Snowball fight!

[thessalian]

When we left off, we were trundling along through Ussura in dog-sleds, headed for the Montaigne army camp and Montegue. Alejandro, daft bugger that he is, decided to try to scoop up a snowball as we went -- managed it too (Mad-as-a-fish made Toos make a Finesse roll for that), and proceeded to hurl it at Francine. We eventually had to stop for due to forest but the camp wasn't very far so we got out and walked. Well, that was the theory, anyway. The reality was that Alejandro was still doing the snow-play and Aidan eventually chucked a snowball at him (hit him in the shoulder; I flubbed the roll a bit) and told him to shut up. Snowball fight ensued. Basically it was Axel, Violante and Aidan against Alejandro, and Alejandro obviously came out the worse for it -- he got very cold and very wet and Toos was docked one kept dice on every Finesse roll for being an idiot. ("Played by Toos" is apparently a 2-pt character flaw.) Of course, it got worse for poor Alejandro when we trekked through the forest; he decided to try to get revenge by shaking a heap of snow off the limbs of a convenient tree onto our heads. Toos flubbed her roll so badly that Mad-as-a-fish deemed that Alejandro got hit with all of it, and was in the grip of incipient pneumonia. At which point Aidan's line had to be, "So now do you see the problem with snow?"

But of course, such harmless fun (well, harmless for anyone but Alejandro, anyway) couldn't last, and we heard those dreaded words: "Make a Perception roll". I got the highest (32) and, while Iduen heard movement in the trees, Aidan heard a gun being cocked. Maybe screaming a warning wasn't the best idea, because four Ussuran bandits came out shooting at that point, and hit Violante -- she'd already taken several dramatic wounds and basically fell over at that point. (On the other hand, being ambushed with no warning reduces your passive defense, I read, so I don't think I was that stupid.) And once again, One-Attack Aidan managed to do something right; stabbed somebody and managed not to kill them. I'm glad I didn't make a higher roll; killing one of Matushka's children is probably not the best thing in the world to do when she's actually throwing a blizzard in the faces of her own children to help you out. Said blizzard died when Iduen shot and killed one of the Ussurans, and Aidan got stabbed. But he was pretty much out of the fight due to injured Violante anyway -- while he was healing, a bear apparently turned up out of nowhere and started attacking people. It was a little too convoluted to follow at first, but it was mostly Alejandro and Axel stabbing this bear, and then Alejandro got wounded so it was Axel and the bear. Eventually the bear took off (after four dramatic wounds; that was big of it...) and Axel, big dumb ox that he is, wanted to chase the thing. We convinced him not to; we had enough problems. Violante was unconscious and Alejandro was succumbing to the cold and the pneumonia, so Axel carried Violante while the rest of us goaded the priest so he'd walk under his own power.

We got out of the forest and into hell, basically. Scorched earth policy was obviously a large factor in the Ussuran defense against the Montaigne. There were frozen corpses, mostly locked in their final battle positions. Mad-as-a-fish put it best when he said, "They've obviously made Montegue pay for every step he took into Ussura". But despite all the frozen corpses, we weren't doing too badly cold-wise; obviously Matushka was being nice, seeing as we wanted to get the usurper out of her land. Eventually we got near to the Montaigne camp (white tents; Aidan tried to explain about camoflage to Iduen again) and who should we find standing guard? Only the same bloody Musketeer captain who started chasing us when I first started the game, that's who -- him and twenty men. We had the advantage, though; they were being hit hard by blizzard, while the worst of it was sort of going around us. They tried shooting at us. They missed. We managed to slip past them and into the camp, got challenged a few times but thankfully had our documentary evidence with us; we managed to make it to Montegue's tent and handed over the compass and the letter from his wife. So he reads it, says he's taking his army home ... and the blizzard stops. We completed a campaign and got lots more experience points! Yay!

Well, not so yay. When the two compasses were put together, a Porte hole opened up out of nowhere and scooped up one of them. Francine went a little woozy (she can feel it when Porte magic is at work) and Iduen sort of peeked into the hole. This is dangerous at the best of times, but obviously necessary to the plot. She started to collapse and Aidan, nice kid that he is, grabbed her before she hit the ground and supported her; not well, as brawn is not his strong point, but as best he could. Turned out she'd had a premonition of sorts; the compass was going to this set of islands out far to the west. Francine has experience of those; something about a chicken's foot and something she's carrying in a pouch that she's too scared to look in and even more scared of throwing away. Anyway, I'm sure the compass won't be put to a nice use out there ... especially not if Alejandro's fever-vision is to be believed.

Here's a thing that I haven't explained -- Alejandro's bracelet. It originated with a guy named Finn (now no longer in the game; formerly played by Toos' partner, Andy O'Hara). He went, Alejandro got shot in the head due to a flubbed roll and went into a coma and was out for months (Toos played an alternate character; more on him in a minute). When Alejandro came to, he was wearing the bracelet. It's set with six pearls. At the moment, four of them are black and two are white. Apparently, all of them were white once; they turn black when something happens to this bunch of Syrneth artefacts. Apparently, things happening with the artefacts are bad, but the Explorer's Society doesn't seem much bothered about that, as they spend a lot of time digging them up. Anyway, Alejandro had a fever-dream of a man with a raven on his shoulder who told him that something whose name I can't remember was coming back, then looked at the bracelet and said, "You're going to have an interesting year". I don't like it when GMs say 'interesting'...

Anyway, we had a few options after that; Francine wanted to see Patlow as it's unlikely that she'd get to Ussura again, being a Porte sorceress and reviled by Matushka. Aidan wanted to go to Atelmos and have words with another member of the College about some of his ideas concerning firearms. But mostly what we wanted to do was get to Halberg and find out about the artefacts we travelled through Eisen with, not to mention exchange information about the compass with Colson. However, before we got there, we got a surprise note from an old character of Toos' -- Pietro was in Frieberg, Axel's sort of area. This suited all of us -- Axel could make the much-necessary family visit, we could relax and reprovision in something resembling luxury and we could see Pietro. As well as being a Vodacce with tracking abilities, a talent for swordplay and an intense desire to screw almost anything that moves (married but with mistress and taste for sailor boys), he's a member of the Explorer's Society with more languages than you could shake a dictionary at. He's joining the party for the time being, I think; we're going to need him. And I think Aidan's going to get along quite well with Pietro -- the guy knows languages, is willing to teach Aidan Vodacce, has some information that Aidan wants concerning another member of the party and wants to invite Aidan to join the Explorers. I'm going to be a member of two societies if this keeps up.

Edit
First amusing thing that took place with Pietro -- he turned up dressed like an Eisen peasant, which depressed Iduen somewhat because clothes make the man for her. Pietro explained that it was best to blend in (Vodacces tend to get spat on in the streets, while rich-looking people tend to get robbed -- this is Freiberg, where there are no laws). At which point, Iduen got this big grin and said, "Ooooooooh! You're in camoflage!" Thus, Iduen finally gets the idea and apparently she won't let go of it for the next month. Pity us.
/Edit

Actually, it was due to Pietro that I got my first experience point that didn't involve the end of day's play or finishing a campaign. Basically, Aidan's heard stories about the sailor boys and Pietro mentioned some lady of his acquaintance, and the following conversation took place:

Aidan: I was given the impression that your preferences lay in ... another direction.
Pietro: My preferences lie in ... several directions.
Aidan: Well, just so long as your preferences don't lie in my direction.
Pietro: You're not my type.

Dave was so charmed by this, as was everyone else who caught it, that he insisted that Toos and I get an extra experience point for that. Mad-as-a-fish shrugged and said, "Well, seeing as everyone else thought it was so cute..." And so I got an experience point for dialogue. Who'd have thunk?

Anyway, we're mid-way through dinner with Axel's family. (We might have got farther, I may add, without the jokes about DrachenEisen codpieces. But the bit about the groin-mounted crossbow had Kat, Toos and me in complete hysterics -- what is it about guys accidentally hitting themselves with a bolt from a groin-mounted crossbow that just tickles the funny bone?) Aidan's currently getting odd looks for being teetotal and Axel's squirming because he's invited his girlfriend (Eponine; Francine's twin sister) to visit his family and he hasn't told them that he's as good as engaged to Eponine yet. This should be fun. I have plans for Aidan for the rest of the evening but we'll just have to see how that goes. But I'm an experience point away from being able to up Aidan's Brawn, which I wouldn't do except if Aidan ever gets badly wounded like when leaving that little scummy riverport in Montaigne, I'd rather him not take too many dramatic wounds no matter how high his Resolve is.

Another benefit for Aidan -- we found out what the charmed handkerchief does. Mad-as-a-fish handed me his book on the Sidhe and gave me a choice of Queen Maab and Queen of the Skies. I get Apprentice and Adept related to the one I chose. That should come in handy...

Much like the game's mixed triumphs, Sunday really had its ups and downs. First thing that happened was on what cholten99 will insist on referring to as still Saturday; he's celebrating our one-month anniversary by the lunar calendar (actually, by the 7th Sea calendar, but what the hell) and bought me a gorgeous choker. Unfortunately, it's not something I could wear regularly because there are protruding bits of metal that dig into my throat hard enough to cause bruises when recumbent. Which sucks because I'd like to wear it regularly.

Good news: we didn't go back to O'Neill. Bad news: we went to the Golder's Green branch of that vegetarian Chinese buffet with the edible upholstery instead.

And then there was the migraine...

I'd like to go home now; Julie's in and babbling about her trip to Oslo this weekend and the holiday she's planning to take with Kate in Paris God only knows or cares when. But that's not going to happen any more than those two just shutting up is, so I'm just going to ignore it and get through as best I can.

Thess

Comments

[nightskywarlock.livejournal.com]

> edible upholstery

?!

[thessalian.livejournal.com]

I refer to soya meat. Apparently some inventor-type came up with soya meat while trying to make biodegradable car upholstery.