Session 28 Recap: Carousing in Camaro

Our intrepid adventurers began the day’s journey with one of our last cooking battles of the game, appropriately against Jinkai, the former head of the Black Dragon Group (an elite four-man group comprising the top chefs in the world, of which Hai Yo is a former member). The enormous Jinkai brought only his apprentice Anami to assist him, and the judges were called for this epic duel.

This aged General loves his food served with sake! It’s Reuben!

The crown princess of Tinto, its Lilly Pendragon! A proud patriot, she loves all her homemade Tinto food!

This wandering scroll maker couldn’t find his favorite foods if you drew him a map! It’s Percy!

Queen likes to act like royalty, eating only the finest French foods!

Appetizer: Steve’s Soup (Steve’s soup+no spice): Royce, Daisy: 10,10,10,10

Main Course: Tempura Don (Tempura+hot sauce): Harold, Hai Yo: 9999

Dessert: Red Velvet Cake (cake+salt): Sciath, Kuarjav: 7778

Total: 102

Anami’s Peking duck 6666; Jinkai’s Kaiseki Dinner 7777, Red Velvet Cake 8889

Total: 81

As you can see, Recipe #4 “Peking Duck” and Recipe #49 “Kaiseki Dinner” were our prizes, and the battle was won.

Back to business, Caesar outlined his plan of attack for our first offensive inside Camaro itself. He sent a decoy force against Fort Dorton in the north to distract Camaro while our real forces attacked Iron Beach in the South. First, some Duck Troops from the Grasslands created floods, and then we marched in against Hilda and Gears’ all-human forces and quickly wiped them out with the power of our True Runes. The slaughter may have seemed excessive, even cruel, but “war is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.” – William Tecumseh Sherman. Upon her surrender, Hilda explained that she’d had to fight for Camaro before because they had been occupying her hometown of Iron Beach, but now she would work for us as the new invaders. Not really the ideal reason for joining us, but hopefully she will come to see the benefit of allying with us. A quick exploration of Iron Beach after the battle netted us Hamasis, the final kraken sibling. We also found the play script “To Kill A Queen”.

We bowed to Lydia’s nagging in the comment box and decided to put on a play on her stage. Our first choice was Neclord’s End, the story of the Dunan heroes (including Daisy’s father Viktor!) finally beating the dreaded vampire Neclord once and for all. Daisy played her father of course; Kuarjav played Kahn the vampire hunter; Royce was Riou, the hero of Dunan; Sciath took on Sierra the coven mistress’ role; Sun Crystal and Vasuki shared the role of Lilly; and Harold donned the fancy cape of the evil vampire himself. The show was a great success (who knew that Kahn actually forced Neclord to Repent?), so as an encore we also put on the Battle of Chi Bi, with Kuarjav as Sun Quan, Harold as Zhou Yu, Royce as Huang Gai, Sciath as Cao Cao, Daisy as Zhuge Liang, and Sun Crystal playing the Narrator.

Daisy went to the infirmary to check up on Octavia, only to find that her condition was not improved. Roy said that she could slip away at any moment, so Daisy asked Royce and company to go fetch Octavia’s daughter Sophia while she spoke with her one last time. The two women talked a bit and were on fairly civil terms by the time Sophia arrived; mother and daughter were left alone together until the end, while Daisy stood guard outside. Sophia explained that they had come to some measure of peace, though they had spent many years hating each other. She took her mother’s body back to the Beast Village for burial, and that chapter of Daisy’s life came to a close.

The next morning, we awoke once again to the castle alarm and noticed at once that every dragon save Vasuki (who sleeps in Royce’s room) was missing. Milia and her frantic dragon riders couldn’t see any indication of how it had happened, or how all the guards had been knocked out during the night. However, Milia had the power to track down the dragons, and we followed them to the Deadlands in Camaro where we had to fight many vultures and other creatures. We also fought a lion, but Daisy took pity on it and healed it up after we fought, so it decided to join us. Inside one of the deepest caves, we found Felicia surrounded by the stolen dragons, who all looked very confused and befuddled. Felicia demanded that Milia hand over the True Dragon Rune, which wasn’t going to happen, so Royce instead challenged her to a duel one-on-one, rune for rune. Felicia lost badly, but when Royce asked Kuarjav to remove her Conqueror Rune, she tried to attack him and her dragon Felix stepped in to defend her. Milia then used her True Dragon Rune to release the captured dragons from Felicia’s spell and Felix stepped back, recognizing a hopeless situation. With the Conqueror Rune removed, Felicia was easily subdued and teleported back to the Dragon’s Den for her trial. As per Dragon Knight rules, Felicia was promptly executed for her crimes, and her dragon Felix was euthanized out of pity. Royce, meanwhile, was promoted from 4^th Knight to 3^rd Knight for bringing Felicia to justice and spent the duration of her public execution hitting on Milia’s daughter Sharon.

In Hai Yo’s famous kitchen, both Retso and Gyokuran of the Black Dragon group were ready to challenge Hai Yo in our penultimate cooking battle.

She’ll dance her way into your heart with her fair judging! It’s Amber!

Gabi and her pets come from Caleria, home of spices! Give her the hot stuff for a win!

This silent hero loves Gremio’s cooking best, but he’ll settle for something Italian! It’s McDohl!

This renowned cook only picks at food he hasn’t cooked himself, making him one of the hardest judges we have! It’s Gremio!

Appetizer: Garlic Bread (breadsticks+salt): Royce, Sciath: 10,10,10,9

Main Course: Tempura Don (Tempura+hot sauce): Harold, Hai Yo: 10,10,10,9

Dessert: Chocolate Chip Cookies (cookies+chocolate sauce): Daisy, Kuarjav: 7776

Total: 105

Squid 8887, Sashimi Combo 9998, Kid’s Bento Box 8887

Total: 101

The chefs bowed their heads in defeat and handed over their greatest recipes: Recipe #21 “Squid” and Recipe #48 “Sashimi Combo”.

We sped off on another tangent and tracked down a shop that had cheaper prices than May’s shop, a Medicine shop in Cerock castle. May rewarded us with any one item from her shop that we desire, which we have yet to choose. Our victory over Marcus in was of quite a different nature – we all teamed up against him in mock battle and just barely eked out a win – but the prize was the same. We still have two special items to choose for next time!

*****TWO free items to choose!

Recruited: Hilda, Gears

(non-star recruits): Hamasis

Investigations: Hilda, Gears, Fred, Rico, Zelda

It's a Double Digit Eulogy!

As always, these eulogies are done from the perspective of Harold.

For Octavia
"Octavia, Octavia, ye of little and much faith
It was that Faith that sustained you, that faith that you your power, your wisdom, your might
It was that faith that led to your death
It was your faith that led to your Zebra crying out in the shadows alone
Its bellow echoing on the castle walls
Pounding the walls.  

There was always a way out for you
But you chose not that path.
There was always a way for peace
But you chose you not that path.
There was always a path to fire
And it was that path you took.

Let her death be a grave reminder once more
Of a lesson passed down from generation to generation
Never be too zealous for a cause
For it always leads to madness

But let our memories know this as well:
if you must go into the abyss of madness
Take friends with you.
For otherwise, ye shall be Octavia.
Ye of little and much faith"

Dedicated to Daisy.

For Felicia
"Felicia, oh Felicia, as Pearl's death was, you were such a tragic tale
Your silver eyes of rare beauty shall never again stare at your Royce
Your angelic wings shall never be seen by the lowly world again

Your spear, like that of the old dynasties, always seem so sure and pure
But its heart was as black as ash, its soul dirtied by the soil of the land

In a different time and place, your majestic grace, even if it was mad like a charging Holly Boy, would have been acknowledged, your followers bowing as if you were the last of the great Sindar gods
In a different world, you would be written of as though you had saved the world, as if you were the reincarnation of the greatest Wisemail of all

But you were bound by this one
You should have flown ever so high, so high that the angels themselves would be scared of you
But the pull of this world was too great

This violent world demanded the chaos embodied by Yuber
And your dragon simply was not powerful enough to soar above it all

In the end, you simply could not escape this world's gravity
And for that, dear Felicia, you became only the latest tale of woe"

Dedicated to Royce.

Session 10 recap: Nothing but Nemeses

We kicked things off by asking for Caesar’s advice, and he asked us to find an architect to help build our new castle, as progress was slow. Lucky for us, we knew exactly where to find such a tradesman. But to our surprise, we found Lindermill in a rather different state than when we left it with Katherine and company. Harmonian soldiers were everywhere, enforcing a new draft that hadn’t been activated in many years. Amelia the bathmaker’s house was unguarded, but she refused to join us unless Reynaldo the architect chose to. So we swung by Reynaldo’s place next door and found him and his architects being dragged away for the draft by none other than Henry, Harold’s humorless brother and a Harmonian army captain. The fight was brutal and some unfortunate words were exchanged, but Henry was eventually forced to flee our onslaught once again. Reynaldo and his men joined us out of gratitude, and Amelia soon followed suit, obviously surprised at what had come to pass.

The team heard some rumors during our travels, like the fact that we might be meeting elves in the forest one of these days, but the most significant was learning the identity of the three Camaro generals. It turns out that Yuber is working for Camaro these days, and may have been summoned by Queen Diana herself, who is rumored to bear the True Piety Rune. As for the full extent of that rune’s power or what might come of enlisting Yuber’s services, that much is still unknown.

The safety of Royce’s dragon continued to be an important concern, as his rival Felicia had twice used the power of forbidden runes to affect his dragon’s mind. Caesar explained that we might be able to counter the power of Felicia’s runes (the Black/Conqueror rune put his dragon to sleep, while the Howling rune sent Vasuki into an uncontrollable bloodlust rage) if we visited the dwarves again. Cyrus the dwarven leader agreed to help us and sent for his son, Mitch, to help us. Mitch turned out to be a skilled potion-maker, trap-maker, and inventor, who happened to have developed and brewed a large quantity of anti-mind-control potion, which we fed to Vasuki. Meanwhile, we heard rumors from Ramza that the kobolds seemed to be preparing for war, and that this might be related to Felicia being spotted meeting with the kobold leader shortly before his disappearance. Guessing that Felicia was using the Howling rune to control the kobolds, Mitch prepared copious amounts of anti-mind-control potion and kobold-strength knockout gas and traveled with us to the kobold village.

It was obvious the minute we entered the village that every single kobold was in a mindless frenzy. Luckily, we were able to avoid killing the kobolds thanks to Mitch’s knockout gas, and we administered the antidote potion to every kobold we came across. Felicia showed up with her dragon, Felix, and attacked. After another tough fight, the FFs were defeated and set fire to the kobold village to cover their escape. Compelled to rescue the kobolds, we had to let the pair escape yet again.

Once the kobolds had all been restored to normal, Wayne the kobold leader told us of Felicia’s evil plan to use the mind-controlled kobolds as cannon fodder against Camaro. While the kobolds attacked the Camaro knights from one side, Felicia planned to use the dwarves the same way and create enough of a distraction for Harmonia to overcome the invaders. Disgusted by Harmonia’s utter disregard for the lives of non-humans and grateful for our help, Wayne agreed to join us, and Monty the kobold trader finally did the same. Once they heard what Harmonia had planned to do, Cyrus and Mitch joined us as well, and they decided to defy Harmonia by moving back into the old dwarven castle as a prologue to open war.

It was with mixed feelings that we heard the news of Camaro beating Harmonia at Coldwall castle due to the missing kobold and dwarf reinforcements, because the loss of life was severe. On the other hand, Harmonia’s defeat diverted their forces away towards the borders, leaving Sorrowyn prison relatively defenseless. Next time, we will take Sorrowyn by storm and finally rescue Daisy’s father!