Altered States

Note to self: mixing a lack of good/enough sleep and heavy reading of a Kushiel's Legacy book can put me in a very, very odd mindset.
I spent most of yesterday feeling more loopy than the few occasions I've been anything approaching drunk. In a way, it was rather fun. I felt borderline giddy and poetic. But then, I may have overly worried a friend online, too.

Edit: I'm told I've been lax in my (limited) chronicling of .

So let's see... I left off with the arrival at Gem and "discussion" over plans on how to deal with the First and Forsaken Lion's aerial fortress. That became something of a moot point.

The group set the Five Metal Shrike down a safe distance away and closed to the battlefield on foot. Selina, Kujath, and Symphony went stealthily to find the undead army's leadership while the rest split up in such a way as to make use of those few characters with a War ability over 1. This meant a couple people were acting as "special" individuals within the units, but were otherwise "worn" by our quasi-NPC leader(s). Fair enough. Alexi got to toss around a couple combat spells with no fear of injuring friends or being offed while casting. Nightlily showed off her new wings (which I recall her picking up, but not precisely where off the top of my head). Tamara blew the heck out of some enemies with her war strider's essence cannon and Kashim actually obliterated a whole unit or two with his offensive capabilities. A field of carnage, but not all that interesting on that end otherwise.

The sneaky trio tracked down the leader and bodyguard of the army - a pair of abyssal exalts, if I'm not mistaken. There was a few moments of observation, then a quick flurry of activity. Selina, as seems to be her style, threw a lot into a rapid series of attacks, this time finding it all evaded. That's costly, though, on both sides. Three-to-two, and I don't know that the abyssals had our level of power. They put up a decent struggle, but didn't last very long. And with that, the army largely fell apart, leaving our intrepid circle to enter Gem itself...

... to find it under occupation by Autochthonian forces hellbent on efficiency. I'm not sure the state of the city sat well with anyone, but we all played nice with the recent conquerers to gain access to the gate to their home and in hopes of bettering the city in the long run. Nightlily got in a rather heated discussion with Symphony (which Alexi probably would have hit Limit Break during, if she'd actually been there) about treatment of the locals being used as manual labor. In the end, something of an accord was reached, Nightlily given the chance to make some adjustments to duty rosters to lighten pressure on those least fit.

This "story" came to an end with a bang - but one I'm still confused by. At the gateway, the circle witnessed (rather inexplicably) a vision of the FaFL and an apparently subservient death lord, a great eye in the sky, an invasion force of his falling from the sky and being destroyed, and the fortress we had come most hurriedly to head off and deal with being repulsed. I'm still confused by it, but it seems the FaFL may possess and have made use of an artifact, the Eye of Autochthon, in an attempt to bring his forces over from the Underworld (either to Creation or Autochthon) only to be deemed unworthy or fail his rolls. So it would seem the FaFL is in Autochthon himself, but his "fleet" was destroyed and his fortress is stuck in the Underworld, rendering all plans of what to do about it pointless. ... I don't know, it feels like we bore witness to important events, but really didn't have anything to do with them.

Afterward, Kujath pilfered some gemstones to drop mysteriously in people's pockets (thankfully admitting it before people got too paranoid) and the circle was introduced to Vee - Nightlily's lunar "mate" who seemed to come out of nowhere, nowhere being Nightlily's clothing. She seems... emotive, but not very vocal. Then the circle continued on to Autochthon, as it's still Alexandra's intent to: cure the Contagion there, defeat the First and Forsaken Lion, mend the shadowlands there, get the Tripartate to cease their invasion of Creation (and probably give up Gem), and eventually assist Symphony with waking Autochthon (though that seems to have more to do with things in Creation. Hearthstones have ceased functioning, which is an annoyance. It seems like there's a little bit of politics to work, but it doesn't look (from here) that it will be overly complicated.

So... it's still odd not to have Auric present. While I don't actually object at all, I was a little put off by the way Vee seemed to be drawn into the game without any OOC discussion beforehand. And Selina seems to be butting heads with Alexandra over leadership decisions - though I can't decide how much of that is conscious and/or intentional. Aaaand, yeah, that's about it.