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Week 12

Having gotten across the river, with their backpacks full of hiking equipment they manage to hire some beasts of burden to travel with. A few days into their journey, amidst a nasty snow blizzard and during a camp for the evening the group has a major fright when a mah-oosive boom resounds their way and a shape looms out of the snow shortly afterwards.

Looming out of the snow comes an Atronauch that calls himself Soltranauch due to the fact he was built to aid and serve Solars and no other Exalted. The group use Soltranauch to fast-track their passage through the Northern wilderness and he soon gets them to within safe distance of the chasm and "bridge" they have to cross to get to the Plain of Pictures.

Some of the group disembark and go to scope out the bridge which turns out to be millimetre thick, hand-span wide, impervious and extremely tough. One by one, in various ways, the group passes over the bridge and Soltranauch makes his way down the chasm and back up the other side.

He then takes them up and over the mountain range and they pause briefly looking down onto the massive bowl of the Plain of Pictures.

Soltranauch takes them into the plain, surrounded by high cliffs and with the interior of this stepped downwards towards the plain proper. They make their way to one edge and order the machine to sweep boulders and cliff-face off the side wall and over the Dragon-Led army that is mobilizing in front of them. This does quite a bit of damage!

From the back of the camp comes some sort of missile that annoys Soltranauch but does relatively little harm. The group decide to disembark and order him to go stomp on some bad guys. Meanwhile two of the characters take up stance to perform the sorcerous task of Obsidian Butterflys and the others gear up for a fight or defence.

We leave them there, arms outstretched, spear and swords ready for the on-rushing army.

(Having had to miss a week due to personal circumstances we enter into the last, the final, the end of the end, week.)

We re-enter the story just as An-Mo and Pang-Lo cast Obsidian Butterflies one after the other. An-Mo does a fair bit of damage but Pang-Lo does a fair bit more!

As the group makes their way around the havok along the edge of the bowl of cliffs Kavod and Vulcan take up arms to take down a small group of militia that have formed up into a wedge, less afraid of the Solars than they are of the commanders. Vulcan does most of the work for once with kavod mearly play-fighting with his opponents.

Shortly after this Vulcan does a few things that pushes him over his limit-break and the Curse that is his comes into force and he became cold-hearted, merciless and compassionate about nothing.

They make their way towards the rear and ask Soltranarch where the ice caverns are. In answer it jumps into the air and lands, smashing through a layer of rock and ice to expose the system beneath. When ordered to he climbs back out revealing the tunnels. This took all of the group totally by surprise (his jumping up and landing that is) and they were all thrown onto their knees and were somewhat annoyed and surprised by his actions. They were also surprised when he chuckled (!!) when they told him to go get rid of any other bad guys in the Plain of Pictures.

The Solars found the entrance to the ice cavern system, quickly passed under the hole the machine had made and followed the tunnels on, underneath the side of the Plain and out the other side into more Ice tunnels.

They came across a group of six nasty hybrid beasties, warped by the Wyld. And quite easily massacred them. Moving on they entered a small ice chamber.

In one curve of the wall was the baby, surrounded by a force shield. Out of a small tunnel in another curve stepped a man, a well dressed man who when questioned gave his name as Corvellus Palladio. The group tried to talk to him as Dazzel, made invisible by magic edged around towards the baby and as Pang-Lo took up residence in a specific location.

Corvellus loosed a throwing dagger which embedded itself very close to Dazzel's head and then ran towards Kavod. He of course took up the challenge with relish. Any blows that landed on Corvellus also dealt damage back on Kavod.

Pang-Lo unleashed Obsidian butterflies towards them both. Kavod parried every butterfly that came at him with dexterity and Corvellus ducked and weaved out of the way. He then announced that he wasn't there and disappeared to re-appear closer to the rest of the group, near the entrance. Mistress Li's hand naturally went in for the pockets on the inside of his jacket while An-Mo took a swipe at him, the result of which hurt her more than him.

A few seconds later however and Corvellus stepped to the side and vanished out of this time and place. Li's hand was in mid-air with nothing in it and there was blood on the ground where Corvellus had taken wounds.

Dazzel picked up the baby, who shrunk his shield around himself and the group left the ice-tunnels the way they had come.

Once outside, and back inside Soltranauch, the baby pointed West making it obvious which way they should head.

A short journey (in the mechanical leviathon) later and they came upon a great circle of stone with a flame in front of it that changed shape into the form of a woman.

Talking to her she tells that the baby was, in his previous Exalted life, a great Solar Warrior and Leader. he was also her partner and she has been inexorably linked to him and that he would one day rise again to be great.

She also tells the group to walk through the portal in front of them and it will return them to Nexus. The group complain somewhat about this, saying that's not where they want to go, but others point out that it would be better to go there initially than to have to make their way back south by their own means, even if this is with the aid of Soltranauch. So they comply and walk through the gate........to Nexus?

Thanks for posting these, Sam.