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

Session 15 Recap: Given Away by Grant

Obeying Caesar’s orders to infiltrate Falfax Fort dressed as Harmonian soldiers, much to Daisy’s obvious discomfort, our small group flew to Sanadia province and made our way through the sewers of the fort. There was treasure to claim and rats to fight (one big monster rat got away) in the very strangely designed sewers, until finally we spotted a ladder heading upwards and found ourselves up on the ramparts of the castle. Our intention was to sneak into the large central building and set fire to Camaro’s provisions before they could spot us. But to our surprise, there was a rather important meeting going on in the courtyard at that very moment.

General Gregory, Queen Diana, and a girl with a bow, a female dwarf, and a robot were assembled on one side, and on the other stood Rodin Relos himself, a priest general of Harmonia and Kuarjav’s personal enemy. We were unable to resist hiding in the shadow of the building and eavesdropping on their discussion, and we heard enough to learn that Relos was secretly plotting to aid Camaro’s attack against the Crystal Valley (whether he was really betraying Harmonia or just fooling Camaro for his own reasons is still unknown). It didn’t take long for one of the Camaro sentries to spot our little gang and sound the alarm, at which point most of the Camaro and Harmonian forces retreated in order to protect their respective leaders.

Our disguised party had a few frantic moments of debate as to whether we should still try to carry out our mission or just retreat, but in the end we decided to set everything on fire like we’d planned and then flee. Inside the main building, we found huge piles of supplies which Royce gleefully burned to a crisp while Daisy searched the side rooms to make sure no soldiers would die in the blaze. Harold ran into a man named Percy from Dunan, who was thoroughly lost and confused (he thought he was in Liberty Castle) but delighted to see his old friend Harold. While Daisy found treasures like Old Book Vol. 5, Harold quickly talked Percy into joining us and meeting up back at Liberty Castle.

To everyone’s surprise, the next person we stumbled across was Grant, the last member of our Unity Rune party. He explained that he (somehow) couldn’t find us after our first battle against Harmonia and thought we’d all been killed, so he had stayed with the Camaro Knights to help them conquer Harmonia completely. He refused to listen when we tried to explain what we were doing and even had a duel with Harold, who beat him soundly. Daisy argued with him and tried to convince him to come with us, fully intending to knock him out and carry him home if she had to, but he managed to run away. This was terrible news for us for more than one reason, and the repercussions of letting him get away would be felt far too soon. Grant had deserted the Union Army.

Our escape from the castle was hindered by only a few guards, as most of them had fled when the smoke began to billow, but the most dangerous were the Camaro soldiers Hilda the dwarf and her robot Gears. Harold loudly claimed to be his arrogant, racist brother Henry Windamier and we all joined in, still hoping to make them think that we were Harmonian soldiers, or even acting on Relos’ orders. Insults were exchanged and the Camaro pair mocked Sun Crystal’s construction, so it degenerated into a fight in which Daisy got inordinately pissed at Gears but Sciath and Sun Crystal ultimately got the finishing blows. The victory allowed us to escape while Hilda and Gears retreated, and once outside we teleported directly back to Liberty Castle.

There wasn’t much time to rest, so after a quick trip to the inn for some and the hot springs for others, we reported back to Caesar about the mission. While the supplies were destroyed as we’d planned, there was little chance that Grant wouldn’t reveal to everyone who we really were and blow away our plan to disguise it as a Harmonian attack. This could bring both Relos and the Camaro forces down onto the Union Army in a killing blow we could not yet withstand. Daisy resisted the urge to say “I told you so,” for it was obvious that hard times lay ahead for us now. The rest of that day was spent bolstering our castle’s defenses, with Daisy training recruits, Kuarjav directing the placement of medical supplies and Harold “supervising” from behind his rose teacup.

Unfortunately, our new defenses were put to the test all too soon. Alarms sounded in the middle of the night and we found ninjas attacking in every part of the castle. We saved Bernadette and Caesar and were about to split up to cover more ground when a scream shot out of the war room, where we found our leader Pearl being attacked by none other than Yuber himself, the legendary demon of war. Remembering that his services were currently in the employ of Camaro, our spirits sank even as we charged, for Camaro had made their statement plainly enough: they knew who and where we were, and our sabotage would not go unpunished. It was a very close fight, but thanks to everyone’s efforts and Kuarjav’s expert healing, we managed to best the monster. At which point he drove us all back with a mighty blast, knocked Pearl out with a punch to the gut, and disappeared with her.

Caesar was quick to discuss the consequences with us. Casualties from the midnight ninja raid were minimal; Yuber had made it plain that he only sought Pearl, our leader. Camaro and Harmonia would be forced to resume fighting each other thanks to Camaro’s weakened state, but losing our leader would deal an equally heavy blow to the Union Army. We would still operate democratically, of course, but there had to be someone at the top for the troops to look up to, someone to rally around. “An Army is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. Every change in the rules which impairs the principle weakens the army.” – William Tecumseh Sherman. It was unanimously decided to elect Kuarjav as the new temporary leader of the Union Army in Pearl’s absence, both because of his age and experience and because he is the only member of our inner circle who is actually a Harmonian citizen. (As for the rest of us, Harold turned down the job due to his status as a Dunan diplomat, Daisy would have gladly taken the role but felt Kuarjav might be a better fit, Sciath remained silent and we all agreed that Royce would probably get the castle burned down within the hour.)

With that matter settled, Caesar proposed a few different ways to proceed. Since we knew ninjas were now involved, he thought it wise to try and recruit some ninjas of our own from Rokkaku village in Toran (which will be a job for next time). Our mighty Silverberg also decided it was high time to approach the elves again and ask them to join us, so our little group teleported out to the elven village. This time, Harold introduced Kuarjav as the head of the Union Army and asked the elves to lend us their aid. Xavier said that Kuarjav had kind eyes that had seen much, and agreed to join us on one condition: we had to destroy a monster that had been terrorizing the elves for centuries. We agreed to his terms and an elf guided us to the Forest Temple but refused to go inside with us. Next time, we will be searching our first temple to hunt down the boss, and then perhaps it will be time for ninjas.

Recruited: Percy

Investigations: Bernadette, Serena, Dexter, Kuarjav