PQ - Session Archive (Updated 4 April 2020)

Session 1: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29051131/#29051131

Summary: After the fierce battle with Fettuccine and the crew of the Ancient Mareiner, the four dead Beesting crewmembers were silently interred at sea, as per their own requests when they first joined the crew. Sailing was smooth for about 3 days after that, despite the awful damage which had been inflicted upon the Beesting. However, an atmosphere of intense unease settled over the ship on the fourth day, as many crew members all became sick at once. After some inspection, it was discovered that, during the fight with the Ancient Mareiner's crew, some zombie pirates had slipped into the ship's kitchen, wherein they had placed a sinister sea-curse on the ship's food, causing it to rot and become poisonous, while maintaining the appearance and even taste of healthy food.

Therefore, it was quickly decided to make a brief detour to a nearby island along the way to the Ribcage: Windy Island. Although neither Bee Holder nor the navigator Cane Shuga knew a lot about the island, it's the best chance the crew has of stocking up on fresh food and lumber for repairing the ship.

You still have about a week and three days until you're predicted to reach the Ribcage. However, the pirates' curse ruined most of your food and water, and with the rationing that Bee Holder has put into place, you don't have much left. You'll need to gather a lot while you're here.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 2: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29111217/#29111217

Summary: After discovering that the pirates of the Ancient Mareiner placed a curse on their food and water supplies, the crew of the Bee Holder were forced to make a detour to the nearby Windy Island, where they could gather resources and repair the structural damage incurred by the pirates, and hopefully even acquire some treasure if any was to be found.

Upon landing on the island and foraging for a bit, the party was met with a variant of breezies known as the Misties, who lived in clouds of mist which carried sea creatures as well. They addressed Cloud Shear, and by extension, any other pegasi that may have been on the Bee Holder's crew, as "Windborn." The Misties believe that the so-called "Windborn" would help them defeat the Gusties, a rival breezie-like tribe that antagonized the Misties with dark ritual powers that summoned demonic creatures called Loa, from the Interstice within Tartarus.

Right on cue, the party felt as though something were rapidly approaching each of them from behind, and were jostled forward by an unseen force, something like two slabs of rock smashing and splitting against one another.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 3: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29203425/#29203425

Summary: The Loa that had come to terrorize the Mistie village eventually ran off, and the Misties were kept safe thanks to the party. The Misties' leader, Peace and Quiet, grew worried, saying that the Loa that the Gusties had summoned in the past had never been that strong, that aggressive or that direct in their antagonism. He feared that the Gusties' dark powers were growing, and that the Misties would be no match for them. The party, thankfully, agreed to help them out.

Since it was so late, the party turned in for the night, with the Misties helping the Beesting's crew form a barracks in the jungle, with comfy hammocks, spots to sunbathe, and some makeshift fences and walls all around. These were enchanted with the Misties' concealing magic and guarded by a few small sharks that the Misties brought out of the ocean with their magic.

At dawn, Rin and Bent Scales flew around to the other side of the Windy Island to spy on the Gusties. They only got a little past the halfway point of the island before the winds grew so intense and violent that they couldn't go further. (Think of about the 5 o'clock position on a clock, with the left side being the Misties' half and the right side being the Gusties' half). However, before they had to turn back, they saw a pirate ship marooned on the other side of the island, only this one appeared to have been abandoned some time ago and had fallen into disrepair.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 4: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29301892/#29301892

Summary: The party trekked northeast along the road of an old ruin of the ancient Windies' civilization. They were on their way to the Gusties' half of the island, in order to figure out how and why the Gusties were able to summon their Loa demons and attack the Misties, even though they hadn't been able to attack the Misties to that degree before.

Along the way, they encountered a pack of skeletal dinosaurs of all kinds of varieties. After defeating the dinos, they explored a half-buried ziggurat, belonging to the Windie tribe, that described a series of rituals by which the Windies established who their queen was. The rituals were a test of Vitality, Wisdom, Steadfastness and Kindness. They decided to take on the test along their way across the island.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 5: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29439033/#29439033

Summary: The party, minus Heavyhoof, struggled through the prickly, arid section of the jungle, foreshadowing their arrival at the Gusties' territory. Along the way, they fought off some prankster Loa spirits who had inhabited some trees and tried to block the party's progress. After overcoming the trees, they continued the trek. Only, when they'd arrived at the camp, they found that it was little different from the Misties' camp, eerily so. It was guarded by birds and blocked off by strong currents of warm wind what carried the Gusties along, and was built into many ancient buildings made of purple and teal stone, vestiges of the Windies' civilization.

Heavyhoof had been abducted in his sleep by one of those trees, wrapped up in tight vines and leaves, then left on top of an ancient sacrificial altar deep underground. When he awoke, he saw that he was in the midst of an ancient, crumbled Windie city, surrounded by toppled buildings that looked like they had fallen into the ground during an earthquake or a cave-in. Then, from the shadows, a towering puma-like creature emerged, vanishing once it stepped into the light. But, the dagger he obtained from Bee Holder began to tremble, and seemed to identify the creature's position.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 6: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29495119/#29495119

Summary: The bulk of the party entered the Gusties' village. It had many parallels as the Misties' half, even down to the patterns of architecture, the taming of birds as guard-critters and the use of controlled pockets of wind through magic. The Gusties' leader, named Guts and Glory, welcomed them, but the other Gusties weren't so friendly once they heard that the party had been hanging out with the Misties. To earn their trust, the party agreed to complete a brief trial in an old, underground temple, where the "new god" of the Gusties would deem them worthy upon reaching the end of the temple.

They entered a cave, and saw that it was full of beautiful, ancient ruins, that appeared to have collapsed into the cave from above. There, they found Heavyhoof, who had been dragged into the temple by a Loa-tree and left on a sacrificial altar. They defeated a shadowy puma-like creature and continued forward.

After this, they reached a solid rock wall with two giant Loa faces, each the size of a doorway. The faces were sassy and spoke condescendingly to the party. Whenever the faces opened their mouths, the party saw more cave on the other side, indicating that there was more trial to get through.

But how would they get past these guys?
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 7: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29598753/#29598753

Summary: When the party got to the Gusties' village, they found it to be an eerie mirror image of the Misties' village; there was even a pirate crew staying there, the Blackbarrel Pirates. The Gusties did not trust the party at first, and forced them to undergo a brief trial before they were let in. Once the trial was finished, the party learned that the Gusties were being led by a genie named Stone Cold Classic, who even granted the party a few wishes.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:

Session 8: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29771723/#29771723

Summary: The elder of the Gusties, Guts and Glory, explained a bit about what's going on on Windy Island. Long ago, the Windy tribe clashed with a demon known as the Crimson King. They almost defeated the Crimson King, were it not for a last-minute bit of trickery by the demon. Knowing he couldn't win, the Crimson King put a curse on the island. The Windies were split into two tribes: The Misties and the Gusties. These tribes were fated to fight until one tribe had completely annihilated the other. If, after 50 years, one tribe did not kill the other, the curse would wipe out all of them.

Guts and Glory only recently learned this from the genie, Stone Cold Classic, so when he sent a messenger to the Misties to explain this, they killed the messenger, believing the warning to be a trick. G&G has sought many ways of breaking the curse, to no avail.

The party offered to track down the Crimson King, whom Stone Cold Classic has indicated is somewhere in the Ribcage, to help by getting him to lift the curse. G&G agreed to wait for 16 days. If nothing happens by the end of those 16 days, he will reluctantly lead his tribe to a final clash with the Misties with the intent of exterminating them.

On a related note, Cutlass correctly deduced that neither tribe was in control of the Loa demons. It turned out that the Loa are spirits of the island that have been trying to stir up battles between the tribes, so that at least one tribe will survive the curse.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 9: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29859358/#29859358

Summary: After having decided to help the Gusties and the Misties with the curse put on their tribes by the demon known as the Crimson King, the party returned to the Misties' camp to rest and recover before setting out. Although the Misties' elder, Peace and Quiet, didn't really believe the story that the party told him, he agreed to play nice for now after they told him that the Gusties weren't controlling the Loa.

Cutlass hatched a ploy to steal the Ribcage map belonging to the Blackbarrel Pirates, as it was being held by a small mimic in Captain Blackbarrel's pocket, and she knew that pirates tended to keep incenses that could calm down mimics inside their ships.

Cloud gave up his wings to gain a new ability, using them as collateral to convince Stone Cold Classic that he was worth investing into. In turn, SCC will get a cut of any treasure that Cloud happens to pick up.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 10: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/29915664/#29915664

Summary: Our group reunited at the western shore of Windy Island, ship repaired, food and water restocked, and everyone more or less intact, save for Cloud, who used his wings as a down deposit for a wish from the genie, Stone Cold Classic. The party had 16 days to lift the curse off of the island's tribes, before Elder Guts and Glory would lead the Gusties into total war against the Misties.

But, all the party had to do was enter the Ribcage, seek out the demon known as the Crimson King and then get him to lift the curse. Simple, right?
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 11: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30017959/#30017959

Summary: The Beesting departed from Windy Island, bound for the Ribcage so that the party could find the Crimson King and get him to break off the curse over the Misties and the Gusties, before the fated time of their fight. But, when they originally landed on the island, Bee Holder estimated that they would need 10 days to reach the Ribcage's outermost layer, leaving them with only 6 days to hunt the Crimson King.

However, that problem was quickly being solved. Badly. A few hours after setting sail, a purple-haired mare floated up out of the sea, playing a mysterious tune on a brass flute. Infuriated that the Beesting's crew did not like her song, she began playing a different one which summoned great winds. The Beesting was propelled forward at rocket speeds, with the Purple Piper floating alongside her.

And to make matters worse, they are on a collision course with what appears to be two ships battling on the horizon...
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 12: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30154291/#30154291

Summary: The crew of the Beesting fought off a sea-creature known as the Purple Piper-- only to learn that she was only one of many identical Pipers. Perhaps they were appendages or agents of a magical force, or even a malevolent presence deep below them. Only time would tell.

Part of the Piper's attack involved launching their ship forward at breakneck speeds through the water. This shaved off about a day's worth of travel toward the Ribcage. However, this left about 9 days' worth of travel left. And, with only 16 days to lift the curse from Windy Island, they needed all the help they could get.

Their intense forward momentum was stopped by Deelzang, a massive Scolttish kelpie, and member of the Fruitfly pirate crew. Off the starboard bow, near where Deelzang stopped them, they saw two pirate ships fighting to the death, driven into madness by two other Purple Pipers. The Fruitflies were planning on stealing their treasure and leaving the survivors with bucketfuls of fruit. Deelzang offered to help the party, if they wanted to steal some of the pirates gold or if they wanted to save them by fighting off the Purple Pipers. But, his help did not come without a price.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 13: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30203181/#30203181

Summary: The crew of the Beesting fought off one of the Purple Pipers attacking the enemy ships, while Cerulean kept the school of Chineighse high-fin banded sharks from eating the hull of the Beesting. Meanwhile, Deelzang and the Fruitflies started to raid the ships, signaling for Rin and the others to board and raid as well.

Speaking of Rin, she learned about the Gates of Justice, an international band of elite bounty hunters and mercenaries, from Cane Shuga and Sickly Sweet, the former of whom was so worried about encountering them that he didn't even want to mention them by name. Many pirate superstitions seemed to revolve around them.

The whole crew began to gather aboard the pink pirate ship, and most of them were unaware that a mare in a white sundress had floated down from the sky and landed on it moments before.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 14: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30304969/#30304969

Summary: Balalaika (Bala for short) of the Gates of Justice was onboard the ship of Capt. Sweet Thang, hunting for pirate captains. In the process of her hunt, she gravely injured Alder with her parasol's gun, prompting Cerulean to attack her. However, Bala demonstrated a powerful technique using something called Aura, allowing her to absorb the momentum of any attack inflicted on her and turn it back on the attackers. Meanwhile, Cerulean attempted to escape with Capt. Sweet Thang's map of the Ribcage, only to be called out by Deelzang, which caught Bala's attention.

Belowdeck, Rin, Cloud and Chiu were attempting to fight off the Gentlecolt, a rival pirate captain, but they were vastly outnumbered by the mob of pirates made up of the various crews of the ships that had been onboard Sweet Thang's vessel before Bala arrived.

What's worth noting is that the Purple Piper who had been terrorizing the ship is still there. She just stopped playing after Bala showed up and started massacring pirates.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 15: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30405528/#30405528

Summary: Almost all members of the Beesting escaped from Balalaika after a distraction by Deelzang, Capt. Plague and Capt. Sweet Thang. Only Cutlass was left behind, as well as a few casualties from the battle with the mob of pirate crews who were fleeing from Bala.

The crew decided that they needed to reach the Ribcage as quickly as possible in order to put distance between themselves and the Gates of Justice, as well as give themselves more time to look for the Crimson King. To this end, the winged members of the ship (and Cloud) were put on duty for three days to manipulate the weather and produce favorable conditions so that the Beesting could get to the Ribcage's entrance in a hurry. Additionally, they resolved to seek out someone who could teach them Aura, so that they could contend with Bala, and any other members of the Gates of Justice who came after them.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 16: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30507971/#30507971

Summary: The party had finally made it to the Ribcage amid the disgruntled rumblings of Bee Holder's former first mates. Its appearance exceeded all the descriptors that the crew had heard so far; towers of bone and coral stabbed out of the water like skyscrapers, while low red clouds hung ominously over it, spindling into the sky like overflowing magma from a volcano. A momentary opening in the coral walls provided them entrance, but everything from the currents to the mist started fighting them once they had entered.

Cutlass, meanwhile, had become a prisoner in a brig on an island apparently owned by the Gates of Justice. She met up with Capt. Plague of the Fruitflies, where the two discussed the possibility of an escape. The two were also aware of a shimmering light around a few of the guards, reminiscent of that around Balalaika.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 17: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30549330/#30549330

Summary: The party battled with the Pattern Juggler, a performer and showpony from Kaco Island who was dispatched to attack their ship. Apparently, the guy who's supposed to attack ships that enter the Ribcage was out on vacation that day. After a rough battle and a failed attempt at sinking the ship, the Juggler fled, but left Cerulean with a coupon for 20% off a circus performance on Kaco Island, where he will presumably be.

Meanwhile, Cutlass learned of a way to get her possessions back. In order to get into Schwartzwelt's office and retrieve her possessions, they would need to provide evidence of a drug market going on in the prison, run by a single griffon named Godot. The trouble would be procuring that evidence, as Godot was somehow both manufacturing and distributing the drugs with no traces at all.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 18: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30595425/#30595425

Summary: After landing on the strange new island, the crew were bewildered by the foreign landscape, plants and critters inhabiting the island. Everything was unlike what they had seen before, in color, shape and size. It was all a bit overwhelming at first, but after taking in the sights, they split up to forage and scout out the island.

HHS and Cloud went after Rin, who had spied a gigantic tortoise's nest by the base of a cliff in a valley, full of treasure and furniture.

Cerulean and Alder encountered a large two-headed lizard, as well as some animated skeletons whose bodies were made out of bones from numerous creatures. Initial communications proved difficult, as neither party could understand the other's language.

Meanwhile, Cutlass stalked Godot in order to gain access to Schwartzwelt's office (and her possessions). Schniztel's initial blurb about Godot proved to be false, because not only did he have accomplices, his apparent method of drug manufacturing would presumably leave some kind of physical evidence. One of the goats under Godot's service was seen scraping flecks of soft ore off of the rocks that were being mined in the prison.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 19: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30642087/#30642087

Summary: Cloud, HHS, Cerulean, Rin and Alder were welcomed to one of the towns on the skeleton-filled island, where they were treated to a shot glass each of a potion that allowed them to understand the inhabitants, and vice versa. An old mare named Brewhaha, one of the local apothecaries, elected to show them around town.

Godot awakened Cutlass to her aura by giving her a certain strange drug that briefly overwhelmed her body and mind. In addition, she learned that Schnitzel was a compulsive liar, especially given all the details that he got wrong or contracted himself when telling her about Godot.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 20: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30736907/#30736907

Summary: The party got another step closer to learning about Aura when they told Brewhaha about the strange lights shimmering around the skeletons in town. But, she refused to train them, and was in fact SO opposed to the idea of learning Aura that she told them exactly who to go to and where to find him: Master Cangrejo, who was currently staying on top of Mt. Chill after a fight with his wife.

The trouble was getting to the top of Mt. Chill; the dragon who lived atop the mountain made sure that traversing up the mountain was all but impossible. Their only way of getting in would be to be picked up by the dragon himself, who collected interesting people.

Cutlass was confronted by Devotchka, who had witnessed Cutlass's awakening. Leading her into the guards' tower, she slapped a stone bracelet onto Cutlass' arm that immediately suppressed her aura. Cutlass fled after enraging her, and was now fleeing her and her hair-minions.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 21: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30785778/#30785778

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 22: https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#688241

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 23: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30883280/#30883280

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 24: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/30977081/#30977081

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 25: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/31022418/#31022418

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 26: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/31070611/#31070611

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 27: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/31131281/#31131281

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 28: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/31233349/#31233349

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 29: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/31326827/#31326827

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 30: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/31373941/#31373941

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 31: https://arch.b4k.co/mlp/thread/31528495/#31528495

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 32: https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#690560

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 33: https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#691104

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 34: https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#691708

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#692216 (35)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#692499 (36)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#692954 (37)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#693760 (38)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#694127 (39)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#694743 (40)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#695283 (41)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#695804 (42)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/688241.html#696163 (43)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#696652 (44)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#696652 (45)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#697240 (46)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#697796 (47)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#698271 (48)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#698271 (49)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#698271 (50)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#698589 (51)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#698869 (52)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#699560 (53)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#699994 (54)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#700287 (55)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#700512 (56)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#700747 (57)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/696652.html#701339 (58)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#701721 (59)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#702321 (60)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#702668 (61)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#703220 (62)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#703570 (63)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#704244 (64)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#704692 (65)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#705094 (66)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#705584 (66.5, Pre-Circus Dialogue)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#705727 (67)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#706181 (68)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#706481 (69)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#706728 (70)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/701721.html#707029 (71)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#707690 (72)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#708434 (73)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#708962 (74)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#710077 (75)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#710557 (76)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#711060 (77)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#711792 (78)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#712936 (79)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#713403 (80)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#714082 (81)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/707690.html#714691 (82)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#715158 (83)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#715866 (84)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#715998 (85)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#716529 (86)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#717259 (87)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#717744 (88)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#718322 (89)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#718732 (90)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#718984 (91)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#719440 (92)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#719549 (92.5)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#719801 (93)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#720133 (93.5)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/715158.html#720222 (94)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#720713 (95)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#721029 (96)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#721268 (97)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#721725 (98)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#722203 (98.5)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#722556 (99)

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 99: https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#722753

Summary:
Cutlass and Kuro spoke at length about the situation that led Kuro and Shiro to attempt to abduct about half of her crew. Shanty Pete, who had overthrown Cutlass and taken over her previous ship, was now known as Vice-Baron Pete, and had become an underling of Philip the Gentlecolt. By extension, he was also a servant of the Crimson King. Pete, still ambitious and hungering for more advancement, sent out Shiro and Kuro to forcibly recruit more pirates to serve him, using Shiro's Aura Ability, Recruitment Drive.

However, because Philip took an 80% cut of everything that Pete gained, Pete forced Shiro and Kuro to work overtime practically all the time. Shiro and Kuro sailed to Agyl Island to recruit Cutlass' crew, but Pete didn't tell them about Cutlass, or that she and her crew had been under the protection of the Crimson King ever since the Tragedy of Kaco Island. Until the moment that the King lifted his protection, no bounty hunter or info broker was allowed to hunt down her or the Beesting crew. Kuro was more than glad to let Cutlass' crew go so long as she didn't rat them out to the King for violating the protection agreement.

Meanwhile, Thessaly, Cloud, Zerk, Chiu, Paraiba, Alder, Cerulean and Splendid made their way north through the sun-scorched canyon roads, a journey that took them all from morning to nearly sundown. They reached the farming town, plagued during the day by kalphite raids, and during the night by magical anomalies, such as the unexplained disappearances and reappearances of townsfolk, spatial distortions that shift the landscape, and the emergence of worms within clean, fresh food, including in chickens' eggs. Stopping to rest and recover from the intense sunlight, they stopped at a dive laborer's bar, but found that nobody spoke the common tongue, save for a young lone mantis who presumably traded on the town's behalf in Manenhi.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 100: https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#723151

Summary: Tranquilino gave our heroes some background on the issues plaguing his small farming community, nestled in the valley between the Gecko's Footprint canyon and the mountains to the north.

During the day, they are subjected to raids from bands of kalphites that live in the mountains. Kalphites are cockroach-like monsters, primitive and nasty, likened in many ways to goblins in their disposition and intelligence. These kalphites had a habit of stealing eggs, livestock, crops and most importantly, the ostriches which were the town's major export. Tranquilino advised the party that they would be rewarded if they either a) exterminated the whole kalphite nest, b) killed just the warriors, which would effectively stop the raids, c) stole back the ostriches or d) found some other way to stop the kalphites.

During the night, many mysterious magical phenomena and anomalies affected the town and surrounding area. These included spatial warpings, residents going missing and reappearing days later with no recollection of vanishing, and the spontaneous appearance of worms and other vermin in what was believed to be healthy food – even in chickens' eggs. Almost everyone around town believed that the anomalies were the result of some kind of curse. They believed that the previous mayor, who died under mysterious circumstances last month, was to blame in some way. The mayor, prior to his death, had married a witch that people only referred to as "la brujita." When the party expressed interest in fixing this problem too, Tranquilino advised against it, stating that an exorcist from a religious group called the Virtues was already on the case.

With their objectives in mind, the party retired to a local hostel for the night, where they had dreams similar to the ones that had plagued them last night. In addition, in this dream they saw a great house looming over a chasm that had opened up underneath it. Though the house held on for a time, it eventually cracked; one half fell in first, and then the next.

——————————————————————————–

After Cutlass retrieved her allies from Shiro and Kuro, they were left with a serious dilemma. Night was upon them, and they had sailed out into the open waters in pursuit of Shiro and Kuro without an Accompass of their own. Until now, they had relied on Prisma, the gigantic chicken who guided the Beesting, for directions. They could not simply turn back around the way they came, as Agyl Island, like all the islands of the Ribcage, was swimming around in a pattern known only to the Island-Turtles. But without an Accompass of their own, they had no choice but to try just that.

Because of Agyl's movements, and because of storms that nearly threw them off course (and claimed the life of one of the Kaco Island recruits), the journey back to Agyl took a full day and then some. Exhausted and battered by the weather, they reached what appeared to be the Island's northwestern coast, a high rocky cliffside made of interlocking basalt columns. To the north lay the town of Xallan, and to the south, a great distance away, lay the town of Manenhi. Cutlass opted to head north and try her luck there.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 101: https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#723325

Summary: After a somewhat restful night sleep, the party began the new day by investigating the manor to the north. Once it was the home of the town's mayor, but now it lies alone, the neighboring homes abandoned in fear and paranoia of la brujita, the witch that lives there. While believed she is the cause of the anomalies plaguing the area, the party ventured to it fearlessly to investigate.

Initially cold, the witch, who's name was Mallea de Valle, welcomed the gang into her home. She explained that the anomalies were a unfortunate consequence of their experiments with Communication magic. Her and the mayor were testing the limits of teleportation and portals in order to boost trade for their town, and while pushing the limits of wards, they broke one hidden away in their home, releasing an unknown magic upon their home. Now at night the manor warps  into a labyrinthine maze, making it difficult for Mallea to track down the source of the magic to end the distortions it causes on the town. And if that wasn't bad enough, a member of the Virtues, a cat named Obstinance, was called in to cleanse the magic. Virtues, however, also hunt witches, and this one in particular uses a scorched earth tactic in his work, leaving nothing behind where he goes. Mallea managed to negotiate him into holding off for 3 days, but the clock is ticking.

While Mallea was explaining the situation to everypony, they began to notice her completely ignoring Chiu as if she didn't exist. When called out, Mallea eventually explained Chiu was being shadowed by a demon. While most were in disbelief, Thessaly and Cerulean were able to see it and confirm it was true. And then the cause was found to be the statue Cloud salvaged from The Lilliput, a gryphon goddess that sent this demon when they made an offering to the forgotten deity. Mallea clarified this demon was a guardian, and that it may have in fact protected Chiu on the treacherous trek through the desert, but that didn't help ease the situation any. And the question still lingers on why it only latched to Chiu and not Cloud as well…

——————————————————————————–

Cutlass, after retrieving her stolen crew from Shiro and Kuro, finally spotted land after a day of sailing to catch up to Kaco Island.

Learning where the nearest port was thanks to her snake amulet, her ship was set on course while she went to check on her crew. Those that were captured weren't too injured, mostly drained from the mental effect of Shiro's Recruitment Drive. Cutlass used this time to speak with her crew, getting to know them a little better, get closer, and even learned a bit more about aura as well. In the end she managed to raise morale quite a bit, making the recovery go along a little better and preparing the crew for any more future trickery they might face.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 102: https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#723741

Summary: Cloud and Chiu accepted what was, as they both well knew, the most likely explanation for the Wetnurse's appearance and for the demon's preference of Chiu over Cloud: They had a baby on the way. Their fear and anxiety quickly turned to joy and many plans for the future. Chiu and Cloud decided that it would be safest to stay in the mansion with Mallea, given that Obstinance had agreed to leave the manor alone for three more days while Mallea attempted to dispel the magical anomalies on their own.

Meanwhile, Mallea gave the party jars of Ice Grape jelly, a delicious and cool jam that would stave off heat exhaustion and dehydration when consumed. The Kalphites, according to Mallea and Cerulean's bestiary, could inflict dehydration upon their victims through their poisonous bites. Thus, the Ice Grape jelly would prove invaluable during any fights they got into. Armed with this, they would be far more prepared for whatever tactic they tried to get rid of the Kalphites, be it total extermination or just a forcible exile.

Meanwhile, Cutlass landed in Xallan, a smaller port town located near Agyl's northwestern point. It was not as populated as Manenhi, the island's primary trading port, but far more magnificent, composed of many interlocking towers of various sizes. The towers reshaped themselves at the whim of their occupants, as they were all made of Poet's Silver, a highly magical metal that allowed for those with the talent and know-how to reshape it with simple force of will.

Realizing her need of her own Accompass, Cutlass sought out Insane Dane, a minotaur salesman who, per the local gossip, had cornered the market on Accompasses. To that end, she headed for an inn called the Gear Train, where Insane Dane was staying while he hawked his wares.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 103: https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#724136

Summary: With Chiu left in the relative safety of the manor, our pirates went northward into the valley beyond the town of Gecko toward the Tail-Ridge mountains, where the caves were infested with bloodthirsty and greedy Kalphite raiders. Along the way, sat dead-set between the mountain and the manor, sat the tent of Obstinance, exorcist and arsonist of the witch-hunting organization known as the Virtues. Obstinance, a massive bipedal cat clothed in armor and a long poncho, sat there and hailed them.

A brief and terse conversation followed, during which the party revealed little information. Obstainance, on the other hand, was more than happy to share a little of what he was doing there. To kill time during the three days before he could approach the manor, he was building a consecrated barrier around the town of Gecko. According to him, the manor was filled to the brim with "evil karma". High concentrations of evil karma attracted "oddities" – that is, spirits of all kinds, straight from the pages of mythology, folklore and religion. Thus, in order to keep more oddities from being attracted by the anomalies plaguing the town, he sought to contain the town with a barrier. All of this sounded eerily familiar to fledgling demonologist Thessaly…

Afterward, they continued north without giving Obstinance all that much information about themselves. In time, they reached the Tail-ridge mountains, and began their stakeout of the Kalphite's lair by capturing two guards who were preoccupied with a game of skull-kickball during their guard duty.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 104: https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#724392

Summary: After subduing the two kalphites standing guard at the bottommost cavern entrance at the foot of the Tail-Ridge Mountains, the party discussed their options. From their interrogation of the Kalphites, facilitated by Mallea de Valle's translations, they learned a bit about Kalphite society, self-perception and their religious worldview. The Kalphites saw themselves as a kind of glorious, conquering hivemind, and that their raids and rampages were nothing more than their rightful mission to bring honor, glory and free stuff to their hive. However, their low intelligence and penchant for superstition made them easy to trick. With this in mind, the party decided to spook them by playing up Thessaly's dark magic, and threatened to curse the kalphite hive if they ever attacked the town of Gecko again.

The captured guards were quite spooked, and it seemed that the fight was won as they ran off to deliver the message to the Kalphite King and Queen. But the royals were not as impressed as the weak-minded masses, and demanded a demonstration of Thessaly's supposed prowess. The party ventured forth into the caves, guided by the captive guards past the traps and labyrinthine twists and turns of the cavern system. In the blood-soaked royal chamber, full of plunder from the town, Thessaly attempted to conjure a blood elemental to scare the royals into submission, but her spell backfired. As control of the spell left her mind, the Liber Animarum began to levitate, animated with a will of its own…

Meanwhile, after ruining Insane Dane's abusive animal Accompass business, Cutlass, Plague, Puddin and Schnitzel went to the bar to get some drinks before they went. While they were there, Cutlass tapped the barkeep, a tiny and very handsomely-dressed dragonfly, for info about the Ribcage and the local gossip. The dragonfly feared that the Tragedy of Kaco Island signaled the onset of another Age of Blood-Soaked Flags – apparently, the battle at Kaco Island wasn't the only major conflict in recent days. Many young upstart pirate crews, both from within and without the Ribcage, were making waves to try to make a name for themselves. Part of their quests for infamy and glory involved taking sides in conflicts much like the battle at Kaco island. Wars and rumors of wars were on the waters as a result.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 105: https://mlpg.co/q/res/720713.html#724733

Summary:
Thessaly had accidentally summoned Seravelum, a demon loosely resembling the Vellus race, a group of mammalian bipeds, the same race that Obstinance of the Virtues hails from. Though the demon was highly capricious and demanding, they abided by Thessaly's negotiations, and was on the verge of spilling Kalphite blood in order to put a blood-curse upon their hive. But just before the point of no return, the King Kalphite ordered the party to stop. The royals had seen enough, and did not want to have the curse upon their tribe. So, they ordered their warriors to release the captured ostriches and chickens, and pledged to never attack the town of Gecko again. Without the curse to hold them in place, it would just have to be taken in faith that they would honor this agreement… but then again, all it would take is a conch call to Thessaly to bring a curse upon their heads.

Meanwhile, Cutlass, after realizing she really was on Agyl Island after all, started to regroup with the party. She got caught up with Bee Holder on what happened since she left to go hunt Shiro and Kuro, and learned of Thessaly's strange conversation with Phillip the Gentlecolt, as well as the unexplained blackout of all Caller Conch connectivity during that day-and-a-half when she was out at sea. How Phillip knew of the attack on Shiro and Kuro was unknown; Shiro and Kuro had every reason to keep the attack a secret from Phillip, and Phillip wasn't anywhere nearby during the attack. Bee Holder speculated that there may have been an informant among one of the crews.

In any case, Cutlass boarded a railway at Xallan's border, bound southward toward the town of Gecko. Along the way, she won a card game that, somehow, evolved into 21. Don't think about it too hard.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 106: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#725286

Summary: Thessaly's (unintentional) summoning of Seravelum, and the demon's obvious control over blood and curses, was more than enough proof for the Kalphite King and Queen to relent, and agree to the party's terms. They released the ostriches and chickens that they'd taken captive from the town of Gecko, and Kalphite guards saw the party to the cave's exit. Seravelum was quite disappointed that they didn't get to whip up a blood curse, and so Thessaly had to appease them by agreeing to sacrifice the first thing she killed to them.

With that resolved, the party passed by Obstinance's tent, which had been left empty and apparently unguarded. This offered them an opportunity to investigate the enigmatic exorcist, but Thessaly and Alder wisely warned against it, figuring (correctly) that the tent was trapped. Now, while the rest of the party continued on their way back to Gecko, Cerulean went off in search of Obstinance, finding him sprinkling salt mixed with wine and incense on the ground in a vast, circular perimeter around Gecko. The two talked a little about demons, and Obstinance seemed capable of detecting the demonic power that Stone Cold Classic had given to Cerulean after her wish for power. In a very strange move for a demon hunter and exorcist, Obstinance offered to help Cerulean bring out that demonic power, and gave her a small, wheel-shaped medallion, the Yana of the Moon and Stars. The medallion was enchanted, and would draw oddities unto itself. How exactly this would help Cerulean was not explicit, but he assured her that it would be made clear in time.

Meanwhile, Captain Cutlass was finally reunited with the rest of the party after a long train ride from Xallan, the major port town on Agyl's northwestern point. She had much to tell them about her battle with Shiro and Kuro, and needed to figure out how that all fit in with the unexplained conch call between Phillip the Gentlecolt and Thessaly on the night that Cutlass had disappeared. Phillip had apparently known about the so-called "mutiny" of Cutlass's crew and the resultant battle, despite Shiro and Kuro having every reason to keep it a secret, and despite them actively taking measures to keep it a secret. This gave credence to the possibility of an informant's involvement in all this. And to make matters worse, there was their bounties to deal with – particularly that photo of Thessaly with the Liber Animarum, apparently taken on Kaco Island, despite those events taking place before she salvaged the book from the Lilliput.

Anyway, with the party all gathered, now was the best time to catch up on what each half missed, and piece some of these details together to figure out just what in the world might be going on.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 107: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#725715

Summary: After spending some time catching up with one another at Gecko's bird farm, the party members split off from one another to pass the time until the evening, so as to prepare themselves for whatever awaited them that evening.

Cerulean went with Zerk, Paraiba, Schnitzel, and Plague to the tavern where Tranquilino works, ordering up some fresh fried chicken wings as they talked about the day's events. Paraiba and Zerk were very concerned about Obstinance giving Cerulean the Yana icon, unsure of what a supposed exorcist might be planning by giving Cerulean an object that would supposedly help draw out her demonic power. Talks later turned to the topic of her lantern demon, who was as of yet unnamed, but was identified earlier as a lesser demon of desire known as a 'Taste.' It was decided that she might have to prove her strength to it before it could become her loyal companion, like Roger.

Thessaly met with Mallea de Valle again, taking her to the hidden back room of Gullveig's Affordable Sorceries with the magical key Gullveig gave her. There, she learned that Mallea and Gullveig were old friends, though seldom saw each other, both being solitary types. At the same time, Mallea confessed to Thessaly certain hidden details about her and Palafox, the deceased mayor of Gecko. Palafox had originally been married to a Krikral named Cosecha, who was barren. Nothing Palafox tried, from modern medicine to magic, would cure her infertility, and so he called upon Mallea to secretly enlist the help of a demon: Auntzi, demon of fertility, creation and eternity. Mallea and Palafox grew closer as they prepared a ceremony to summon Auntzi, while Cosecha's mental and spiritual health continued to diminish. Finally, on the night of the harvest moon, Cosecha walked in on the summoning ceremony taking place in the wine cellar, and in a horrified frenzy, stormed out, having reached her breaking point. Palafox and Mallea had to stop and reverse the summoning before it could be completed, leading Thessaly to speculate that Auntzi's influence could be a cause of the mysterious anomalies plaguing the manor and town. Although Mallea couldn't find any traces of Auntzi's presence around the manor during the day, in all her searches during nighttime, she was unable to even reach the wine cellar, and so she gave some credence to Thessaly's idea. Thessaly suggested summoning Regaselab, a demon of scrying, to help them scope things out and potentially identify where Auntzi might be.

Finally, Chiu, Splendid, and Puddin went with Cloud, Alder and Cutlass to the manor, and met up with Thessaly, Mallea and Gullveig about partway through their conversation. This gave them an opportunity to do a little shopping from Gullveig's wares. Splendid was disappointed when Gullveig refused to give her anything that would induce an Arcane Awakening, but that was offset when Gullveig said that, with a little more maturity and level-headedness from Splendid, she would go ahead and help her on her quest for magic.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 108: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#725981

Summary: In preparation for the exploration of Mallea's manor at the end of the night, the party split up. Each found a way to enjoy a few hours of free time until the fated hour, the hour of sundown, came.

Thessaly spent some time on the manor's porch, studying the Liber Animarum for information about how they might deal with whatever curse had centered upon the manor as a result of Mallea and Palafox summoning Auntzi and then immediately banishing her. In her studies, she came upon a most interesting chapter about the relationship between Oddities and Demons…

Alder and Splendid practiced magic with Mallea and Gullveig in the rec room on the second floor, where they discovered that Splendid's capacity to use magic was tied to her emotional state; specifically, she had the makings of a Hummingheart, a type of mage who bests uses magic when they are in the throes of some kind of pleasant emotion, such as when they are moved by a meaningful song. After that, and after an EXTREMELY awkward misunderstanding, they moved to the foyer, where Splendid and Alder read the week's newspaper to catch up on what the media was saying about Kaco Island.

Cutlass and Ossie retired to a small library on the first floor, to the north of which was a small garden in the midst of the manor's grounds. Much like the other parts of the manor, including Mallea's workshop, the library signs of age and disuse, as a fine film of dust lay upon everything. She and Ossie passed the time with idle conversation and small talk about the events of the past few days, while Sir Pent went about and ate his fill of whatever small bugs or rodents may have been about.

Cerulean went to the kitchen on the first floor, and it was there that Mallea joined her after giving Splendid and Alder their privacy. Mallea allowed Cerulean to have some samples of various berry pastries, jams and preserves that she had made, all of which were quite tasty, but Cerulean could tell they lacked a certain passion in their making. They did not taste like they were made with love.

Cloud and Chiu retired to a guest bedroom on the second floor, where they got to have a nap (with permission hard-won from the stubborn Mallea). Though Chiu seemed to sleep well, Cloud had a most frightful and restless dream, where out of a storm of choking, burning darkness that threatened to crush him, appeared the head of the Wetnurse. The Wetnurse left him only with a very cryptic and terrifying message: "GET HER OUT."

When sundown came upon the land, it was time. Mallea gathered everyone in the foyer in preparation to head into the basement, the area that had been the site of her and Palafox's abortive attempt to summon Auntzi. The basement was also the area that Mallea was never able to enter when the manor shifted and distorted at night, becoming an impenetrable labyrinth. If Thessaly's theory was right, this was the most likely spot for the nexus of evil karma and rampant magic that they would need to dispel in order to free the manor, and the town of Gecko, from the anomalies that plagued them at night.

Cloud quickly sent Chiu back to the inn, under the care of Granny. Meanwhile, Thessaly prepared a ritual described in the Liber Animarum, and summoned Ragalaseab, Seer of the Hidden, into the hidden room in which Mallea had tried to summon Auntzi many months ago. Cerulean and Alder noticed that Ragalaseab seemed to recognize all of you, and was not surprised by Thessaly's request for him to pinpoint and help dispel the magic that possessed the manor. He agreed to help, but on the condition that they take the remaining humanity from the Yellow Jester, a member of the Court of the Crimson King, and counterpart of the Pattern Juggler.

But that will be a story for another day.

Ragalaseab agreed to the Contract, giving Thessaly My Eye. This object would help her not only see the Yellow Jester's humanity, but would also help her to find the key points of evil karma and spoiled magic that they would need to dispel in order to break the curses lingering in the manor.

But just as he agreed to Thessaly's terms, the manor's infrastructure appeared to distort and twist, the walls becoming damp and wet, curving inward and growing uncomfortably marshy. At that moment, an elegant, lilting female voice rang out, asking how many times they would have to go through this. Before the party could tell where the voice came from, or what it meant, they turned back toward the corridor from which they came, where they glimpsed the faintest image of a feminine form.

But then, just as soon as they saw that vague shape, the room flooded with darkness, pouring in from down the corridor like a tidal wave of black, dragging them down into the depths of its crushing weight…

And when the darkness cleared, each of them was… more or less… where they were prior to Mallea's summons.

Cutlass was in the small library.

Alder was in the foyer.

Thessaly was in the entrance hall.

Cerulean was in the kitchen.

Cloud was in the guest bedroom.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 109: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#726181

Summary: A tidal wave of darkness had swept into the manor's basement. Alder, Cerulean, Cutlass, Thessaly and Cloud, who had all braced themselves to try to resist the onslaught, blacked out but later woke up in a distorted, twisted version of the manor. All of them came to in the last location they had visited before Mallea had called them into the foyer at sunset: Cerulean was in the kitchen, Alder was in the foyer, Thessaly was in the front entrance hall, Cutlass was in the first floor study, and Cloud was in the second floor guest room.

Those of the party who had been swept under the tide of darkness, namely Schnitzel, Plague, Puddin, Zerk, Paraiba, Mallea, Splendid and Ossie, were nowhere to be found, despite a few of those having been in the same room as other party members before being summoned by Mallea at sunset.

Although something had happened to seemingly "rewind" things to back how they were at sunset, there were many differences between the situation as it was originally and this "rewound" version. In addition to those party members who had been swept under the darkness being missing, Cerulean was missing both Roger and Fox, her two companions. Alder discovered Splendid's hymnal book, Psalms of the Entombed Maiden, laying on a coffee table in the foyer. Thessaly still had My Eye, given to her by Ragalaseab after sunset. She was also missing the gold she had used to summon him. Cutlass still had Sir Pent, despite Ossie being gone. And in the guest room Cloud slept in, the two beds were still pushed together.

Additionally, a wall had somehow appeared where the staircase connecting the first and second floor once was. This ended up cutting off Cloud from the rest of the party. A small empty shrine was in front of the wall on the first floor side, with an indentation where something could be put. In order to go between the first and second floors, the party on the first floor would have to find whatever object was necessary to progress.

Alder discovered a map of the first floor tucked into Splendid's hymnal. On the back, written in homemade invisible ink, was a coded message which corresponded to certain underlined phrases and words scattered all through the hymnal. The hidden message on the back of the map read, "And if a House be divided against itself, that House cannot stand. Absolve the four sins. First, Second, Attic, Basement."

At first, it wasn't clear what the party should do. But it was reasonable to conclude that they had been transported to some kind of alternate dimension made to resemble the manner, or some other form of trap. In addition to the hidden message on the map, their other source of direction on what to do was what had been discussed at various points by Mallea, Gullveig, Thessaly and Ragalaseab. The strange happenings in the manor could be undone if they dispelled the nexuses of corrupted magic that had been building up in the manor as a result of Mallea's botched summoning of Auntzi many months ago.

Thessaly used My Eye to scan the first floor for nexuses of magic, and found one in the dining hall, which they could get to by passing through the bar. They went to the bar, where they were confronted with a terrible heat, whose source seemed to be the dining hall. A note in the bar warned them that danger lay ahead, and that they could go to the garden shed to get something to protect themselves. Choosing to forage on without taking that detour, they busted in.

A malevolent fire raged in the dining hall's fireplace, and leaped out at them, taking the form of a towering demonic fox, its body all made of flame surging around a core of wax. Atop the fox rode an armored figure, some hybrid of woman and armored beetle, wielding a massive fire poker for her weapon. Whatever this figure was, it was guaring the first floor's nexus of magic, and thus was a threat to their mission's success.

As for Cloud, he was stuck in the guest room. Each time he tried to leave through the guest room's single exit, the door would simply lead back into the guest room. He was stuck there, tormented by a gruesome program on the radio playing in the rec room, until he discovered a book lying open on a nearby shelf. Two words on the page were underlined: "Fix room." Taking its advice, he reset the beds to their original positions and cleaned up the rest of the room. As a result, whatever force had enchanted the room to loop in on itself had vanished, allowing him to leave.

He went east down the hall, where he found an abandoned baby room, never used, either by Cosecha or Mallea, for obvious reasons. As he tried to get into the master bedroom lying ahead, he had to deal with a massive wall of mold that held the doors shut. He tried to clear them with the Yearning Knife, but out of the mold spawned a half-rotted kalphite's corpse, which rose up and tried to attack him.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 110: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#726570

Summary: After an intense battle in the first floor Dining Hall, Thessaly, Cerulean, Alder and Cutlass managed to defeat the mighty Immolatioknight, and freed Cerulean's pet Fox. The Immolatioknight was an Oddity, and as such, before they could defeat it, they needed to discern its True Name and True Nature. Judging by its viciousness and wanton cruelty against the Fox (despite ostensibly being its ally), as well as the analysis of My Eye, they were able to identify its True Being: An incarnation of Malice itself. Once they discovered this, the Karmic Seed began to pulse and shimmer, and Thessaly used it to imprison the Immolatioknight once and for all, extinguishing its terrible flames.

Afterward, they found a curious sight: A small model of the manor, placed on an oval-sized stand. The stand looked like it would perfectly fit in the shrine that currently blocked off the stairwell to the second floor. The model lay in the fireplace, but was paradoxically not burned in the slightest by the intense flames the fireplace once held. And then, when they took the model, they saw underneath it a pile of charred, blackened bones, which were badly damaged in addition to being burnt. The bones were far beyond recognition, but numbered seven in total. As she surveyed the bones, Thessaly recalled an unusual, unexplained memory: She recalled a different fight with the Immolatioknight, one in which she, though her body felt differently proportioned, was slain.

Meanwhile, up on the second floor, Cloud explored the eastern rooms – the Guest Bedroom, Baby's Room, and Master Bedroom. The Baby's Room had little of note, but the Master Bedroom held certain clues. At the back of the Master Bedroom was a walk-in closet. Tucked away in the closet's corner was a curious door, locked by an unconventional mechanism: Instead of a keyhole, there was a space in the door's center where a medallion could fit. Cloud also discovered a slip of papyrus, bearing a message in invisible ink, much like the ones that the rest of the party had found in Splendid's prayer book and in the first floor Bar. But without Splendid's Psalms, Cloud was unable to decode the message contained therein.

Some time later, the party put the model manor into the shrine's indentation. Both the shrine and the wall then vanished, allowing them to move up to the second floor Balcony. There, they reunited with Cloud and caught up on what had transpired so far.

While there, they also inspected the area:

To the north were two rooms, side by side. Alder knew that the room to the northwest was the Rec Room. To the northeast, as Cerulean discovered, was a Music Room. To the east was the East Hall, where Cloud had come from. To the west was the West Hall, but that doorway was completely sealed off by a massive wall of thick, grotesque black mold, extending from floor to ceiling and covering all it could reach.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 111: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#726783

Summary: After Cloud met up with the rest of the party, they had a chance to collect themselves and review all that had transpired since the darkness flooded Mallea's basement. They were missing well over half their numbers: Zerk, Paraiba, Plague, Schnitzel, Puddin, Ossie, Splendid and Mallea were all nowhere to be seen in any of the rooms they'd explored on the First or Second Floor.

And yet, it almost seemed as if traces of the missing allies were being left all around the manor. Splendid's prayer book, Psalms of the Entombed Maiden, had been left in the Foyer, where Alder discovered it. Puddin took advantage of his unusual name to leave a clear hint for Cerulean in the Music Room. There, Puddin apparently left a literal bowl of pudding in a cooler, alongside bottles of Salamander's Breath, a powerful, smoldering red powder that would help them burn away the massive walls of black Mold that gripped the Second Floor's western half.

Alongside this equipment, Puddin left behind another message, warning them against listening to the radio in the Rec Room, and confessing that they had "lost the girl" – who, based on his plea for the reader to not tell Alder, was implied to be Splendid. But, that didn't exactly seem to make sense. You see, over in the Master Bedroom's walk-in closet, which held the latter to the Attic, there was an encrypted message, made using the cipher of the Psalm's chapters and verses. Whoever's writing the encrypted messages would need a good deal of familiarity with the Psalms, and so at first glance it would seem to be Splendid. If it really is her leaving them, when did Puddin "lose" her? The sequence of events wasn't clear.

Deciding to press onward, the party began using the Salamander's Breath to burn away the Mold that choked the Second Floor. The entire western half of the Second Floor was covered, wall, ceiling, floor and windows. Cloud, Alder and Cutlass determined that the Mold, and the Oddity that presumably controlled it, was the Sin of Jealousy, just as the Immolatioknight embodied the Sin of Malice. Using My Eye, Thessaly was able to discern that the corrupted magic on this floor – and therefore, the Oddity – was concentrated somewhere either in the Magical Research Study, or in the Alchemy Lab directly adjacent.

Conserving their Salamander's Breath, they went to the end of the West Hall, aiming to loop around through the Storage Room to the north. Awaiting them at the end of the pitch-black hall was a mob of Kalphite corpses that the Mold had absorbed; the Kalphite bodies showed signs of dissection and autopsy, and the Mold had liberally rearranged limbs and segments to create abhorrent mosaics of chitin and blood.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 112: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#727231

Summary: After surviving the explosion in the western hallway, the party unlocked the Storage Room, which was the northwestern room of the manor's second floor. All three of the doors leading in and out of the Storage Room had been locked and blocked off by heavy crates and barrels, evidently having been used by the last occupants as a makeshift safe area before they moved on.

In a corner of the Storage Room lay the melted, slurried remains of what could only be presumed to be one of their allies. As the remains were unidentifiable, all that could be done was to have Thessaly Commune with the skeletal pieces lying in the muck. In doing so, she recalled the deceased's last memory: An argument overheard in the last moments of their consciousness. The voices heard belonged to Captain Plague, Puddin Tame, and an unidentified third speaker, that being a female.

From their words, it seemed like they were arguing over another ally's apparent death against one of the four Sins. Whether the deceased in question was the melted corpse in the Storage Room, or one of the burned corpses in the Dining Hall, Thessaly couldn't tell.

In any case, the party had to move on. They decided to move east, proceeding through the Alchemy Lab. Inside, they found that the Mold had coated nearly every surface in the room, clinging and festering upon everything. The southern half of the room was completely blocked off by Mold, from floor to ceiling. Knowing that they were closing in on the Sin of Jealousy, they had no choice but to attack the Mold with the bottles of Salamander's Breath.

As they rocked the Alchemy Lab with another explosion, clearing out a great deal of the Mold, they were confronted by the Oddity that controlled that Mold: A collection of laboratory mice preserved in glass jars, their bodies gruesomely altered by many experiments. Acting as a kind of hive-mind across countless tiny bodies, the mice comprised the Oddity known as the Mischiefs, representing the Sin of Jealousy. The Mischiefs poured forth from their bottles into the Mold, animating it as both weapon and armor.

From the few exchanges of blows that occurred, the party could immediately tell that the Mischiefs were perhaps far more dangerous than the Immolatioknight, for though the Mischiefs had a crippling weakness against fire and the Salamander's Breath, they could regenerate themselves by stealing the party's vitality with the help of the Mold.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 113: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#727700

Summary: The battle against the Mischiefs nearly turned deadly, but a last-second offensive, coming from the combined power of Cutlass and Cerulean, put a stop to the rampant Oddity. Cerulean and the Fox devoured what remained of the Mischiefs, using the Fox's fire to purge any leftover impurities. With the Oddity gone, the party was able to burn away what remained of the Mold in the Alchemy Lab and the Magical Study. In the Study, Thessaly discovered a small medallion, bearing a design of a bear cub playing with a young buck. Cloud recognized it as having the same design as the lock on the door in the walk-in closet, signaling it as their next destination.

However, just when it seemed they were moving forward… they heard the sound of two heavy weights dropping to the ground, as if from out of nowhere. When they investigated the source of it, they discovered the bodies of Splendid and Mallea, locked in an embrace of death. Splendid looked like she had tackled Mallea to try to block some hit, but the severity of their wounds showed that their efforts were in vain.

Just as they tried to process this sudden turn, the door to the hall swung open by itself, and a thick black tar began flooding into the room with the force of an oncoming tidal wave, drowning them under its weight.

After some unknown period of time, each member of the party awoke again. They found themselves in the same rooms that they were after the last time darkness overtook them. Cerulean was in the kitchen, Thessaly was in the entrance hall, Cutlass was in the first floor study, Alder was in the foyer and Cloud was in the second floor guest room. However, only Cerulean and Cutlass remembered anything from the past few hours. The Immolatioknight, the Mischiefs, the hidden messages in invisible ink… Thessaly, Alder and Cloud remembered none of it.

However, even if it seemed as though things had been "reset," so to speak, there were key differences from the last time things unfolded. Alder already had Splendid's prayer book in his possession, as well as the maps, and the puzzle in the guest room where Cloud slept was already solved. Furthermore, the dining hall, where they would later meet up, was now cold, blackened with soot and ash, but the Immolatioknight was nowhere to be found. On top of that, they retained their wounds from the battle with the Mischiefs.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 114: https://mlpg.co/q/res/725286.html#728226

Summary: The party met up in the manor's dining hall, trying to make sense of all that had transpired so far. Thessaly, Cloud and Alder could only remember vague snippets of the events of the past few hours, but even then, their memories did not match up with Cerulean's and Cutlasses. Thessaly, Cloud and Alder remembered battles lost, battles ending in death against the Immolatioknight, but Cerulean and Cloud remembered only winning.

Without more clues to go on, their discussion could only go so far. So, following the maps and the instructions of the mysterious notes that Alder had found on his person, they went upstairs, passing through an unused children's room into the master bedroom. In the bedroom's walk-in closet was a door with a most unusual mechanical lock, requiring a special medallion depicting a bear cub and a deer fawn playing together. Thessaly and Cloud dimly recalled picking up such a medallion earlier, and indeed, it was in Thessaly's purse without any explanation as to why.

When they inserted the medallion, the door gave way, revealing a ladder to the attic. The attic was cramped, made worse by the plethora of boxes and barrels stored up there over the years, and choked with interminable dust. Upon heading a little south, they came across a sprawling play-city, made out of toys, scraps of cloth and junked machinery, overturned cabinets and tables and book, and no small shortage of imagination. The "city" was so immense that they could not proceed without either knocking it all over or shrinking themselves down with Cloud's magic, and so they chose the latter.

To their surprise, when they shrunk down, the toys came to life, milling about with city business as if they were all real. Taking a moment to visit the inhabitants, they came across two key objects. The first, which Cloud and Cerulean "bought" from an imaginary shop, was the tone arm of a record player. The second, which Cutlass obtained from a barkeep who thought it was a rag, was another of the notes written in invisible ink. The message was short but partly garbled, due to one of the verses being used for its encryption being marred by water damage. The most likely renderings were either "can't dodge," "shouldn't dodge," or "don't dodge."

With all that gathered, the party left the toy city down the western road, regrouping at a small crawl-space door just outside its borders. There, peering through the ajar door, Alder and Thessaly spied a massive bear, asleep in a small, cramped room. The bear towered over them, and would do so even if Cloud undid his shrinking spell, but it was asleep, giving the party the advantage. Cerulean tried to sneak in with the tone arm while Cloud attempted to shrink the bear, but his spell misfired, waking it up. Seeing Cerulean in its domain, the bear raised its claw, poised to strike her down.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 115: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#728518

Summary: Up in the attic's largest room, which appeared to be a kind of makeshift home theater, the party was attacked by the Cub, a massive bear made of dust and debris, representing the Sin of Despair. The Cub's attacks did next to nothing against them, no matter how powerfully it struck them.

It was only when they picked up on the note's advice, and allowed the bear to bite down on them, that they found out its secret. Inside its stomach was a catatonic Mallea de Valle. Her body, scourged with wounds in the shape of bear's claws, was taking the brunt of the damage from the Cub's attacks. By pulling her out, they were able to free her from the Cub's curse, and subdue it. Using the Karmic Seed, Thessaly trapped the remnants of Despair.

However, this did not release Mallea from her stupor, and in a moment of hazy resistance, she drew the dust of the attic onto herself – an attempt at self-suffocation. In order to break her out of her continued despair, the party had to remind her of what she was fighting for. They repaired the record player, put on a nearby record, and fed the film reel Cerulean found into the projector. What followed was a home movie of her brief and joyful marriage with Palafox, who brought her a youthful cheer that was completely absent from her present persona.

By the time that the film ended, Mallea was back to normal. But when she looked over at the party, she dropped into a battle-ready posture, and was on the verge of attacking, demanding that they prove that they were real, or perish. Once they assured her that they were indeed real, and not illusions (or whatever she thought they were), she relaxed.

Now, with three of the Sins defeated, perhaps they could finally start to understand just what was going on around here…
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 116: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#728874

Summary: The party caught up with Mallea for a while, and learned that she was having a very different experience of the manor than them. The most obvious difference was that she had been traveling with all of the missing party members through the manor. Furthermore, she claimed that they had been the ones to defeat the Immolatioknight and the Mischiefs. Obviously, this directly contradicted what Cerulean and Cutlass clearly remembered about their own exploration through the manor.

Mallea's recollection of events was foggy and uncertain past the point of defeating the Mischiefs. It was at that point, in a traumatic flashback, that Alder recalled the sight of Splendid's and Mallea's corpses in the Magical Research Lab. When he brought this up, Mallea was badly shaken, but aggressively dismissed it all as being the work of an illusion – some kind of magic wrought by whatever Oddities were left haunting the manor.

Without any concrete explanation for the diverging memories or the whereabouts of their missing allies, they went into the attic's back room, where they recovered two key items for their exploration: A stone chalice and a wavy ritual dagger, used in Krikral wedding ceremonies to offer the blood of the betrothed to their creator-god, the Architect. With that, they could proceed into the basement.

Using a trapdoor shortcut, they went from the Attic down to the second floor and then to the first floor, retracing the steps that they had taken when they first went from the foyer into the basement. At the end of the first floor's west corridor, they ran into a wall with a small altar before it, blocking their way to the basement. The altar had ornate flowering stone carvings upon it, and was covered with a white veil, as is fitting of the Krikral tradition.

Mallea set the chalice upon the altar, and offered a few drops of her blood. The wall behind the altar started to shimmer like fog, and vanished somewhat, but would not vanish entirely until the others offered some of their blood as well. At the same time as these blood offerings were made, an additional unseen force seemed, almost randomly, to increase the shimmering of the wall, causing it to break down more.

Once the wall completely vanished, they were able to proceed into the basement.

At first, the staircase leading underground seemed to be the same as ever, but it was soon apparent that the stairs had lengthened. They walked downward for a seemingly interminable period, all while the walls of the corridor got more and more narrow, darker and colder… until at last, they reached a small door, at the far end of a staircase that was so narrow they could only proceed one at a time.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 117: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#729349

Summary: The party proceeded into the basement, a flooded and dark mess of twisting corridors, made treacherous by low ceilings, exposed wires, and a dark watery sludge climbing up to their knees. After wandering in for a time, they found three divergent paths – one filled with red-hot pipes, one mushy and soft with mold, and one choked by dust and exposed, broken metal, like a poorly-maintained ventilation system. It seemed that the basement housed lingering remnants of all of the Sins that had come alive in the manor above.

They chose to head through the corridor filled with burning pipes, and traversed a twisting labyrinth full of dead ends, tight turns, narrow passages, and so forth. Just as things seemed to be going alright, Alder was abducted from below, dragged into the sludge. Although the sludge only went up to their knees, the monster that grabbed Alder had the power to traverse the abyss below them. The party freed Alder, but before the monster could flee and plan another ambush, Cerulean gave chase. The monster changed tactics and attacked, using techniques from all members of the party – both the PCs themselves and their missing allies.

After a short battle, the monster was defeated, its body crumbling into darkness. In the center of its "corpse" remained Roger… but not Splendid. It was possible that other monsters like it still roamed these corridors.

Cerulean revived Roger with Alder's help, and the party pressed on…
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 118: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#729813

Summary: Our Crew left behind the corridors of steaming pipes, rot and mold, and dust-choked metals, and proceeded into a long, dark hall, the end of which resembled the front hallway of the manor, when viewed from within. They opened the double-doors at the end, and came into a small lounge, a composite of the manor's many rooms. There awaited the radio that Cerulean had destroyed earlier in the Rec Room, repaired as if it had never been damaged.

From the radio's speaker came the elegant, playful voice that had bemoaned their summoning of Regalaseab: Auntzi, a Demon of eternity, harvest and bounty. She attempted to treat with the party, offering them a temporary alliance against Obstinance, the exorcist, who she claimed was coming any second now to immolate the manor, killing them all with it. This contradicted what Mallea said about Obstinance agreeing to give her three days to solve this problem without his help. As far as Cerulean and Cutlass knew, this was only their second time through the manor, and for the others whose memories had been claimed by the black tar in the Magical Research Lab, it was only their first time.

But the growing desperation in Auntzi's voice as they continually refused seemed to indicate that she was indeed telling the truth.

More information spilled out of Auntzi as she tried to cajole them into an agreement: Back when Mallea and Palafox first attempted to summon Auntzi, Cosecha's interruption offered Auntzi a chance to escape the sealing circle and act on her own. She nearly got out, but Mallea's banishment spells nearly destroyed her in the process. Auntzi managed to slip out a little piece of her soul through a crack in the circle, while the rest of her was banished to some unknown realm. That little fragment was weak, vulnerable, no more powerful than an Oddity. Like an Oddity, she had to regain her power by feeding upon the lingering negative emotions that clung to the house as part of the struggle between Cosecha and Mallea.

After Palafox's death, Auntzi's power continued to grow, Mallea grew more and more cognizant of her presence. To keep Mallea from successfully exorcising her, Auntzi established a small-scale, one night Time loop in the manor. At night, Auntzi would lure Mallea into exploring the manor, killed her, and parasitically siphoned a little Power from her Soul. Then, when morning came, the loop would reset things to how they were the previous day: The manor would no longer be distorted and warped, and Mallea would be alive once more.

And, once Our Crew entered the manor to help Mallea, Auntzi just continued the plan, adding their Souls to her plate.
This plan had a number of drawbacks, however. Time is resistant to manipulation. Auntzi expended almost all the Power she drained from Mallea's Soul in order to reset the loop, coming away with only marginal gains with each cycle. To cut corners and save on Power expenses, Auntzi allowed many things to slip past the loop without being reset. Tally marks on the walls, left-behind notes, remnants of past battles – all of the marks that led Our Crew to this point were vestiges of previous loops.

And, as Cerulean, Cloud and Cutlass discovered, among those marks were corpses.

In a small room further down the hall from the lounge were Mallea's bodies. Dozens. Hundreds. Perhaps even more. Every single one of them was a corpse, bearing wounds that suggested which Oddity had killed Mallea on that particular attempt.

And just as they had discovered Mallea's endless failures, Auntzi snapped, provoked to violence by Thessaly's mischievous, bold provocations, and her summoning of Seravelum.

The battle for the manor had begun once more… for perhaps the thousandth time. And this time, there just might be a time limit.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 119: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#730260

Summary: The battle began and ended seemingly in a flash. Though Auntzi took the initial advantage by freezing Seravelum with a time-stopping spell, Alder and Thessaly were able to hold their own against her conjured minions – shadowy apparitions resembling grotesque hybrids of their friends – and once Cerulean joined them, they took control of the battle. A botched use of Aura caused Auntzi to accidentally release Seravelum. Our Crew struck her down, and Seravelum effortlessly dealt the killing blow…

…But Demons are not put down so easily, much less Demons with domain over Time. Though this Auntzi was now well and truly dead, her disembodied, sing-song voice mocked them from afar. Using her Time-manipulating Aura, she had apparently prepared for herself the same sort of rewinding point in case she needed to be saved.

A 'save point', if you will.

And now, as darkness flooded the small lounge from the western corridor, leaving the sealed-off eastern corridor as their only escape, Auntzi's counterattack began.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 120: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#730397

Summary: The party narrowly escaped the flood of black tar that Auntzi summoned to destroy the basement. Visions of their past selves, leftover remnants of Auntzi's imperfect time rewinds, flew past them, recording an unknown number of past failures. But this, just maybe, could be the one in which they succeed.

Their exit was another one of Mallea and Palafox's secret passageways, this one connecting the basement to the greenhouse in the backyard. Upon their escape, they found that the entire town of Gecko was surrounded by a Heatwave, much like what the Queens had used in their attempts to exterminate the villages of Kaco Island. The culprit for putting this up was none other than Obstinance, who had told them three days ago that he would set up a "barrier" around the town. Perhaps this suggested that either he, or the Virtues in general, had a hand in the attempted genocide on Kaco, but there was no time for speculation.

Cerulean, Thessaly, Alder, Cloud and Mallea made a beeline for the manor once more so they could stop Auntzi before Obstinance got involved further. Cutlass, meanwhile, went around to the front in order to help the crews of the Beesting and the Hidden Dagger quell the rioting mob of townsfolk outside before things turned violent. Ironically, the mob was there because they wanted to help the party. As far as the townsfolk knew, the very people who saved their ostrich ranches had vanished without a trace after entering Mallea's manor, and so they thought that Mallea had tricked them in order to lure them into a trap. This was far from the truth, but they would need to see concrete evidence before they relented.

Inside the manor's foyer, the party found Splendid, and the rest of their missing allies gathered with them in short order from the various other rooms that they had been in at sundown, three days prior, when Auntzi's time loop began. After countless failures, and an unknown number of deaths and conflicting timelines of events, all were thoroughly exhausted. This, Auntzi counted on. She and hundreds of past iterations of herself appeared above them in a kaleidoscope of past timelines, preparing to unleash a final attack…

But just as she appeared, there came a knock at the door. A voice claiming to be a delivery pony asked to be let in so he could get a signature on a delivery. Such an absurd claim, as they quickly deduced, could only come from the drunkard Obstinance, who had used his magical wisps to slip past Cutlass and enter the manor through the front door.

He was surprised and disappointed that his obvious ploy was found out, and so switched to his backup plan:

Complete annihilation of the manor.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 121-122: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#730836 and https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#731433

Summary: Despite Obstinance's attempts at interference, Our Crew, reunited again, slew each and every last one of Auntzi's stored-up lives.

In a final, climactic confrontation, Mallea de Valle awoke to an overwhelming amount of Aura, assuming the visage of the ancient Witch of Endor, a legend of Witch lore. With this awakening, she took back all power that she had unwittingly fed Auntzi through her Sins, which in turn robbed Auntzi of her ability to manipulate time. Auntzi unleashed a last-ditch attack against the party in an attempt to drag them down with her, but this was thwarted by the party's counterattack, and in particular by Schnitzel's strange new ability.

However… even Schnitzel's power wasn't enough to stop Auntzi's attack from turning deadly. Vice-Captain Plague of the Hidden Dagger lost his life protecting Zerk, who lay paralyzed as a result of protecting Cutlass from falling to her death in the seemingly bottomless vertical shaft to which Auntzi banished her earlier. Not even the combined efforts of Alder, Doctor Godot and Sickly Sweet could save him. His death rattled the two crews, and many dispersed to mourn in private.

At last, they were free of the cursed manor. They would need time to recover mentally and physically, especially with Captain Kukulcan's deep-sea expedition coming in three days. Now was the time to gather themselves and bid farewell to Plague before their next voyage.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 123: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#731646

Summary: After saying farewell to Vice-Captain Plague of the Hidden Dagger, Our Crew spent the remaining three days before Captain Kukulcan's deep-sea expedition in recovery of body, mind and soul. Although they were in no shape to venture too far from the port at Manenhi or the comfort and safety of their ships, Manenhi itself still had a number of shops and places of interest to occupy them as they nursed their wounds to health.

>You all gain 1 BP, 1 EP and have reached another Breakpoint. You may design a new Aura Ability or modify one of your existing ones, expanding its applications and power.

It is currently about noon, on the first day after overcoming Auntzi and freeing Mallea from her torment. The bell for lunch has just rang aboard the Beesting, and most of the crew is heading down into the galley to have themselves a lunch of barnacle pasta with kelp spice and marinara sauce, and sausage and garlic breadsticks. Each of the Beestings' crew has gained 2,500 Bits, including Bee Holder herself. This money comes from Mallea de Valle, who is currently in Gecko, packing up her possessions and working out arrangements with the mayor of Gecko, to whom she is turning over the manor.

Tonight's session is to wrap up any last RP or shopping you want done before the expedition led by Captain Kukulcan of the Thunder Serpent. As such, you have the freedom to do as you generally please and speak with any member of your crew. It may do to catch up with the others, learning their Aura Abilities and the like, or stock up on any supplies you may need down in the depths. Tonight's session can last as long or as brief as you wish.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 124: https://mlpg.co/q/res/728518.html#732132

Summary: It has been one week since you arrived on Agyl Island. The crews of the Beesting and Hidden Dagger have spent their time in recovery of the body, mind and soul from the damage inflicted by Auntzi's haunting of Mallea de Valle's manor. Vice-Captain Plague has been laid to rest, and Mallea has taken his place aboard Cutlass' ship, replacing Thessaly as the Secret Assassins' resident Witch.

The first two days after the events in the manor passed by rather uneventfully. With most of the crews injured, there was little else to do with their time but shop, eat and sleep. On those two days, there were no further dreams of that dark and forgotten land, those dreams that had plagued you in the buildup to the events at the manor.

But on the last night, the night before the beginning of Kukulcan's expedition… those strange dreams, lived through borrowed bodies, passengers in alien minds, came back.

And in those dreams, you are a people wandering in a dark light, a people in feverish anticipation. The sky is a watery mirror, bending the light of the manic stars. They are coming. They are coming and you are not ready. They are coming and there is so much more to be done, always so much more to be done. Priests in feathers and robes of _____ hand you chisels. Hammers. Black knives of sacrifice. Someone panics, breaks the line. The stars are coming and we will never be ready. An earthquake sunders the temple. Thousands of stone beasts, bats, jaguars, serpents, hounds, break into rubble.

Now is the time.

Ready or not.

We must meet them.

And the temple's doors, a colossal pair of marble doors, an almighty Vault, grind open.

The dream ends there.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 125: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#732421

Summary: The long-awaited expedition, spearheaded by Captain Kukulcan of the Thunder Serpent, finally began. Both the Hidden Dagger and the Beesting were outfitted with a Chiccan-class magitech engine, operating much like the similar engine aboard the Esper. By releasing wind elemental spirits from within, the engine was capable of enabling any compatible ship to dive underwater.

Two factors would make their journey there lengthy. For the sake of not overloading the Chiccan engines with too much depth pressure too quickly, they could not descend in a straight line to the bottom of the sea. And, for the sake of maintaining internal stability and balance, the ships could not angle themselves too far downward on their descent. Thus, they would need to spend most of the journey angled only slightly downward, which would allow the wind elementals to acclimate to a gradual increase of pressure and avoid tossing around each ship.

While that was all well and good, there were still issues to be resolved with Sir Kukulcan himself. He and his associates are servants of the Crimson King. He seems to be a mortal, as Mallea de Valle, with her heightened spiritual senses, could not sense any trace of magatsuhi about him. In addition, he knows the crew's pirate titles – since they were bestowed by the Crimson King via their bounty posters, that would imply he also knows about their role on Kaco Island and how they disrupted the King's plans. Despite all of that, he has shown no hostility toward them, and is in fact happy to work with them.

Whether Kukulcan is truly an ally or an enemy remains to be seen, but his voyage to the sunken island of Cuauhtémoc is their best clue right now for reaching the Heart of Gold before the Crimson King can find it for himself.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 126: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#732582

Summary: There was something quite strange about the kelp forest strands that had gotten themselves mysteriously tangled around the rudders and hulls of the Beesting and Hidden Dagger, and as the party went in to investigate, they learned why – they were not mere kelp, but camouflaged tendrils of an ugly, hungry sea-monster: a kelp tangler! The mighty beast gave a tug, and both ships were yanked deeper and deeper into the sea, having to kill their own engines just to avoid being torn apart. Thessaly, Cloud, Alder, Cane Shuga and Kling-Klang had to dive down in the Esper to cut the strands free, while Cerulean plummeted into the dark depths to confront the beast alone. Eventually, through a combined effort, they got the ships free, and were able to proceed onward.

The Thunder Serpent got separated from them during the scuffle, but if what Kukulcan said was the truth, they were all bound for the same destination of Cuauhtémoc, and could be directed there through the aid of their Accompasses. The trouble was that the Esper, most mobile means of diving outside of the ships, had taken some damage during the battle with the kelp tangler. It would need some repairs before it could be shipshape again.

However, Bent Scales did say the day before, just before the expedition began, that Kukulcan would lend them some diving equipment. Perhaps she would know more about that.

In any case, a day of travel passed without much further incident. It took our crew that entire time to navigate the massive kelp forest, perhaps one of the largest forests that most of the crew had seen in their lives. Although they could not recall their dreams from that rest, the image of the hyper-detailed Vault clung at the corners of their minds, always waiting to appear when their minds turned to daydreams.

The next day, after getting free of the kelp forest, the party came within sight of a wrecked ship, and a massive cliff face, bearing a wide opening illuminated by crystalline veins. This seemed to be the proper trajectory, as confirmed by Prisma.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 127: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#732981

Summary: The party got the opportunity to explore the remains of the Robinson, a smaller model of galleon that had been sunk some months or years ago, most likely by a pirate attack, judging by the gaping holes in the hull and through some of the floors. Cerulean and Thessaly's projected spirit explored the treasury, which was currently being looted by a small gang of crabs and lobsters armed with lockpicks and knives. The crustaceans tried to chase off Cerulean and keep all the loot to themselves, but Cerulean scared them off with a mere grin. The crustaceans fled with a lockbox, vowing to get their revenge once they told their "big bro" what happened.

Cerulean got some jewelry and gem candy; Thessaly got a full set of silverware fit for a fancy dinner; Alder found a strange puzzle box with unconventional locks that not even he had encountered before; Cutlass found a case full of sea-charts as well as an unusual parchment scroll that seemed to resemble some kind of star chart, and when held up to the light, six gossamer strips within the parchment's "stars" produced six of the colors of the rainbow, in the shape of a sigil that Mallea identified as Sceacere, an ancient word from an olden tongue, meaning thief, or theft; Cloud found a box full of crystal baubles and dolls fit for a young girl, as well as a picture of a family of Puroa. When he asked Hmm about the people in the picture, Hmm said that she knew who the mother and daughter were, but not the father. How this could be was not clear, as Hmm knew everything.

Additionally, Alder and Splendid ventured with Thessaly into the mouth of the massive sea-trench cave that the Robinson's wreckage lay before. There, they found a vein containing Shards of Wisdom, and Thessaly loosened the stubborn crystal with a powerful magical blast. Alder and Splendid collected it, and so gained the last component that Mallea de Valle would need to finish the elixer that could awaken magical potency within Splendid.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 128: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#733372

Summary: The two ships of the fledgling fleet wandered through dark underwater tunnels, guided  by the faint light glimmering through mysterious ore veins that snaked in and out of the rocks around them, as well as Prisma's directions, for whenever the ships came to a crossroads in the labyrinthine tunnels. They had no sunlight or stars to mark time, but their pocketwatches told them that the journey took six nights and six days, bringing the total length of their trip to ten days so far.

At long last, they found another, brighter light, far below them, awaiting on the other end of a massive chasm in the rock. They descended, until they beheld an incredible sight – another sea floor, far below the bedrock through which they had just traveled. Upon that sea floor, there was an immense layer of stormy clouds – an understorm, in Kukulcan's words, apparently produced by gas produced from hydrothermic vents connecting to volcanic veins. Their destination, Cuauhtemoc, was on the other side of the understorm, requiring them to come up with some way of traversing the clouds, which on top of being stormy, were full of sea monsters of many sorts.

They devised a scheme to get the attention of one of the more dangerous sea-monsters, a great salamander, and beseech it for aid, using Cerulean's and Cutlass's aura abilities and Thessaly's artifact which enabled communication with non-sapient animals. The plan failed when the salamander decided instead to attack the ships in order to impress his would-be mate. Improvising, Cloud tore open a whole in the understorm, and the Beesting, knocked off-balance by the salamander's attack, fell through the gap.

The Beesting fell, rather than descended, because there was not water beneath the understorm, but rather, fresh air. Far below them was a massive island many miles wide and broad, covered with foliage, and it was surrounded, as impossible and illogical as it might seem, by an ocean of its own. With the crew and the ship falling to what seemed a certain death, Bee Holder used a magical gun to forcibly compel everyone to run toward the Chiccan engine on the back of the ship, and change its mode from "Dive" to "Flight." This, combined with the help of the salamander (for Cutlass was able to win it over in the end), allowed the Beesting to land safely in the nick of time.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 129: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#733793

Summary: The Beesting, as it often happened during this voyage, had sustained damage around her hull owing to the emergency crash landing that followed after they fell into this otherworldly, underwater realm. While Bee Holder and most of the crew remained behind to assess the damage and attempt some basic repairs, the party set out from their ships in order to explore what seemed to be the remnants of Cuauhtemoc.

They docked at the ruins of a port town. At first it seemed quite small; upon closer inspection they found that it was much larger than it had originally appeared, but had been partly consumed by the blooming jungle, which had crept over its walls and had grown all over the houses, streets and carts, suggesting that it had remained in this state for quite some time. However, when they went into a few of the houses and buildings, it seemed as though it had been abandoned just recently; cups of tea and coffee were piping hot, and fruit and other food that had been set out was as fresh as the very moment it was prepared.

This led to hypotheses of temporal loops, like what they had encountered in Mallea's manor. However, this did not account for two bizarre phenomena: When Cerulean used the knowledge-seeking laser gun she obtained from Professor Shrimp, it only provided partial and redacted information on the objects it scanned. When she tested it on the plants that were growing like normal around everything, it provided completed information. And, when Thessaly sampled some of the apples lying around, she found that they were devoid of texture and crunch, and it was as if she were chewing through juicy, apple-flavored air.

Whatever the case might have been, they still needed to find their missing allies – Paraiba, Kling-Klang, Cane Shuga and Prisma were nowhere to be found, and twelve mooks remained unaccounted for.

They found three of the mooks tangled in some vine-covered trees west of the town, and one of them said that there had been a fourth, who had gotten himself untangled and fell to the jungle's floor. But, when Thessaly helped one of the mooks float down to the ground to search for him, the missing mook was nowhere to be found…
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 130: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#734163

Summary: Whilst exploring the dense, overgrown jungles of Cuauhtemoc, the party made the decision to put off their rendezvous with Kukulcan's forces, which Two Reeds, Kukulcan's accompass, navigator and go-between, was fine with. After Cloud caught up with the party, they went off the beaten path, descending a steep cliffside to reach the floor of the jungle so that they could track the monster that most likely captured the lost mook. Night would soon be upon them, and with it, the monster's freedom to move about as it pleased within the darkness, so they needed to move quickly.

Proceeding deeper in, they came to the outskirts of a shallow, clear-water swamp, where they discovered Kling-Klang and three mooks running south to get free of a mantis-like automaton, made of obsidian stone and beautiful metalwork. With a great swipe, it cut down a wide swathe of trees in the jungle, causing them to fall in on one another and create a complex of sorts, greatly injuring Tabasco and Squatz in the process.

The party retaliated and defeated the mantis just before two more automata – a butterfly that shouldn't be able to fly, and a horned beetle the size of a fortress. They needed to get past these automata as well; according to Kling-Klang, Cane Shuga and a couple other mooks had been caught by a "metal man" – a giant wearing a peculiar diving suit – further north. Kling-Klang and his group attempted to intervene when they were beset by a group of five automata. One remained behind to fight the metal man, while the rest chased Kling-Klang.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 131: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#734693

Summary: The party did battle with two more of the Obsidian automata: the Obsidian Mage and the Obsidian Giant, machines made in the image of a colossal butterfly and an even larger stag beetle. Masterworks of complex bronze mechanisms and brilliant stonework– full of nothing but blind programming, designed for nothing but violence and destruction, tearing apart the jungle about them to cut down the party. The battle pushed the party nearly to their limits, and they ultimately prevailed, but not without lasting damage. The Giant's final stroke cut clean through Cloud and Splendid, severing his right foreleg and her hindleg.

Time was short, for if those limbs could not be reattached soon, cell death would set in, rendering them gone forever. Without anyone in the party capable of using the Mend spell, those limbs would still be functionally useless until someone with the spell could tend to them. To make matters worse, nightfall would soon be upon them…
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 132: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#735237

Summary: All was not well after the battle with the Obsidian machines. Alder was badly shaken by the trauma of witnessing Splendid's leg shredded and severed in a swift blow, and no matter what he and Godot tried, they could not keep Splendid from slipping ever closer to the cold, hungry maw of death… but then, like a deus ex machina, or more accurately, a demon from a book, there came a strange miracle of sorts. Alder's desperation to save Splendid, and Splendid's desperation to go on living, had apparently reached a demon zebra mare by the name of Miss Make-it-Right, who had a tendency to group-her-words. According to the Liber Animarum, she could grant very nearly any wish without any apparent limits, but her price was that she would always ask her summoner to fill a request afterward. Said requests always reflected and inverted the contents of the wish she granted. If Alder and Splendid invoked her to save Splendid's life, then, what could she ask of them?

Miss Make-it-Right dissipated back into the Animarum's fourth unnamed chapter without making a request, leaving the others to decide for themselves what they must do about the injured. Kling-Klang, Squatz, Alder and the mooks went back to the Beesting with Cloud and Splendid, while Thessaly, Cutlass, Cerulean, Axlotl and Cane Shuga went on to try and find the five missing mooks and Paraiba. They went to a copse to the north, where there lay the body of a 'metal man', a giant wearing a cloth and metal diving suit that seemed to be of much older make than the ones that Kukulcan had provided for everyone. It was being guarded, or perhaps being watched, by a hivemind of Obsidian Soldiers, which resembled ants. What their relationship was was unknown. Cutlass's and Cerulean's attempts to discern the metal man's nature and desires were both met with a sense of being dumped into cold ocean waters, so numbing and oppressive that they blocked out any sense of feeling or conscious thought.

And then, when Thessaly managed to open the suit…
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 133: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421.html#735827

Summary: Alder and Cloud had a rough time licking their wounds after coming back to the ship.

Bee Holder was able to console Alder with an offered hug, and a touch of a mysterious Aura ability which seemed to draw out the tears he had been holding in. Afterward, feeling somewhat better, he went with Splendid over to the Hidden Dagger, to discuss what to do about Miss Make-it-Right with Mallea de Valle. Mallea revealed that demons are bound by two things: First, by their love of carefully-worded negotiations and dealings, collectively referred to as Contracts – as it turned out, MMIR owed Alder a favor now for releasing her from the Animarum. Second, by a set of idiosyncratic rules, which effectively governed what they were able to provide as part of their Contracts. Splendid speculated that MMIR's restrictions had to do with the near-omnipotence that she boasted in her wishes, as evidenced by the fact that she always requested that her wishes be undone by her summoner.

Cloud, meanwhile, underwent further treatment for his arm, courtesy of Sickly Sweet. The arm wouldn't be lost, so long as it received regular treatment, but it wouldn't be functional until more advanced magical healing could be provided. However, Cloud contemplated quitting the crew and going back home, a decision that Chiu adamantly opposed because of how dangerous it would be to split off from the crew now. Their argument ended at an impasse, with Chiu suggesting they go to bed and resume discussions once they were both more level-headed.

Thessaly, Cerulean and Cutlass investigated the body of the metal man. Inside its chest cavity, which had been filled with mysterious dark waters only moments before, was one of the missing mooks. He was blind and mute, but seemed to understand what was said to him, even if he was exhausted and had no means of communication. The party took him and the body of the metal man as they attempted to navigate back to the ships. They got lost on the way back, ending up in the depths of the jungle, where they were attacked by a trio of dinosaurs, of a species unrecorded. As the party ran off, Axlotl split from the group to lead the dinosaurs away, his fate unknown. Once the rest of the party made it back to the ships, they deposited the metal man in the port town's dock. With night falling, it would be too dangerous to explore further for those still missing, but a night watch would be kept, and sentries would bang the ship's gongs to signal where the missing should go.

With the night upon them, the party would take care of various last things, before settling in for a final rest in their respective ships.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 134: https://mlpg.co/q/res/732421+50.html#736428

Summary: Another dream haunted our crew the night before, wherein they and many kingdoms and races of the world stood side by side, trapped within a vortex of overlapping folds of reality, witnessing the opening of a great and towering Vault. From within, an army of giants, metal men like the one that the crew recovered last night, stepped forth, their hands outstretched to take away all that lay before them. But before the giants could snatch the people away, the obsidian machinations of Cuauhtemoc rose with a bloodcurdling frenzy of war-cries, attacking the giants in a guerrilla ambush, and made a mad dash for the Vault itself. But they were defeated and routed, and the giants continued their eternal march toward the world.

That morning, the party rose, groggy and disoriented from the strange dream. After they'd gotten their bearings and breakfast, they set out with a task from Bee Holder. The night before, Paraiba, Prisma and the five remaining mooks had been found by Kukulcan's crew, and had been taken back to his camp for medical attention. Bee Holder, however, distrusted Kukulcan, and wanted our crew to recover the wounded group during their exploration of the island today. With that in mind, they set out for the jungles of Cuauhtemoc. Although Kukulcan was not expecting to see them today, he had made arrangements yesterday, so perhaps the party could use those.

After heading west for a time (minus Cloud, who stayed behind because of his lame forearm), they reached a high plateau overlooking a canopy of a tree-village, and to the distance they saw the gnomon of a magnificent sundial many miles off. Before they could try to scope out more, they were approached from behind by pack of obsidian jaguars, unknown in number, who apparently had a strange taste for the island's fruit.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 135: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#736900

Summary: The crew placated the shadow of obsidian jaguars that had surrounded them by liberating a great quantity of fruit from the trees surrounding. Colobok and Droplet (who had inexplicably invited himself for the mission, despite Cutlass's request that only 3 of her crewmates come) stayed behind to peel fruit for the jaguars, while the party went off to find their missing crew. Their destination was a towering gnomon for a colossal sundial on a faraway mountain, which is where Kukulcan had wanted to meet yesterday, and could easily serve as another meeting destination.

In order to get there, the party first had to pass through a tree-house village in a stretch of jungle between the hill that they were just on, and the mountain on which the gnomon was built. They found that the village was not inhabited by those that built it, but by a troupe of gibbons. Strangely, the gibbons were being guarded by a group of obsidian insects and arthropods, who were peaceful to the party after an initial inspection.

The party traveled through the village, stopping briefly as they reached its center. In the center of the village was a great brass tower that stretched from the base of the jungle below, to the tops of the trees. It was some kind of magical crystalline construct, with strange machinery at the top, but neither the party nor the gibbons knew its purpose.

Cerulean attempted to glean information by using her laser gun, but like at the abandoned port town, the information contained within the brass tower was heavily redacted, teaching her something about a princess and some kind of relay network that was in the middle of construction, before it was stopped by an event called "the opening of the World-Serpent's Maw." Cerulean had come across that same term when she inspected one of the obsidian warriors that they defeated yesterday, but its meaning was unclear.

Another problem: When Cerulean fired her gun, she spooked the gibbons, who had no idea that her shot was harmless. Obsidian spiders confronted Cerulean, and though she was able to placate the gibbons and obsidian warriors both, one of the spiders confronted her gun.

During all of this, Cloud and Chiu remained on the beach with their shadow doppelgangers, discussing whether to stay with the crew or use one of Stone Cold Classic's wishes to send themselves home. Chiu was adamantly opposed to using the wish, and Hmm's insights into the nature of demons only served to underscore Chiu's trepidation. But Classic would appear once Cloud had paid off his debts, so they needed a plan to deal with him one way or another.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 136: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#737512

Summary: Our crew left the village now inhabited by the gibbons, electing to discern the nature of the brass tower sometime after they'd found out what happened with their comrades. They crossed over to another mountain, but unlike the ones they've encountered so far, which had been wrought by nothing but the natural elements of the island, this one had been carved in every fashion. Stairs, ladders, walkways and ramps covered its surface, making their way to the top an easy trek.

Upon the top of the mountain was the gnomon they'd seen from afar, and it overlooked a carved sundial nearly a quarter-mile in diameter, its surface engraved with images of the seasons, of beasts, of holidays and ritual symbols unknown, indicating it was not only a sundial but a calendar. Waiting there were two of Kukulcan's crewmates: A griffon athlete by the name of Cycle Kick, and a crystal pony tomboy in an elaborate dress, by the name of Juniper Yumeno. Juniper explained that they had been the ones to find our crewmates, but that most of them had been laid up with some kind of severe injury, and were in no condition to be moved. Juniper then began to lead our crew over to the Dreamer's Moon, the lake where the Thunder Serpent had docked.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 137: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#738049

Summary: Our crew arrived at Kukulcan's camp, and Thessaly went with Juniper, Make Believe and Sparkler onto the Thunder Serpent to confirm that our crewmates really were in the surgeon's room, as Juniper claimed. Not only was that the case, they were also being cared for by Magoja himself, the mysterious unicorn whose only power, as he claimed, was to be where he is needed at any time.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew stopped at the camp to unwind for a while and have some food. Splendid, Make Believe and Sparkler decided to stay at the camp for the mid-day siesta and wait out the heat of the afternoon. After Cutlass finished tormenting a diamond dog who had a compulsion toward keeping things tidy, she, Droplet, Colobok, Thessaly, Cerulean and Alder went east to the Skull Temple to find Kukulcan.

The Temple had partly collapsed into a chasm that had opened beneath it, which effectively divided it into seven layers, consisting of an east and west side connected by precarious stone bridges and brass pipes. They found evidence that Kukulcan had been injured, and Thessaly followed a trail leading to where Kukulcan fought with a group of obsidian machines. He was badly injured, but the machines had not been so much as scratched. Alone, with Two Reeds and Sir Diamantaire reluctantly watching from the sidelines, Kukulcan fought to disable the machines with lightning powers, and not destroy them.

Our crew arrived in the arena just as the fight ended, with Kukulcan bloody and bruised from all of his restraint.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 138: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#738387

Summary: Our crew met Kukulcan in the Skull Temple, upon B-1F where he had just subdued a group of obsidian machines, taking care not to damage them. It was clear that he knew far more than he had ever let on to the party, and so they decided to confront him and demand that he share with them the whole truth. Kukulcan agreed, and they rode upon his canoe back to the Thunder Serpent.

It was there that Kukulcan made a most strange revelation: He and Two Reeds were gods of Cuauhtemoc. He referred to himself as "The Thunder Serpent," while Two Reeds' epithet was not yet known. The two asserted that their divine spirits had been stolen, along with everything else that was missing from the island, by the forces that came from the Vault every night. The Vault that haunted their every dream. It could only open at night, and each night, the obsidian machines rose up to attack the metal giants that came forth from the Vault, but the war was gradually being lost in a steady grind of attrition.

Kukulcan's true aim was to break into the Vault and steal back all that had been taken from the island, but two major issues complicated this. The primary issue was that, even though Kukulcan had made the machines when he was a young god so many centuries ago, they no longer recognized him or Two Reeds, and attacked them and their crew on sight. The secondary issue was the problem of when the Vault would open. If it opened at night, the metal giants would be able to come out freely and steal away all that they could grab. In order to open it during the day, they would need to offer a sacrifice to the Vault: Either a vast quantity of mortal souls, or higher-order souls, such as those of the divine or demonic.

Kukulcan told them that a staff lay at the bottom of the Skull Temple, in the Tomb of the High Mechpriest. If it could be obtained, the obsidian machines could be commanded en masse. But now the Tomb was being guarded by a powerful metal giant who had retreated there to hide from the Sun Serpent's light. Otherwise, they would have to reconfigure the magical relays around the island – such as the brass tower in the gibbon village – to disable the obsidian machines instead, lest they perpetually attack the crews.

As for Cloud, Mallea and Chiu consulted him on what was the best course of action for dealing with Stone Cold Classic and his deceptive aims. Chiu floated the possibility of calling for the help of Obstinance, bringing him down underwater via Gullveig's magical key. Mallea reluctantly agreed, considering how she had been near-helpless against Auntzi until the entire crew had come to her aid. Cloud retrieved the key from Thessaly via the messenger bottle, and had just opened the door to her shop, when…
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 139: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#739234

Summary: Following our crew's discussion of the expedition's events and context with Kukulcan, Two Reeds and the laconic Sir Diamantaire, it was clear that there were three components of preparation they would need before they could take on the forces of the mysterious Vault that continually stole away fragments of Cuauhtemoc.

The first was the question of the Watchkeepers, the obsidian machines guarding the island from all intruders. Some were not aggressive, such as the ones in the village of gibbons. Others sought to kill on sight, like the ones that nearly slew Cloud and Splendid. They could be controlled with the Staff of the High Mechpriest, or disabled using the three magical relays built around Cuauhtemoc. Cerulean went to the Skull Temple alone to scope it out and see how easily the staff may be obtained with her land-swimming powers.

The second was to obtain a godray crystal, used in ancient times by the people of Cuauhtemoc to honor and worship their three highest gods, the Moon, Sun and Thunder Serpents. The giants from the Vault had stolen those away soon after stealing the people of Cuauhtemoc, but there were two places left that one could be obtained: Within the Skull Temple, though the location within would be unknown, and the gibbon village, hidden within the crystalline machinery at the top of the brass tower.

The third, and trickiest one, was to enlist the aid of the Sun and Moon Serpent as Kukulcan had sought to do, but to no avail. Neither he, Two Reeds or Diamantaire had any notion of how they could speak with the heavenly Serpents, for they had ignored their previous attempts at speaking with them. Two Reeds speculated that they would need either a sacrifice, as is customary when speaking with the gods, or an intermediary like a priest or a shaman.

Once that was taken care of, they would need to decide on the time of their attack: Night or Day. Night would give them more time but more dangerous fights, for the giants would be able to roam free, while Day would limit where the giants could go, but give them naught but an hour or two before the Vault closed itself against the Sun.

Meanwhile, Cloud investigated the ruins of Gullveig's destroyed shop. Hmm identified the perp as a "large griffon," but their appearance was hidden in shadows from the all-knowing crow spirit. Setting that aside for the more immediate issues of the day, Cloud enlisted the aid of Obstinance to help him exorcise Stone Cold Classic's influence over him.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 140: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#739744

Summary: Cutlass concocted a plan for getting the godray crystals away from the gibbon village, electing to use Droplet's Shadow Balloon Animal shadow technique and Make Believe's Sticker Star Aura Ability to pass her group off as gibbons. She, Alder and Make Believe would attempt to steal the crystals, with their assassin entourage acting as distant bodyguards, Splendid as a lookout, and Cycle Kick and Juniper Yumeno standing by to make a distraction if necessary.

Cerulean snuck through the Skull Temple with Roger and Tabasco, charming a Watchkeeper hydra with her song long enough for them to lose interest in her. She descended to the floor below her, B3F, and crept past a Watchkeeper centipede guard without issue.

Cloud recruited Obstinance for assistance in breaking Stone Cold Classic's influence over him. The two went up the coast until they found a fairly empty quarry, where Obstinance set up an exorcist's circle with blessed wine and salt. He then provided Cloud with enough gold to pay off his debt to SCC, at which point the genie manifested before him. Without a word, Obstinance began a fight with the genie, trapping him in a circle of flame. After a brief few exchanges of blows, SCC put Cloud's wings back where they belonged, and demanded an end to the battle. But whether the offer was genuine remained to be seen…
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 141: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#740323

Summary: Alder, Make Believe and Cutlass successfully infiltrated the brass and crystal tower by convincing the guards that they had found something interesting that they needed the scientists at the top to investigate. Once there, they found that the crystal's central mechanism for controlling its arcane machinery was the godray crystal they sought. One of the gibbons accidentally tuned Cerulean's info gun to the "Violence" setting and fired it, causing chaos and panic among the scientists. During the confusion, Cutlass managed to swipe the crystal, and they made their escape just as Watchkeepers descended upon their location.

Cerulean explored more of the Skull Temple by herself, successfully outrunning many guards after tunneling through to a blocked doorway. She found the staircase and descended to B3F, nearly halfway through the Temple. It was in B3F's labyrinths that she encountered the door marked by an image of a snake once more. Behind that door, she confronted the Watchkeeper Hydra once more in a more standard arena setting.

Cloud and Obstinance's battle with SCC was thrown off when the genie managed to take control of Obstinance's body, manipulating the massive Puros as though he were nothing more than a marionette. Obstinance briefly broke through the control and scored grisly damage against SCC, but the genie stopped him in his tracks once more with a bolt of magical energy directly to the head, leaving him badly burned and scarred. Cloud spent his last two wishes, gaining significant regenerative powers with one wish and an end to the battle with the second.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 142: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#740904

Summary: Obstinance pulled a convoluted trick on Stone Cold Classic, luring the genie into a false sense of security by pledging, via the binding magic of the Oath-Words, that he would not harm him nor put him into harm's way to the best of his knowledge. He then used his first wish to transfer his memories of his home, Sepulchre Island, to Cloud, erasing them from his own mind. He delivered his second wish via a covertly-made shikigami recording. With it, he forced a terrified SCC to teleport the both of them to Sepulchre Island, circumventing his pledge by now being completely unaware of the dangers the island held. Cloud and Cutlass' crewmates went back to their ships to recover from the unconventional exorcism.

Cerulean, Tabasco and Roger continued to explore the Skull Temple, descending to B3F after escaping from a pack of Watchkeepers. B3F seemed to consist of a series of small, linked arena rooms; a space for a ritual gauntlet. Cerulean came perilously close to death in her battle against a Watchkeeper Hydra, but Tabasco, who had spent most of the battle paralyzed with fear of the snakes, managed to pull it together, and won with a powerful last-ditch attack. The trio stopped to rest in the next room, a designated recovery area for challengers, before moving on to the next arena. This time, the door was guarded by a large Watchkeeper Pig, who did nothing but sleep, and was unfazed by Cerulean's initial attack.

Alder, Cutlass and Make Believe managed to fend off and escape from their pursuers, at the cost of leaving behind Colobok, Sparkler and Droplet. Not that they had much of a choice; sworn to protect Cutlass, they would not have stopped fighting until she was out of the hot zone. Splendid descended from above once they were clear of the jungle, and helped them as they prepared for the long walk back to the campsite of the Thunder Serpent, godray crystal in tow.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 143: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#741303

Summary: Cloud and Chiu learned about Magatsuhi, the energy exuded from demons' souls, from Mallea de Valle. Cloud, like many members of the Beesting, had currents of Magatsuhi about him. However, most of it was of a benevolent variety, imparted by Cerulean (who had awakened to demonic powers from the wish she made to Stone Cold Classic) and the Wetnurse (who, due to Chiu's feelings of goodwill toward the crew, exuded benevolent Magatushi in turn). Later, Chiu and Cloud discussed the possibility that there was an informant among the crew, as a possible explanation for why the newspapers had information about the crew that they should not have been able to obtain without having someone on the inside.

Splendid and Make Believe brought back Cutlass and Alder to the Thunder Serpent, following an episode of heatstroke that put the latter two out of commission. Cutlass and Alder were submerged into tubs to cool them down, with only Splendid around for privacy's sake. While there, Cutlass shared her theories about Kukulcan deceiving the party. She had solid evidence that, whatever the case, Kukulcan's story was changing. Initially, when asked about the Obsidian Watchkeepers, Monty, who knew all rumors shared aloud between three or more people, said that they were thought to be guardian deities of a sort. That was before Kukulcan claimed to have created the Watchkeepers himself as a god. After Kukulcan claimed to be a god, Monty's rumor changed, to line up with Kukulcan's account. Cutlass fell back unconscious shortly after this, and so it would be some time before they could formulate an actionable plan about how they should handle this revelation.

Cerulean defeated the Watchkeeper pig by realizing that he was not as immovable as he seemed. With her chains, she picked him up and flung him across the room, clearing the trail. It seemed that not all the tests in this arena space would not be ones that could be solved with mere violence. She then went down a hidden corridor leading East, which brought her to the divide between the two halves of the Temple once more. She crossed to the Eastern side, where she found another hidden corridor. This one was a dead-end, but it seemed to be a waiting room or a storage area of sorts, because she found her next opponents for B3F's trials: A pack of Watchkeeper dogs of various breeds.
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings:



Session 144: https://mlpg.co/q/res/736900.html#741724

Summary:
Precedents, Mechanics, Rulings: