Eulogy: Pearl

(And as always, this week's Eulogy is performed by The Ever Loving Harold)

Pearl was a woman of great wisdom
Who always had a plan for the occasion

Of Noble Birth, Beauty and Heart
She at first was quite the sport
(Of Harmonia that is!)

She excelled in all her passions
And she fit all the world's fashions

But one day she felt a knot
And quite soon after she caused quite the riot!

With friends such as Damien, Jonah and Luther
she declared "Harmonia must fall!"

She raised a great army for liberty
the foundation of such unity

And indeed, with the Union Army
She did much for her land

But as she has now fallen
now too will others will rise

So lament the fall of Pearl
Lament the fall of her grace

But do not lament the death of the union
for it does riseth ever greater than before

Do not compare it to a phoenix
for there is no death in this army

Rally around the image of Pearl
Rally around the passion of Pearl
Rally around the injustice of her death
And Rally around Kuarjav!

Together we shall rise
Together we shall fight
Together we shall win!

For everlasting glory!

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

Session 14 Recap: Routin' Reuben and Recuitin'

We jumped right into battle this time, following another of Caesar’s ambitious schemes. He ordered some of Reynaldo’s architects to sneak into Fort Elbridge in Greydell and sabotage the construction going on there, causing massive flooding in the castle. Once that was done, a group of dwarves served as decoys to draw all of General Reuben’s forces out of the castle so we could ambush them. The plan went just as expected, and we cut off their retreat. Royce’s rival Felicia was defeated once again, and Harold’s brother Henry fled when Reuben surrendered after Daisy’s attack (many thanks to Harold’s battle advice and everyone’s combined spells and skills). Marcus came with us to help convince his old mentor to defect, and eventually join us he did, albeit reluctantly. Reuben was a major Harmonian strategist who trained half the current Priest Generals, so this should come as a major blow to our enemies.

We discovered upon our return to Liberty castle that many of the major construction projects had been completed during our mission, and the place was starting to shape up into headquarters we could be proud of (i.e. Castle Level 2). With so much extra space to work with, we knew it was time to look for more people and launch another recruitment drive to liven up the place. We returned to Westhollow and found that Farmer Zelda had finally finished her chores, so she agreed to join us (she seemed surprised at our enthusiastic recruitment efforts, clearly not realizing how much we truly love our vegetables). With our farmer recruited, we turned next to Gloria’s request that we find her old crew. Our search began and ended on Dreidred mountain, where we first met Gloria during our short-lived partnership with poor Miles. Gloria’s #2, a fancypants-turned-bandit named Byron, was still there along with a few dozen bandit soldiers from Gloria’s old gang, and they all happily joined our army for Gloria’s sake.

To our surprise, a female Winger was waiting for us back at Liberty Castle. She introduced herself as a traveling saleswoman named May and asked to know who was in charge of this magnificent castle. Daisy took the credit (with much protesting from Royce) and invited May to set up shop at Liberty Castle. She readily agreed and mentioned that she was traveling in order to make a name for herself far away from her annoying brother… right before Daisy and Harold, both from Dunan like her, asked if she knew Chaco. Poor May appeared a bit disgruntled that even way up in Harmonia she can’t get out from under her brother’s wing.

Acting on a tip from Ramza, we teleported up to Prymount city and stepped into an explosion of color. Harold spotted his fancypants friend Roxie, who we ran into a while back in Coldwall castle harassing some soldiers for their fashion sense, being dragged away by the city guards for her graffiti. Her bail was 5000 potch. Royce tried without success to bribe the guards with a free dragonback ride, so we just paid the bail and took Roxie away from there. Never one to pass up recruiting a fellow fancypants, Harold offered to pay her to decorate our castle for us. Overjoyed that someone actually wanted to pay her to decorate as opposed to paying her to go away, Roxie rushed straight to the castle.

We happened to stop by Snowview on our travels and heard some commotion coming from the village of the dwarves. A human man was ejected bodily from the blacksmith’s to shouts of “You’re the worst blacksmith I’ve ever seen! Get out!” Poor Massa explained that he tried very hard to be a good blacksmith but had a tendency to get clumsy and make mistakes (in this case, he “accidentally” broke a sword over a dwarf’s back). Daisy suggested that he might not be cut out for this blacksmith thing, but he insisted that he had to do it because his father did it, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather… Taking pity on him, we offered him the chance to work at our castle and gave him the Brass Hammer to help get him started.

Since we were in the area, we decided to finally check out the mountain path near the dwarf village. The team stumbled across a few nice treasures and, strangely enough, a penguin (with a face!). Daisy patted it on the head and then hugged it, followed by Sciath and most of the party. With no way to communicate with it, though, we had to say goodbye and continue exploring. At the end of another path was a lone dwarf fighting a group of goblins and losing, so we jumped in and saved the day. Miner Marco explained that he was been checking out the dwarven guardian statue at the end of the path. It was apparent from his surprise at our story that he’d been in the away from the dwarven village for some time, so he left to join his fellows back at Liberty Castle.

A sad scene was playing out over in Lorin village, where a crippled woman was being harassed by a group of bullies. As we watched, one of the bullies kicked her crutch out from under her and we saw that she had only one leg. Royce came roaring to her rescue with his fire-breath and spear (we still don’t know what he did to those bullies). Serena thanked us for our help and said that she was once a first-class citizen and an adventurer, but the loss of her leg reduced her to less than nothing in Harmonian society. Daisy pointed out that (with the possible exception of Harold) no one among us was exactly a good fit for Harmonia’s idea of first class society either, and she accepted our invitation to go to the castle. Since she could no longer be an adventurer (though we hope the healing springs and bath house will do her some good), she opted to open an appraisal shop instead.

Finally, another rumor led us back to Merridwell castle, where Daisy led the way to the bar. A woman named June was running a game of Chichorin and attracting a crowd of gamblers. A woman back in the small village of Marid once told us to keep an eye out for her missing daughter June, so we asked if it was she. June agreed to tell us anything we wanted to know and even go set up shop in our castle if we could win 5000 potch from her. Harold lost some and won it back, and Royce lost a few potch too, but Daisy got lucky and won the required amount. June went to our castle as promised, but she still doesn’t want to go see her mother.

The party returned to the castle to finish up a long day of recruitment. Massa upgraded the weapons for Sciath and Kuarjav, since the Brass Hammer lets him go to Level 5. We dropped off our seed collection with Farmer Zelda and Royce made sure to stock up Rosalita’s bar with Dwarven Ale. Daisy found she’d developed a taste for gambling and won another 18,000 potch from June on a lucky streak.

Caesar had important news for us as well. Spies reported that some sort of peace deal was apparently struck between Harmonia and the Grasslands and allowed Harmonia to reallocate their troops, but even that wasn’t enough to win against Camaro. The knights of Camaro were in serious danger of crushing Harmonia’s forces and taking over the Crystal Valley in the near future, which wouldn’t give the Union Army enough time to grow and gain support from the people. Caesar proposed that a small unit disguised as Harmonian soldiers go cut off the Camaro supply line to buy us more time, and though Daisy wasn’t happy with the idea of turning on people who once helped us, everyone agreed to the plan in the end. Next time, we will be undercover agents on a secret mission. Better brush up on those acting skills!

Recruited: Reuben, Zelda, Byron, Roxie, Massa, June, Serena, May

Investigations: Reuben, Massa, Roxie, May

Yet More Updates!

HA! My updates are up before the recap!!! Muwahahha!! You have EIGHT new characters added to the site, and had your castle upgraded to level two. Nearly all pages were updated because of this, so be sure to check it out, and let me know someone is reading this ;)

More Updates!

Ok, the site is updated from last week's adventures! Check out the new stuff! Or else!

Eulogy: Joe Robot

(As Always, the Ever Lovin Harold gives a most remarkable, most amazing Eulogy to that spectacular of a robot, Joe the Robot. This Eulogy will surely go down in the great annals of history)

Harold: "Joe The Robot. He died a painful death. The end"

(Or not.)

Session 13 Recap: the Iron Giant Gained

Overcome with concern for the howling orphaned plague babies, we all flew down the river looking for the pirates responsible for stealing the medicine. We spotted a lone ship stopped at a remote dock, far from any town, and landed to investigate. The pirates were amazed to see a dragon, but though they saw us bearing down on them and readily admitted to their crime, the pirate captain refused to back down. Captain Bart of the Purple Pirates sent wave after wave of goons to face us, but each fell before they could even land a blow on us. Finally, Captain Bart was forced to face us himself, and he too fell (finally beaten with Kuarjav’s “shipquake”). We offered him clemency if he would surrender to us, as we are always eager for more soldiers, and asked why he did not think of surrendering when he saw a dragon bearing down on his ship. The captain refused to join us and stated in no uncertain terms that he hated those vile creatures, so Vasuki ate him. Thus ended poor Captain Bart – the dragon he hated ate his heart. (See In Memoriam page for obituary)

Not wanting to waste any more time, we split up and searched the ship for the medicine, claiming some pirate loot for ourselves along the way (Daisy now sports a dashing eyepatch). To our surprise, we also discovered a woman named Bernadette chained to a wall. Immediately recognizing a fellow Narcissist, Harold struck up a conversation with the poor woman, who insisted that she was no longer fit to live in polite society (she lost her Rose Brooch, of course, what else?). Harold convinced her that they were kindred spirits, that she would find a place among us, and thus did Bernadette the Narcissist join our crew.

The medicine reclaimed, we flew at once to Lorin and met up with Leah, the nurse who had sought us out. In a few short hours, all of the sick children had been saved, and the howling slowly died away. It was brought to our attention then that our castle still had no doctor, and Nurse Leah graciously agreed to lend us her skills.

Meanwhile, with that crisis resolved, Royce took Vasuki back to the now-vacant pirate ship and towed it to our base, making it the first ship in our secret navy.

Daisy took the opportunity during the lull to ask a favor of her companions. Thanks to Xander’s investigations, we recently learned that the woman who wants Daisy dead, Octavia, may be found in the village of the Beast Tribe somewhere in western Harmonia. A quick map consultation showed us an unidentified village in that general vicinity, so we made our way to Osthollow Province to check it out. To our surprise, however, we found no humans living in the village, but only an unusual collection of animals. Some were unremarkable and native to Harmonia, like rabbits, but some, like the elephants, were utterly out of place. The town was in good repair and the animals healthy, so Daisy began to suspect that all of the residents of the village had animal transformations they could fully control and had reverted to them upon spotting the strangers approaching. None of the animals showed any sign of understanding her when she tried to speak to them. Royce thought he saw a woman watching the group, but when they chased her around a corner they found only a raven sitting high on a wire.

Frustrated that she still couldn’t control her own transformation at will, Daisy convinced Royce to assist her in triggering it with violence. Her bear form came out roaring, frightening off most of the animals in the vicinity (including the raven), but Kuarjav healed her back up before she could go into a full rage. Seeing that trying to communicate with the animals was no use, the team explored the rest of the village and found an item shop. We acquired a Garlic Seed and Harold left a generous amount of money on the counter.

Momentarily accepting defeat, Daisy decided to leave the village. But before our departure, she marched into the center of town where the most animals would be able to see her and bellowed at the top of her voice, “My name is Daisy Saint-Anicet. I want to know what’s going on here, and I’ll be back.” And then we walked out, pursued by an eerie feeling of being watched.

Caesar already had his next plans in place when we returned to Liberty Castle. A new Priest General named Marcus recently took control of the Clearbeach region to the north of us, and rumors had trickled out from Merridwell Castle that Marcus might soon move to attack us. Caesar knew we had to make the first move if we were to survive, so he sent our team along with Lorelai to the North Ruins in order to awaken an ancient power to fight for us. Inside the North Ruins, another remnant of the Sindar, we eventually located the “Iron Giant,” a massive mobile suit. A smaller robot emerged from the Iron Giant when we pressed a button, and we were forced to fight little Joe Robot for his activation key. Lorelai used the key to start up the Iron Giant, and we left her to figure out the controls while we hastily returned to Caesar to start the war battle.

Our units rapidly advanced on Merridwell castle, where we found that Priest General Marcus also had our old friends Felicia and Henry on his side. We made quick work of our enemies, and Daisy defeated Marcus with her final charge. Choosing the same path as Lena Suphina, Marcus surrendered to us and joined our army, along with some of his troops. As in Lena’s case, we did not trust his loyalty immediately and, erring on the side of caution, relieved Bandit Bill of us duties at the bar and assigned him to be Marcus’ new “assistant” in order to spy for us. However, we also became concerned for Marcus’ family when we heard he had a wife and ten children waiting for him back in the war-torn town of Osil, so we sent a messenger to help evacuate them all to Lorin, where they’ll be safe from potential Harmonian reprisals.

Recruited: Bernadette, Leah, Marcus

Investigations: Marcus, Jonah, Damien