Session 8: 2/26/13

BURNING AVARINE

[YVENNE COLOR] Yvenne goes shopping for purple rings for her and Kestrel.
[TORRENT COLOR] Alix pins a beautiful veil on Phoenix, to "keep her safe."
[MARIS COLOR] Maris tries to get in to see Locke, but is rebuffed.
[CROW INTERSTITIAL] Crow has dinner with everyone except Maris and lays out the complexity of noble approval of the marriage.
[YVENNE INTERSTITIAL] Yvenne meets with Maris about concealing the Brotherhood's activities under a Mundus contract. Maris offers to introduce her to the Quartermaster.
[KESTREL BUILDING (1)] Yvenne and Kestrel meet with Myers. Kestrel sends a very nice apologetic letter to Myers and they meet at a super-posh restaurant on Isla Tienne. They express their apologies for embarassing him at the party and propose that he join them in a triad marriage to provide an heir. They tell him it would be possible for him to have his own male lover on the side... only to discover that, contrary to the rumors, he is not actually gay. They assure him that they are not ruling out love between him and Kestrel (but, seriously, Yvenne is gay). Kestrel points out that there's at least as much chance they'll fall in love as that he'll fall in love with whichever other noble daughter he might be pressured into marrying. He ultimately agrees. They get drunk.
[PHOENIX BUILDING] Phoenix gets her BS tech.
[MARIS BUILDING] Maris confronts Phoneix about the surrogacy issue. In a fit of rage, she punches Phoenix with a mailed fist, crushing her skull and leaving her barely alive.  In horror, she desperately tries to dress her wounds.
[KESTREL COLOR] Kestrel is horrified.
[PHOENIX BUILDING (2-3)] Phoneix is rushed to Locke's surgery.
[KESTREL INTERSTITIAL] Yvenne, Crow, Kestrel, and Myers decide what to do about Maris.
[YVENNE BUILDER] Yvenne forges some documents to bolster her claim to nobility.  With Maris' help (in a flashback), she publishes a treatment of her romance with Kestrel that speaks to the love at the heart of the Mystes sect, convincing the Inquisition to turn a blind eye to Kestrel's impending polyamorous relationship.
[TORRENT INTERSTITIAL] Torrent meets with Maris, neither of them having slept, to ask if she sees any future for them now that they have found each other again. She kisses him, and we end on that.

MANEUVER ROLL: Human Conserve v. Valyen INUNDATE.  Vaylen win, blunted by the Conserve. The slaves rise up in a final push against the nobles, who are distracted with wedding bullshit. The Sodalis are nearly overwhelmed and begin using lethal force against them, inflaming the uprising even more. But as the slaves throw their bodies onto the breach, the Glass Palace still stands...

NOTE: This is the moment Maris has been waiting for.  She is a monster with Anvil training and a Power 6. Her punch inflicted an H9 wound, permanently maiming Phoenix. As a player, I'm torn between being horrified by what is really an awful thing to do to someone (that Maris doesn't know is a Vaylen yet) and being elated by seeing a carefully crafted PC's power on display.