Journal of Miyara Kyosuke (84)

    I have launched into the air from the tower.  In my right hand is the stone, in the left the magical dagger.

    Through the hail and rain I see a flying disk, a sky-shark, with vicious demon riding on it.  It is very frightening, but I am determined and overcome it.  It's coming to me fast, warming up it's man-sized sword.  I charge, using the stone to boost my speed, tucking in my wings like a swallow.  It will have the least change to hit me, and I can try to dart aside at the last moment.
    I swoop by rapidly and dodge the demon's sword.  As I race for the hole, I hear it coming up behind me fast.  I dodge again.  He shoots past and turns back.  He's faster and turns more readily, heading back at me.
    I invoke the stone and blast him with fire, but it burns my wings instead.  It really hurts.
    He turns again to make another pass.  Burn. Inferno. Destroy.  But it fails, and he swings back in.
    This time he connects with the sword.  I am seriously hurt, but continue in my mission.
    Fire.  All-consuming fire.  All-destroying fire.  An inferno that boils the sky.  Centered on him.
    Out comes a fireball that streaks into him and burns him.  He screams.  He keeps coming.  I dodge again.
    My wings burn merrily as the first of two fireballs fails, but the second hits him again.  He roars and sweeps in again.  He strikes me hard again.  I try the fireball again, but fail.
    Again he turns, I fireball again.  Instead of charging and flying past, he stands right in front of me, and as he comes forward he slides backwards.  Backwards is not his thing -- he missed.  I catch him with a fireball at short range.  I pursue the attack.  If I die, I will do so honorably.
    I can see the hole about fifty feet in front of me.  The fight is travelling at about ten feet per second.  I have about ten rounds to go.
    I dodge, but immolate myself with the next fireball.  Dodge again, slam home another fireball.  I am thirty feet from the hole.  He slices me with the sword again.  I fireball him.  That is my last conscious act.

    I awaken.  I am sitting at the base of a tree, propped up against it.  It is snowing, with snow around me on the ground.  It is heavily overcast.  I am not burnt.  I am weak but not dead.  The stone is not here.  The dagger is here.  There is no indication of where I might be in relation to the tower.  It does feel like the same sort of woods as that area.  I try to stand up, and find I can walk.  The wings are still there, not burnt.  I can fly.
    I fly up over the canopy and look around.  The tower is a few hundred yards away.  I fly to it, but it is empty.  No one is here, living or dead.  The hole is still there.
    I try to sense where the stone might be.  It's south and a little west of me, quite some distance off, down in the Yetsin Valley perhaps.  I try to call it to me, but it doesn't seem to be coming.

    I must go after it.  I look around for some rope or vine to carry the dagger, but can't find any.  I set off travelling, pacing myself for a long flight.  I stop and rest every hour or so, and sleep overnight.
    The next morning I get up and go again.  The stone is on the move.

    I reach the Master Og's tower, and the others are no longer here but the stone was too.  It is moving directly west.

    ((The others reach the cult of Tzeentch.  See Notes for description of the place.  They climb down the net, observing a hobbit family lose a child into the crevasse and praise Tzeentch for Change.  Slurk leads them to a particular cave.  He introduces them to Pietra Trowbensaft.  He says they've all sworn allegiance to Tzeentch and hope to participate in the destruction of the world.  She tells them to follow her to the confession chamber.
    Another trip on the nets.  Rabena slips, but catches herself smoothly.  Pietra gives her a dark look.  Pito slipped too, but didn't catch himself -- Goru catches him.
    They enter another cave.  This is church-like, and they are lead into a small chamber past the altar.  Pietra looks at each in turn with a piercing eye, and starts with Rabena.
    She asks who she is, and where she was born.  Then she asks how she first came to appreciate the glory of Tzeentch.  "Nurgle is an abomination, is he not?"  Of course, she fights disease wherever she goes.  Pietra reaches into a bag and pulls out a bunch of holy symbols, all of which Rabena recognizes -- all barbarian gods.  She then asks if she spits on the symbols of these false gods.  Rabena says all but the symbol of Bianca, who fights the disease of Nurgle.  Pietra does not like that answer.  Then she asks if she's willing to cast off the shackles of love, which blinds us to the righteousness of Eternal Change.  "Sure," says Rabena, and says she doesn't understand what she means by shackles of love, and Pietra says she's not ready and casts her gaze on the dwarf.
    She asks the same questions to Goru.  He comes up with an amusing story, and spits on Grungni's symbol.  He gladly casts of shackles of love.  He also treats death with joy and treats life as a trick meant to deceive.  Also throw off material things so they don't bind him on this corrupt earth.  Pietra produces a bag.  He throws what he has left into it -- helm, remains of mail shirt, padding, maul.  Pietra catches the maul before it hits the bottom of the bag.
    Sun gets by ok, not very well.
    Carimera gets by.
    Pito is next.  He passes quite well.
    Ashu next, stuttering.  Pietra is fascinated with his speech pattens.  Ashu won't hand over his stuff and thus fails.
    She then does Hosei.  Hosei fails, refusing to spit on symbols.
    Baraku passes.
    Next is Miyara.  She discusses her swords, but hands them over.  Pietra then points at the stones.  Miyara says she carries them for Tzeentch.  Pietra indicates the  bag.  After asking if Pietra serves Tzeentch, Miyara puts them in the bag.  Pietra seems neither to know nor care what they are.
    Rabena and Ashu failed.  Pietra tells them to follow her, leads them back through the curtain, back past the altar and to the edge of the cave.  They walk up to the edge, and Pietra tells them to jump.
    Rabena jumps immediately, and calls on an air spirit to hold her up.  Just before she hits the rocks, she's quickly and softly slowed.  She floats about twenty feet above the rocks, cradled on the wind.  She tells the spirit to gently raise her back up, and she is soon standing beside Pietra.  The elemental shreds the net in the process.
    Pietra -- and several others -- is astonished.  She turns to Ashu and says it's his turn.  He says no.  She keeps trying to convince him to give up his axes.  She says Tzeentch wants him to -- he looks back at Carimera and says, "No, she doesn't."  Pietra says to everyone to follow her and takes them to yet another cave which is where they will stay.))

    I have been following the stone for several days, across the Yetsin Valley and to the mountains at the east side, southward, then up into the mountains.  Up a mountain towards the top, I come across a band of chaos warriors.  It's obvious they saw me, and one heads up the mountain as fast as he can.  I can go faster and get to the top before he does.
    I look over the valley with its caves and nets, soaring in the updrafts, trying to locate the Sogin Roku or Miyara.

    ((as the rest of the party go to the mouth to look with everyone else, a sudden gust of wind sucks them out into open air.))