M.I.S.T. Campaign: Session 25

Lexi gathered us all in the portion of the villa where she was staying the next morning to go into more detail about that whole love triangle mess that she figured out.  The central figures are, apparently, Donnie and Harmonia.  Whom Aphrodite made fall in love with each other.  Then she told Lexi to get the two of them together.  Which runs counter to what Hera wants Lexi to do, make sure Harmonia’s marriage to Nicholas goes off without a hitch.  But when Lexi looked at it all she figured out that, although Nicholas loves Harmonia, she actually loves Victor.  And Donnie actually loves a Scion of Baron Samedi named Brigitte.  So Lexi would rather get those two couples together.

And Hera has leverage over her too.  Her Dad’s affair with Aphrodite apparently came while he was undergoing a “trial separation” with his wife.   So Hera viewed it as an illicit affair and now has him being tortured by the Kindly Ones in the afterlife.  But she says that she can get him released if Lexi does as she asks.  I offered just to try to summon his ghost for her.  It’s a trick I picked up when I became a Demigod, though I’m not entirely certain that it would have worked in this case.  And, Gods, you could tell just by looking at her how badly she wanted that.  But she just couldn’t bring herself to risk it right now.

But in a nutshell, things are a giant mess and no matter how they turn out at least one of the Dodekatheon is going to be pissed off.  Needless to say, I’m thrilled by this whole setup.

Anyway, the decision was made to go shopping while trying to figure this all out.  And I somehow got myself talked into going along.  You know, because all guys just love shopping.  But as it turns out, we didn’t actually get any shopping done.  We were being followed, I didn’t notice it but some of the others did.  There were…things, with no eyes, that kept what seemed to be nemean snakes on leashes

And before we figured out what to do about the one that was close to us a woman in the crowd fell back screaming with no eyes.  And…I hesitated.  It wasn’t the eyeless figure that gave me pause, though I could tell at a glance that he was formidably strong, or whatever strange venom the snakes may have had.

I was worried about doing something blatantly supernatural in front of all the mortal onlookers, of proving to whomever was watching beyond any shadow of a doubt that I’m more than mortal.  I remembered how hard of a loop I was thrown when I learned about all this stuff, I guess.  And it made me reluctant to do something that could cause a town full of mortals to undergo a similar realization.

A fight broke out anyway of course.  All my hesitation did was to prevent myself from preparing with knacks and boons ahead of time.  It’s a mistake I won’t make again.

M.I.S.T. Campaign: Homework

The band’s been through quite a bit by now.  We’ve certainly learned more about each other than when I first started writing all this stuff down.  Which is hardly surprising.  The revelation of all this divine stuff turned the world upside down and inside out for all of us.  And it seems to show in all of us, to some extent.  Except for Ken, but that’s undoubtedly because she was raised by her Divine Parents and none of this was really news for her.  I doubt she realizes just how lucky she was for that.

Anyway, updated opinions, in no particular order.

I’ll start with Cindy.  She doesn’t back down.  I’m not even sure she knows how to.  She never hesitates to throw herself headlong into whatever conflict presents itself to her, whether it plays to her strengths or not.  Her strength of spirit and confidence in herself are nigh unshakable.  It took something as extreme as learning that she’d been corrupted by Utgard-Loki from a Demigod prepared to kill her for it to even make her falter.

But by Odin I’ve never seen such recklessness or unrepentant need to prove one’s self.  And once she gets an idea into her head she ignores all counsel.  Especially, I suspect, if it comes from a man.  She’s very nearly gotten herself killed because of it twice now, and Utgard-Loki’s taint marks her still.  She tells of lessons of Leonidas, of great heroes and leaders of old.  But has she taken anything from them besides tales of glory?

And then there’s her slightly more stable other half, Claire.  It’s easy to overlook just how smart she is at times.  But she’s just as sharp as Andrew or me.  In a different way, too.  We tend to be more deliberate, analytical in our approach.  She definitely thinks quite a bit more laterally, and can quite easily come up with possibilities that have never occurred to me.

But there’s a reason it’s easy to overlook.  Even if she doesn’t do it nearly as much as she used to; she seems fond of presenting a harsh, grating, and gleefully violent front to just about everyone around her.  It disappears whenever something demands her attention, thank the gods.  But still, it can make having to deal with her a test of patience at times.

Then there’s Lexi.  She has a bigger heart, and cares more about others, than anyone else I’ve ever met.  It’s all completely genuine, too.  Which is fortunate, as she seems to be able to manipulate emotions and attentions at least as well as I can the elements.

But I can’t help but worry about her at times, and not just because of her physical frailty as compared to the rest of us.  Probably more than any of us she, she seems to be a bit on the naïve side.  And when she sees a problem that relates to her area of expertise she throws herself wholeheartedly into it.  I can’t help but think that one of these days she’s going to get herself burned.

Andrew’s the only other guy in the band.  He does more than any of us know, and sees more than any of us realize.  He may not have Cindy’s might, Lexi’s way with people, or Claire’s inventiveness.  But he’s never at a loss, and I’ve never doubted that I could depend on him at any given moment.  There are few situations where he would not be my first choice of companion to have alongside me.

I just wish he could let certain secrets lie.  I’m a private person, I know, but that’s because I’m still figuring out what I think about most of these things myself.  Still, at least when he discovers a secret it still stays one.

And…Ken.  She has shown perhaps more dedication to the missions we were assigned as heroes than any of us, and certainly took much of the risk upon herself in Thuringia.  You can question the wisdom of her decision, but there’s no contesting that it was a noble and courageous thing to do.   She certainly grasps the power of self-sacrifice.

But when you get beyond the missions?  Aside from the one notable exception she seems perfectly content to hold herself apart from the group.  And even then, despite what she led me to believe she tucked tail at the first sign that things might not be smooth sailing all the way.  And I can’t help but suspect that she led me on simply for a brief bit of fun.  Manannan Mac Lir said that if we don’t trust each other our enemies will exploit the cracks.  But the simple truth?  I can trust her to do what she thinks should be done, and little beyond that.

M.I.S.T. Campaign: Session 24

At some point while we were twisting about underwater Myrrine murmured into my ear that, since the pool was her body of water, she could make anyone looking into it see pretty much whatever she wanted them to.  That was shortly before she outmaneuvered me within those waters, ensured I was in a similar state of undress as all of them, and…saw to it that we all fully enjoyed one another’s company.  Let’s just say that all five of them were as exquisitely unforgettable as she promised.  Especially when she performed something she referred to as her “Whirlpool Technique” where she…

Umm, anyway, I was in the pool for a while.  And as it turns out I was lucky enough to emerge from it just about in time to catch Eris’s arrival at the party.  You know those scenes in the movies where everyone’s having a good time until the one person no one wanted to see shows up?  It was a lot like that.  But infinitely more dangerous and volatile since everyone present was possessed of some level of divinity.

She seemed to particularly enjoy taking shots at Lexi and Harmonia.  The shot at Lexi, basically insulting her because her father is mortal, of course made me want to cut in.  But Lexi’s a natural at handling herself in social situations like this, and I’m smart enough to know that I’d have probably only made things worse.  So I bit my tongue.  Cindy did not.  Thankfully, Lexi and Andrew stepped in and defused the situation before anything got out of hand.

…then Cindy propositioned Eris.  No clue what that was about.

After that Lexi filled Andrew and I in on a big romantic mess at the party that she was worried about.  I have no idea how she managed to figure it all out over the course of an hour or so.  Then again, she always seems to surprise us.  Anyway, the four people she seems to be particularly worried about are Donny, Brigitte (a Scion of Baron Samedi), Victor, and Harmonia.  Suffice to say, things were apparently a complicated to start with and Eris just made it worse.

And, of course, Lexi wants to fix it.  Thankfully the only help she seems to want from me is to talk to Victor to keep him distracted or something.  Then Aphrodite walked in and I ended up staring a bit, a lot.  Granted I think just about everyone did…but not everyone was standing right next to her daughter.  Thankfully I had a convenient excuse to leave and go talk to Victor, which I seized.

He was talking with Eric at the time, a Scion of Thor.  We didn’t really talk about much in particular.  But I did learn from them that as Demigods we’re apparently ideally suited to get things done for gods, powerful enough to handle the dangers thrown are way but not so wrapped up in Fate that it can bind us as much as it can the Gods.  In other words, we’re ideal gophers for them.

I get the feeling that things are going to become…even more interesting from now on.

M.I.S.T. Campaign: Session 23

The ceremony worked, or at least that’s sure what it looks like.  At first it looked like winter was going to hit hard; freak snowstorms, unusually low temperatures across the globe, and various other similarly dire weather patterns.  Then they stopped, just like that.  And now all indications point to a mild winter.  Mortal scientists, of course, are scrambling to try to figure out how things changed so suddenly.

The Legendary world knows that Fimbulwinter, Ragnarok, was forestalled.  Naturally, our part in it became widely known.  And now we seem to have something of a celebrity status in mythical circles.  For now at least, fame can be fleeting.  Regardless, it was apparently enough to get us invited to a wedding between a son of Ares and an adopted daughter of Hera being held in a Greek coastal town called Volos.

We entered the city through Avalon’s mists, weren’t there very long before some agent of the Dodekatheon by the name of Zotikos found us.  He didn’t waste any time leading us to a Terra Incognitae that contained a villa owned by Aphrodite, where the wedding was being held.  The place was breathtaking in a way that was entirely different than what I saw in Asgard.  The architectural styles are disparate, of course, but that wasn’t the only difference.  It might not even be the biggest one.  None of the Æsir seem to have quite as much concern for luxury as Aphrodite, after all.

As soon as we got inside Zotikos flagged a guy down.  Donnie Rhodes, his name was, another Scion of Aphrodite.   That much was obvious at a glance, the family resemblance between him and Lexi was unmistakable.  He knew who we all were already, and greeted us warmly before giving us a grand tour of the villa.  You could tell he was at home in social situations like this, drew us all into the conversation with ease.

He was apparently there at Hera’s behest to make sure everything went well for the couple and keep them happy, or something like that.  The exact details didn’t seem important.  It wasn’t the kind of thing he was likely to ask me to help with, anyway.  I’m not exactly a social butterfly.  So once the tour was over I found a place to change into a swimsuit and slipped into the pool.  Yeah, I headed right for the water again.  I suppose I may be getting a bit predictable in that regard.

But I’d never gone swimming with nymphs before.

Well, Crinaeae, if you want to get specific.  They move through the water like dolphins…and hunt like them too, so to speak.  I was barely even in the water before I had half a dozen of them swimming in an ever-tightening circle around me.  Donnie had mentioned that everyone hear knew who we were.  Apparently they found a tall, muscular, water Demigod from the far North to be…exciting.

Oh, I should mention that Crinaeae apparently don’t concern themselves with such trivialities as swimsuits.  And by Freyja every last one was absolutely gorgeous.  One of them, the apparent leader (who seems to be fond of using the water itself to aid in foreplay), might even be more beautiful than Lexi.

She was also the one to proposition me, quite boldly.  And for a second there; the way the light hit her, her hair flowed about her, how she bit her lip…I wasn’t sure I’d be able to resist if she’d asked me to do it right there in the middle of everyone.  That passed just as quickly as it came up, though, even if the interest didn’t.  And it occurred to me that it might be best to continue…talking, to her below the water.

I'm sure Claire had a camera on her, probably a mic too.