alters, and then just becomes squeaking. Piero looks up at him with big black eyes, and crawls onto his shoulder.
• Gwyn asks Jericho if he wants to see his friends again. He says part of him does, but the other part of him doesn’t know how that’ll go. Gwyn says that’s how she felt about Morgen for the longest time. Jericho says his partings were amicable, but after the time and distance, he doesn’t know…
  • “I don’t know why she made me to feel. I don’t know if it would’ve been better if she didn’t. But I’m glad that all that led to me being with you guys. I’m trying to hold onto that.”
• Jericho tells Gwyn to let herself feel what she feels, and let herself go through it. He thanks for helping out every day, and says she’s probably the most dependable person he’s ever met. After a bit more discussion, Jericho says he thinks Astranna’s going through some stuff, so he’s gonna hang by her. Gwyn was thinking the same.
• Astranna appreciates their presence, and matches their pace. She talks with Gwyn, and mentions what Stargazer told her about Henrietta, with regards to her being a piece of… something that the dead high god making up the Skybound Lands destroyed. Henrietta pipes up in Gwyn’s head.
  • “We’re not gonna have any problems, are we?”
• Gwyn says they aren’t.
  • “Good. We’re gonna still keep having a good, fun time. I’m Astranna’s best friend. I keep Astranna safe. You are not going to make Astranna unsafe. [...] You’re no different than the Scrimbimbolos that I ripped apart. Oh. Hmm. I don’t want you to know that.”
  • And Henrietta erases that memory of Gwyn’s.
• Gwyn momentarily has a blank look, before continuing to walk. Astranna asks if she’s alright, and she says she is.
• Astranna asks Gwyn not to mention anything about her mom (or her mom’s location) to Bran – after what Bran did to Olwen, she doesn’t want her mom to be hurt. Gwyn agrees.
• Gwyn says she thinks the Cosmic really does care about Astranna, and Astranna agrees. She really wants to help him… she thinks he’s just scared and didn’t know another option. She also worries he might have been right about the Abyss being inevitable, since he’s able to divine so much. And if he didn’t see another way…
• Gwyn says if Astranna wants to help him, she does too. Astranna says she does.
• Anja, as she walks, is lost in her own head. She notices certain shadows that are maybe a tad too long, a chill of air that might’ve been there all her life, if she just hadn’t noticed it until now… what’s her reaction to the knowledge that she never stopped walking in those mists, and she might’ve been walking in those mists most of her life?
  • “Probably abject horror, as she realizes the thing that she wanted all her life, was, you know, she was a little girl who just wanted to be loved, and this thing seeped in, and she let it.”
• As we walk through town, we see a dwarvish man smoking a pipe late at night. He doesn’t acknowledge the rest, but he gives Anja an earnest wave and a “Hello!”
  • Something so simple, it’s happened hundreds of times before now. The shadows an inch or two long. It’s anything but normal.
• Anja restrains herself, keeping her head down.
• Alphie tries to explain Meropis to Prudii. Null, the different rings, etc. She tells him our world is less free, less… whimsical.
• He asks about our other member in the Shadowlands – we split the party. There’s another Tattercoat Knight fighting Quasit. We figure this is Newton.
• Prudii tells us his parents learned to make his clothes from a book he had with him… but he doesn’t have it anymore. It was lost with his family. But he doesn’t wish to dampen the mood – he’s very excited to explore with the little time we have.
• He says that when we arrive, he’d like some time to pray to the gods. Alphie explains our own pantheon, ending on the high gods, and Prudii says perhaps he will give his thanks to them as well.
• We turn onto a familiar street, about five minutes from home, and Alphie raises their voice to speak to us.
  • “Now, my parents, as a warning, might be a little much at first, but they mean well. Um, please don’t be weird. And they do know about my cold condition, mostly. Don’t freak them out too much with what we’ve learned about it since.”
• They say that family members living in the house are themself, their mom, dad, and their younger sibling. They have an older brother who moved out a bit ago, but he might be back. Their mom’s a lit teacher.
• Alphie stops at a pebble path that goes through some trees, up to their childhood home. It’s dark, past midnight. It’s quiet. They pick up a good stick on the ground – a piece of home for later. She knocks on the door, with no response. They knock again, and hear their father’s voice.
  • “Who is it? This time of night…”
• There are heavy footfalls as he goes down the steps, and comes to the door. There’s a beat, as he waits before opening it. There’s a man who doesn’t look like them at all – he’s on the older side, with white hair, pale skin, still healthy at his age. He’s seemingly human, but a glimpse at the ears makes him seem more half-elven. His eyes grow wide.
  • “Alphecca? WHAT–”
• They go in for a hug, and he scoops them up in a big hug. He looks at the party.
  • “Why does she have blood on her? Why is that one made of bamboo? That one has a chicken! It’s very strange!”
• After discussing whether or not having blood is a disability, their father very loudly calls for Maeve. There’s a beat, and we see a woman, seemingly dwarven, with a little bit of 5 o’clock shadow across the face. Her hair is braided down the back. She gives Alphie a big hug, and asks them what happened, and where they went.
  • “Bamboo! It’s a disability!”
  • “It is more enhancement.”
  • “I’m sorry. He… he just needs… he really… he just likes you a lot.”
  • “No offence taken.”
• Maeve tells him to go make food, and he says he’ll prep some meat, and checks that none of us are vegans. We find out he’s already at 3 noise complaints this month, which does not come as a surprise. Maeve gives us a warm smile, waving us all in. Alphie comes in last, waving everyone in as well. Anja lets Maple out.
• As we leave the Tattercoat Knights for today, they’ve made it back to the Rings of Meropis. Our journey has taken a rather interesting turn.
• Everyone gets a level-up and +2 hero points.