This session started
with the promised cooking battle, specifically the introduction of our four
judges. And here they are!
“This stout dwarf loves the food of his
homeland, and that means spice, spice, spice! It’s Dale!”
“One of the Unity Rune
heroes, it’s Nathan! He’s live on
prison food for so long, does he even care what type of food he gets?”
“The silent swordsman
won’t tell us what food he likes, or…anything! It’s Humphrey!”
“The sexiest Rune Master
around, it’s our very own Jeane!
When asked what she loves, she says ‘everyone!’ ”
We divided up our jobs
and jumped right in. Harold and Royce took charge of the appetizer with a
heaping helping of Cheesy Nachos (nachos+salt), which won us scores of 9,9,9,9!
Tenro prepared a simple salad for a respectable score of 8,8,8,8. Next, Hai Yo
and Kuarjav fulfilled their responsibility with an interesting main course,
Dwarf Pie (shepherd’s pie+hot sauce), and were rewarded with a 10, 9, 10, 9! To
his distress, Tenro’s Rice Pilaf failed miserably with a 4, 4, 3, 4 – someone didn’t
know his audience! Finally, Daisy helped Sciath whip up some of the trickster’s
“Special” Brownies (brownies+salt) for a lovely 8, 8, 8, 8, while Tenro’s Fresh
Fruit got mixed reviews of 8, 7, 3, 6. All in all, our final score was 104 and
Tenro’s 64, starting off our cooking tales with a crushing victory for the
Union Army.
Tenro hung his head in
shame while the points were tallied, so Daisy gave him a brownie and said he
should stay and train under Hai Yo to try and improve. But Retso had no
intention of giving up his pupil, no matter how disappointing he might be, and
just hit Tenro over the head with a spatula until he gave us Recipe #11 “Rice”
and fled.
Royce took the moment
of calm to give Harold the special feather he’d fetched for him, a striking
reddish purple plume with a hint of orange in its veins. The dragonrider had
already claimed one for himself as well (as well as, inexplicably, Vasuki). His
solo mission had not solely been a diversion, however; Royce was able to give
us detailed descriptions of Camaro’s troop movements as seen from dragonback.
After selling off some
superfluous items, we kicked off another recruitment drive by flying to Wreckmar,
the winger village. We immediately came across an angry crowd surrounding
Natasha, calling her a witch for predicting deaths too accurately and being
generally suspicious. At our urging, the lynch mob reluctantly agreed to run
her out of town instead of killing her, so we helped her pack a few backs and
flew her back to Liberty Castle.
In Sanil, the
now-abandoned elf village, we found a human scribbling a map among the ruins.
He identified himself as Bradenton, a son of Templeton, and agreed to join us, lured
in by the prospect of dragonback and teleporting-based mapmaking.
In Norbank, one of the
first villages we ever visited, Gabi and her pet monkey, Fox, lightened the
mood with their playful antics. It took some doing, including having Daisy turn
into a bear to test Gabi’s abilities, but we managed to convince the
animal-whisperer that we could use her help. Gabi decided to use our help to
make an animal sanctuary for the creatures that were disturbed or displaced by
the ongoing civil war. With Gabi in tow, our first stop was the cave on the
mountain path where we met Gloria, where a bear still slept. We came intending
to let Gabi speak with it, but Daisy had a sudden whim to practice her newfound
control over her transformation and speak with it herself. Daisy showed the
bear both her bear and human forms and explained that the team is opening an
animal sanctuary; Francois the bear agreed to come with us.
A slew of animals filed
into the zoo behind him. From the cave in the dwarven mountains: Prinny the
lady penguin. From Lucius’ hermitage, Sam the Eagle. From the caves under
Witchport, Francesca the hippo. From the Crytal Valley academy’s basement,
Melman the giraffe (who quickly became good buddies with Prinny). From the
northern ruins where we discovered the Iron Giant, Berserker the lady baboon.
From the basilisk’s forest temple, a male lemur named Zoboo. And from the Beast
Village, a bison named Bella and a male elephant named Kandula, who had
wandered in from unknown lands.
We left Gabi to try and
figure out the living arrangements for our instant zoo and swung by the church
for the first time, which Roxie did a beautiful job on. Lucius was in the
middle of a sermon, so we waited for him to finish before we approached. The
old former priest general encouraged us to confess our sins, so Daisy, a tad
uncertainly, confessed to the seventy or so deaths she’s caused over the last
few months (this is only counting the people she’s killed since she stepped
into Harmonia). After some deliberation, she admitted to feeling bad for
killing the Beast Village people who came after her, even though they were all
actively trying to murder her; these were in a way her people now, after all.
But she asserted very definitively that she only kills bad people most of the
time, and it’s an unavoidable part of her job as a mercenary.
Royce and Vasuki went
next, taking Gabi along to translate for the dragon. The dragonrider stayed
unerringly true to his image. Harold began listing the murders he regretted,
but only in terms of all of the outfits he’d ruined beyond all repair with a
stab or a slice. Lucius handed him a copy of the Harmonian bible and told him
to come back once he’d read through it. Kuarjav also confessed his sins to
Lucius, revealing his guilt over not doing enough to help the lower-class
citizens of Harmonia throughout his life. Lucius pointed out that the old man
was more than making up for previous inaction now, though it is unknown how
much Kuarjav took this to heart. Sciath and Sun Crystal chose to abstain.
Back in the war room,
we found it mostly deserted save for Lena, who informed us that Caesar had run
off to Northgate castle in the Merriburn Region with some troops. By the time
we arrived, Northgate had already surrendered because their priest general was
missing in action (Kristen had gone to defend Crystal Valley and never
returned), and they knew that the Camaro forces were heading their way. As
Caesar prepped the troops to defend our newly acquired castle, the Unity Rune
heroes bought a sheep off a fleeing soldier. We also made the acquaintance of
Isis and Tina, the Harmonian vice-commanders in charge of Northgate, who look
almost identical. Caesar informed us that the Camaro forces led by Yuber had already
made it to Lorview castle and were almost upon us.
Our personal Silverberg
outlined his plans to post a decoy force to the east to force Camaro into the
narrow gorge between the (partially incinerated) forest and the lake at
Northgate, letting us take advantage of the trap. The plan went off perfectly,
and we cut our way through hordes of Yuber’s demons, also managing to drive off
Henry. But the unruly host kept coming at us through the gorge, never tiring.
It was a welcome surprise when none other than Clive and several hundred
members of his Howling Voice guild showed up out of nowhere to bombard Yuber
with their rifles, forcing him, Grant, and the remaining demons to flee. With
Harmonia no more and the Union Army the only real powerhouse capable of facing
Camaro, Clive agreed to lend us his power for a while. He slung his rifle over
his shoulder, cape whipping in the wind, and said: “I intend
to make [Camaro] howl.” – William Tecumseh Sherman.
Recruitments: Natasha, Bradenton,
Gabi, Isis, Tina, Clive
Investigations: Natasha,
Gabi, Clive, Lilly, Monty
