Session 15: 9/24/13

[MARIS INTERSTITIAL] Maris meets with Yvenne and Kestrel aboard the Leviathan and requests their aid to capture Quinn. The Raven Brotherhood will help set up an ambush, and Kestrel will get a drop ship.

[KESTREL INTERSTITIAL] Back in Kestrel's quarters on board the Leviathan. "I'm so sorry that you have to be dragged into all of these war meetings, and I'm taking you away from our daughter." Kestrel asks for Yvenne's help in getting the slaves on her side. She asks Yvenne to help her find someone among the slaves to lead the slave battalion, so they are not treated simply as cannon fodder - Zabad, perhaps. Amnesty? Yvenne has been thinking the same thing! Zabad! But there is one more thing... "This is much more difficult... but, I think, we need to find time to do things together as a family." Including Meyers.

[QUINN INTERSTITIAL] Quinn sells Farouk on recovering Locke's ship, at the Glass Palace.

[YVENNE BUILDER (1)] Yvenne heads back to her HQ on Isle Morena. On her way, she sends messages to leaders in the Brotherhood, putting out an APB on Quinn, and reminding them to use their Vaylen detectors. Word comes back of a contact who knows Quinn, who flags Yvenne at one of her work sites. "I hear you're looking for Lt. Laila Quinn. Well, she stands out, so when she moves, she's noticed." It seems Quinn is still interested in the ship at the hangar. They're likely to strike soon, before their intel is stale. Yvenne lets Maris know the score.

[MARIS CONFLICT] FIREFIGHT!!!! Maris and Kestrel and their forces lay in wait for Quinn as she drives up in Tamar-emblazoned anvil car. A brief, bloody fight ensues as the Vaylen are ambushed. A chaotic combat ensues, with Maris' Sodalis laying waste with their jack lasers, overwhelming the assailants and taking several hits in the process. Maris stands over a tackled Quinn, sword raised, as the Vaylen abandon their commander and flee in the Anvil car.

[CROW INTERSTITIAL] Kestrel is on her way out the door of the palace when Crow confronts her. "You're leaving again." "Did you forget that I captain a ship, and we're in a war?" "Did you forget that you're the Forged Lord? Did you forget that you have a family you barely talk to?" "My family needs me to fight the alien invaders who want to dominate us." "What if THIS IS ALL THE TIME YOU HAVE TO READ YOUR CHILD A STORY??" Kestrel tells him to keep to his man's place, in the home.

[YVENNE BUILDER (2)] Yvenne meets with Maris to develop propaganda posters to motivate slaves to join with the nobles, under the promise of amnesty. DEFEND YOUR PLANET. DEMAND YOUR RIGHTS. The idea is to make them think they demanded and won amnesty.

[CROW COLOR] Crow goes into Raven's room; only the young man's eyes can move to follow his father. Crow shakes his head. "I... didn't catch her. She left before I got to her." "You're lying."

[TORRENT INTERSTITIAL] Torrent goes to see Maris at the compound and asks if there's anything they can salvage. Maris tells him that he's another mistake, someone she loved who loved the cause more than her. She asks what the relationship meant to him, specifically, not in lofty generalities. He says, "hope." She says, "get out. GET OUT."

[KESTREL COLOR] Kestrel is in Raven's recovery room, having gotten word that he'd woken up. She goes to visit, but he's not conscious. She leaves a card with a picture of them as children.

[MARIS COLOR] Maris tells Quinn that she knows torture would just be "interesting" for a Vaylen. So she has Nereia lock the sensory deprivation helmet onto her. "I'll be back in about a week."

[TORRENT COLOR] Torrent is sitting on a beach, by a fire. He has a sack with him, full of things from the last four years with Maris. One by one, he throws them into the fire. He looks last at books on parenting, and places them in the fire.

MANEUVER: PIN vs. ASSESS. The Vaylen are pinned (for 6 dice) - Torrent's organization is tied up with trying to counter Yvenne's propaganda campaign and bring slaves back into their fold. But he exploits his Psychological connections to learn all about what's going on, assessing the human disposition.

3 (in game) months until we find out what happens next...

Session 14: 9/10/13

[MARIS BUILDER (1)] Maris recruits Calliope and her artillery company to man the Tamar ships, instead of the big guns overlooking the Glass Palace.

[TORRENT COLOR] Frost finds Alix with his head in his hands. "You're still moping. Look at the bright side, you can add 'having Maris as your lover' to your list of crazy things you've done that you should not have survived." He drags Alix to the shower.

[YVENNE COLOR] It is late at night. Kestrel is exhausted and asleep when Yvenne enters her quarters. Yvenne places her Vaylen detector against Kestrel's head, and breathes a sigh of relief.

[TORRENT BUILDER] Torrent gives a speech to the slaves, saying that the Devil they don't know - the Vaylen - is better than the nobles, the Devil they do. They are inspired to greater violence against the nobles.

[MARIS BUILDER 2-3] Maris attempts to contact the Inquisition and learns that the Mundus cathedral ship is infested with Vaylen. She cannot get Rhinaldi, the Dregus in charge of the Inquistion, to agree to take the Dregutai out of counsel over the next Archcotare, so instead she insists on her privileges as Cotar Fomas. Chief among those privileges, apparently, is slaughtering Vaylen in close quarters with a fusor.

[CROW INTERSTITIAL] Crow and Lycelle come to the Leviathan to meet with Kestrel. It turns out that Raven may not be entirely a vegetable. Lycelle meets privately with Kestrel, and warmly. "What are you intending to do... I mean about everything?" Kestrel: "They declared war on us. This is my role." Lycelle implies that Kestrel is too young to take Kaduka's mantle of warlord. "This isn't fair to you." Lycelle reveals that she has asked Crow to marry her, which would make her the eldest Tamar. "What you two decide to call yourselves is your business. But if you think that a lifetime of bearing children and planning parties prepares you for fending off an invasion by a hostile alien race, then you're more clueless than I thought."

[MARIS INTERSTITIAL] Maris goes to Yvenne, distraught. They have a long conversation about free will that I didn't take adequate notes on. Yvenne is convinced that the problem is Maris rushing headlong into decisions, but Maris has metaphysical concerns - if there is no river flowing her along with it, that would be an elegant explanation of why so much of her life has been chaos. She also discusses vivisecting Sparrow in great detail, which doesn't get much of a rise out of Yvenne. What does is her suggestion that if the humans have a choice to fight or not fight, the Vaylen have a choice to conquer or not conquer. "If we don't have a nature, maybe they don't either."

[TORRENT INTERSTITIAL] Torrent goes to meet Yvenne. "I want to know where the Brotherhood stands in all of this." "Torrent, what do you say we cut through the bullshit. I haven't slept much in two weeks... I sympathize with the struggles of the slaves, but I have no desire to bow down before alien invaders." "I was connected to Phoenix when she died. She felt her sister tear her child out of her, the child that she so wanted." "The vaylen in her head felt those things." "You're deluding yourself, Yvenne." "All I have in my life has come from rejecting people who have tried to control my choices. I don't see how this is any different." "I've spent much of my life romanticizing what freedom is because I've never really had it." "I dont' know why you would choose certain death later... over..." "Certain death now." They shake hands, and part, enemies.

[YVENNE INTERSTITIAL] Yvenne summons Kestrel to her factory. Kestrel is intrigued, but concerned that the scanners have to make contact with the skin. But it's still wonderful! Yvenne is ridiculously happy. "I can't believe they spent so much time trying to stop us from getting married, but look at what you've done! This is amazing!"

[KESTREL BUILDING] Kestrel grabs a tech to look at Yvenne's design, and maybe improve it. But late one night while she's deep into it, drinking a carbonated beverage, she blabs to a colleague who is a mole for the Vaylen.

[TORRENT COLOR] Torrent meet with Quinn and says that the slaves were inspired by his speech, but the Mundus, the nobles... ::shrugh:: Quinn:"More for us."

[MARIS COLOR] Maris is looking at her own blood under a microscope.