109a and 110a: The Grim

Biosh 17th - 18th
chaos on the mountainside...

Plot Developments

• While flying through the night, the party noted methodically-soaring dragons above, postulating they were either hypnotized or illusions all together.
• Rogar and the twins felt strange emanations from the grizzly rock face, who bore teeth like sharpened mountain peaks and a headdress of titanic bones, ugly, twisted, serrated things, sometimes marked with eyes and tentacles. The Archwarden soon realized this Grim was in fact a Primordial.
• Against better judgement, Narra prodded the Old One's mind, and was met with a psychic feedback the equivalent of fifty-thousand years of hatred and anger. It was a wonder her head didn't explode outright, speaking to a lineage she greatly feared.
• Storms picked up because of the Primordial's angry breath, and many drakes and kobolds fell to their deaths miles below in the lowlands nearest the titan's belt. The party just managed to survive themselves, even escaping the monumental jaws which sought to grind them to nothing.
  
• While a token sacrifice was first on the being Grimagol's mind as recompense, he was convinced by Auro to instead choose a worthy servant and herald. When presented with three suitable choices for his Archwarden, the Living Massacre devoured the most unlikely of them all, Kiri-Raina, whose simple love proved a curious and unfamiliar strength. It weathered his many tortures within the Grim, and the genasi showed herself to be more than an imperfect elemental. Grimagol rebuilt her an eight-foot giantess of smooth crystal and boiling energy, his Archwarden.
• While Kiri-Raina underwent her extraordinary changes, Narra fled into solitude, overwhelmed by her mistake and the consequences of it. In the cold dark, she was met by the psychic projection of the Emperor himself, a man she came to know and even accept as her father, learning of his history and the existence of her mother. He was in possession of an alien artifact that revealed potential futures, though not the circumstances which allowed them to come about. He was driven by the desire to increase the potential futures where Othyr survived the impending Yith holocaust and the coming of Chrysaor Abhorrent, which, to his shame and horror, demanded he be the cruel, domineering and utterly merciless figurehead the larger world knew him as, and to continue with his strange and brutal experiments. It also required Narra, along with her party, continue to oppose him. Despite the evils he had done, the injustices, she sympathized with him, saw some of herself in him, and found new resolved in trying, perhaps, to redeem him.
• Nalua went after the impetuous girl, a flurry of emotions herself, in the process teaching Kriznob and Yat the proper way to train animals, before camping outside Narra's shielded cave. She'd communed with the whole of the lowland's manitou, millions of blinking spirits, in order to find her, something she had not been able to do on such a large scale before. Was it, perhaps, the robes, or maybe Iluvistria's Crown? Or was facing these constant, immense and near-impossible challenges with the Saviors forging her into something almost Seelie?
• Narra and Nalua encountered one another the next morning, where lessons were proven learned, apologies handed, and something quite unexpected, but overwhelmingly joyful, found between them: a budding love. Narra was a different woman now, her confidence tempered with wisdom, fear and doubt doused by a responsibility to the future, and knowledge of a possible companion in the priestess. In turn, Nalua was inspired to release some of her rigid control and ease into a more 'fey' mindset, trusting, at least a little, in emotions she'd not felt before. Immediately, many of her frustrations melted away and she found the closest thing to happiness she had in a very long time.
• That next morning, Arinew set out to find the girls, but in the process found a Chernobogian sidhe in the jungles below, a woman named Ashenthe, who wished to put aside petty squabbling and traded insults long enough to see a task done: the murder of Reedthagn. She'd been following the party up the mountain, and now wished to join them in completing the task set for her by the Green God himself, citing whatever means necessary included a temporary alliance with the Summer Prince. He declined outright welcoming her into the fold, but agreed she might aid where she could, marking safe trails and aiding in combat from a distance. He certainly did not trust her, though, and in fact got a pang of awful familiarity from the woman. She proved to know his story, and that of his mother's, quite well, and even intimated being a descendant of lost Chenussean.
• Ashenthe marked the cave she'd spotted the women fly into earlier, and Arinew managed to interrupt some intimate exchanges between Nalua and Narra. Better yet, his keen bardic insight saw exactly what was going on, despite quick and flimsy efforts to say otherwise. He was hardly one to judge, and seemed rather pleased, truth be told. He left them to their privacy with one or two hinted remarks, much to the chagrin of the priestess.
• Meanwhile, the whole of the Grim quivered and out came Kiri-Raina, reborn the giantess Archwarden, smoothed and perfected, energy lines reformed into Primordial brands. The present party stood dumbfounded by the strength and presence of the sorceress returned. Rogar was moved, and embraced his love with a new fervor. Their shared Primordial element was cause for celebration and intimacy, and little did the dregoi care who was privy. What could only be described as an erotic tornado kicked up around the pair as they consummated their love in the plateaued palm, the heat of the exchanged converting stone to raw glass.
• Auro, too, was overjoyed to see her sister alive and well, perfected, but she also felt... unfamiliar, and negative, feelings, not least of all jealousy. Raina was new, and possessed a love she herself knew nothing of. She fled to the heights of Grimagol's middle finger, where she stewed until the arrival of the fey knight Gliadim. He, too, felt a sort of lonely rejection, and offered the genasi a rose. This led to the sucking of a wound on Auro's finger, and the offering of making her feel better. Yet before his hands could get anywhere near the genasi's sacred temple, Gliadim was knocked unconscious by a wrathful Dewdrop hugging a cooking pot.
  
• Dewdrop warned her about beautiful fey like Gliadim, and poisoned Auro's mind against the knight, even as she revealed her own jealousy and lustful feelings, feelings uncovered by the returned Arinew with a surprising amount of patience and understanding. Gliadim did look remarkably like Arinew in half-elven form, and the sight drove the nixie mad with jealousy, even longing. The Summer Prince absolved her of any guilt, and tried making amends with Gliadim, who forced himself to swallow his anger over his circumstantial looks upsetting the fickle future queen. It is uncertain how resolved the issue truly was, save Dewdrop's promise to act more according to a princess and a queen, and Gliadim's obvious avoidance of the nixie whenever possible.
• Curck was also struggling to reconcile the added loss of Narra, still wounded from Tyvis's death, and the uncertainties of her return. Added the appearance of a second Archwarden, never mind another awoken Primordial, the servant of Kharrush fled to the heights of the pinky, where he communed in private with his celestial alpha.
  
• The party, reunited by midday, made their peace with one another a second time in so many days, more resolved than ever to see their task done. They mounted and took off for the summit, intent on avoiding the thirteenth and sixteenth gates to the best of their abilities.
  

Experience: 5600 xp (116,200 total)

New NPCs
Grimagol the Living Massacre

Yat and Bakoba

Deshkyr

Ashenthe

Returning NPCs
Kriznob


Lore

• Reh'na'thagnatar is greater than any Othyrian mountain, the greatest in all the Wyld, each of the Sixteen Gates lording over the equivalent of a mortal mountain, heaped one upon the other, divided into low shelves, mid shelves, and the sprawls before the final summit.
  
• Grimagol the Living Massacre has been awakened, a Primordial known for his prowess destroying the get of Shaitan. His was a rage so concentrated he broke apart the moon Erudiran in efforts to continue the battle against spirits and demons alike. He crashed to the Wyld itself, ripping the great expanse in Reh'na'thagnatar, where the Primal Spirits then bound and buried him.
  
• Emperor Endymion's first Anubian discovery was in fact the Imperial Gulag, which imbued him with a powerful and evolving intelligence, and psionic powers. He used these to navigate the ranks of the church, until the death of his father-figure and the realization Nor did not grant his priests ANY divine power drove him back to the ship many years later. There he trained three years to emerge the undisputed Overmind, setting events into motion that led to his coronation. The next twenty were spent discovering new ships, conducting all manner of experiments, and cultivating a future beyond the visitation of Chrysaor Abhorrent upon Creation. It required he be without morals or mercy, though Narra inspires a bit of humanity from him even still.
• Endymion is in possession of an alien artifact that allows him to see potential futures, though not how to achieve them. Most show desolation and defeat at the hands, tentacles and mouths of the Yith, but more and more begin to show shades of victory the further he perpetuates his evil and the longer men and women oppose him.
• Reedthagn's power is more diminished than any could have guessed, and according to Ashenthe is more or less hides in his cube. Her very presence proves the Green God has access to his mountain of power, and that he wishes the wyrm's territory for his own.
  
• Ashenthe told a different tale to Arinew than he'd known, that his aunt was not tricked or coerced into murdering the Summer Queen, but that she went to Chernobog and begged for the power. The Green God refused, even went to Queen Meliai and tried to warn her, but she would not hear him, having twice refused to join his cause and thinking it some ploy. The results were tragic, as Arinew's aunt went to the Autumn Court and used their power and her knowledge to launch a surprise attack. When all was said and done, Chernobog- for the good of his unifying movement- aligned with her, now the Queen of Fallen Leaves.

Next Session
111a: The Saviors fly further up Reh'na'thagnatar in efforts to reach the summit and the ancient dragon therein. His is the sword, Solstice, necessary for Arinew's war with the Autumn Court. His is the rule Rogar might usurp, and with it the command of his remaining draconic forces. His is the hypercube, the Tesseract, Narra might utilize for good or ill.