Journal of Miyara Kyosuke (92)

    We watch the approaching dwarves.  They are somewhat ahead of us, so it's hard to tell how fast they are coming.
    I'll climb a little to above their height.  Visibility is low, so I can't get too high and still keep them in sight.  It's now clear that there are even more of them, and that this 15 is only the first wave of many.  As they approach, even more come out of the clouds.  There is a vast number of them.
    I prepare to dive at any sign of hostilities, about 50 yards up.  I can't see any weapons from up here.

    The first three are now getting close.  Now it's clear that they are headed over the ship.  As they sweep over, Hosei steers the ship to the side as the dwarves toss a bomb over the side.  A sudden gust of wind, probably from Rabena, blows it over the side.
    Suddenly Ashu throws a ball of fire at them.  Hostilities are clearly under way.  The burning gyrocopters go into a dive and explode.
    I dive fast at the lead of the first one of the next three.  I head straight at him in a battle of nerves to get him to yield aside, but he doesn't yield and I smash into him.  I take a horrible blow, but the dwarf is unconscious and his machine dives out of control.  I bounce off, and would have broken free, but I catch my hand in the cockpit and it slows me down.  I try to grab two of his bombs and launch free.  The gyrocopters carry the mark of the Brotherhood of Memory.
    The gyrocopter scrapes along the bottom of the hull of the leatherhawk, scraping off the blades and falling fast.  The other two come in for a bomb run.  Baraku throws a stick at the rotor of one of them, while Rabena starts a tornado some distance off the ship aiming to take out the back one and then the middle one of the wave.  Ashu prepares to shoot a fireball at one as soon as it passes.
    Rabena's tornado wreaks havoc, while Ashu shoots up a wall of flame to intercept the incoming enemies.

    Now a new threat appears, demons that ride like the one I fought before, nine of them.

    I am not a good distraction to take enemies away from the ship, but it works the other way around.  I fly towards the hole as fast as I can with the support of the sokin roku.  Perhaps I can get there and summon it to throw it through.

    ((The tornado does work against the demons, but not as well as against the gyrocopters.  The latter are recovering from their disrupted flight and are starting to come back up again.
    Ashu is expanding his wall of fire to more like a sphere to protect the ship.
    Suddenly it becomes apparent that the demons are attacking the dwarves too.  Miyara commands that any of them who are fighting each other are to be left alone, concentrating only on the ones fighting us.
    Unfortunately the wall of flame is making things hotter, which is beginning to scorch the ship.  He drops the wall of flame and goes back to fireballs.
    Once Ashu drops the wall, it's then clear that the gyrocopters are fleeing.  As soon as they do that, the remaining four demon/shark pairs turn back to concentrate on the ship.
    Baraku tries to ice spike them, Ashu tries to fireball them, while Rabena uses elementals to keep the demons busy but doesn't hurt them.
    Hosei suggest that Rabena use air elementals to make them go faster.  She asks a couple to start pushing the ship.
    As the demons start to get close, it's clear that what they're trying to do is hack the ship apart, not the people on it.  That makes it hard for Ashu to target them with fireballs, but he tightens them down and that works better.
    After about ten minutes, the ship is in bad shape but propped up by air elementals.  The demons, however, puff out of existence as they die.
    Hosei passes the wheel to Carimera, telling her to hold it still.  He casts Mend on the wings, which will fix them until the next sunrise; unfortunately he doesn't actually know the spell, and it doesn't work.  He goes back to ask Sun how much fuel they have, and he says there is still plenty -- the guage has hardly moved.  He returns to take the wheel.
    From the air elementals, it's clear that the ship is still capable of flying, but it's very close to not working.  There is extra leather to repair the wings here, but it will take a leatherworker -- like Baraku.  Rabena gives him an air elemental to carry him out to the wings to repair them while they fly.
    Soon after he gets started, there is the sound of an incoming gyrocopter.  It's ahead of them, and coming up from the ground, climbing steeply to intercept the also climbing leatherhawk.  Hosei keeps the ship climbing over the approaching machine, and believes they will just miss each other.
    That's not the case, however.  It catches the underside of the ship at the bow, flips over, and starts sliding upside down along the deck towards the pilot house.  Air pushes from several of the crew shove it to a stop.
    The pilot comes tumbling out of it, screaming with rage, whips out her weapons.  It's Mahtilde.  Miyara launches herself into combat.  As they line up to face off, Slurk leaps from lying up against the gunwhale and hits Mahtilde from the side, screaming all the way.  The two go over the side of the ship and fall, she in the beastman's tight grasp.
    Rabena tells an elemental to rescue Slurk and let Mahtilde fall.  It has to hit Mahtilde several times to break them apart, but does indeed bring Slurk back to the deck.  He thanks Rabena heartily.
    Baraku does an excellent job under the circumstances.  It looks ugly but seems to be working much better.  The air elementals are pushing the ship forward and up, but Rabena believes the ship will indeed fly now, although it would obviously slow down.  She goes back to Sun, asking him to speed up the engine to see if it can sustain them without elemental help.  As the engines speed up, Rabena backs off the elementals -- the ship slows down and doesn't climb as well, but it does continue to fly.  She dismisses the elementals for the time.
    Hosei levels off the flight of the ship.

    After 30 minutes, they begin to sense that they are approaching the center of the storm.))

    I begin to sense that I'm approaching the center of the storm, and the sogin roku is unwilling to help.  I slow down dramatically and fly on.
    Ahead of me, I see the hole.  I see a vision.

    I am blind.  Everything is dark.  I am liquid, the thoughts of Tzeentch.  There is no-one left to drink me.  I drip down the walls of the chaos place.  They are coming to kill me.  The dwarves and their bombs mean to destroy me, and have another enemy to come too.  They think I'm important, but I'm not.  Kyosuke part will die, but the Tzeentch part will not, it will live forever.  Their actions will seal the victory of Tzeentch, and the 40 century plan will be completed.  I drip down the walls of the cave where the GM lived.  I was bubbling in his cave, the essence of Tzeentch, splattered on the walls of the cave by the bombs on the ropes.

    Somewhere along the flight I dropped the bombs, I don't remember when.

    It is a terrible sight.  I pass out.

    I wake up still in the air, much closer to the hole than I have ever been.  I summon the sogin roku, but it doesn't come.  I can sense it, but it isn't coming.  I turn and dive away from the hole, flying as hard as I can in the direction of the sogin roku.  I am still losing ground.
    I am slipping into the hole.  I cry out to everything to get me to the ship.  For a while, I make ground again.  I have managed to pull myself back to where I woke up, I think but I'm still being pulled and I am getting tired.
    I keep struggling, and finally start to hurt as I pour my whole being into it.
    I am almost fainting from lack of strength, but pull back to where I can fly.  The elementals can't help me here.  I head for the ground.  Finally I get an elemental to take me to the ground and lower me gently.
    I am too injured to know where I am, from pure exhaustion.  I have no option but to make myself comfortable and rest, knowing I will pass out soon.
    There are large rocks, big terracotta rocks around me, like giant shards of pottery.  That's all I see before I do pass out.

    ((The ship is geting closer, to where they can see the hole now.  All have visions, the end of their first visions, leaving them in various states.
    Miyara runs over to Hosei and attacks him, trying to kill him.
    Baraku calls for full speed from Sun, who is shaken but otherwise ok.  He brings the engine to full power, and the ship lurches foward.
    Baraku and Rabena each summon the sogin roku, both believing they must throw the rock through.  It heads straight to Rabena, who runs to the bow ready to throw it into the rapidly approaching hole.
    Miyara hacks into the unresisting Hosei.
    Baraku goes up behind Rabena, thinking she can't throw as well as he can.  If she pulls her arm back to throw too easily, he'll grab it and do it himself.
    Ashu shoves himself between Miyara and Hosei and tries to parry.  She attacks him too, striking hard.  He parries the next stroke, however, and she drops her wakizashi.  Again she strikes him hard, while he parries the next blow.  She keeps up the relentless attack on the crude barbarian with the axe.
    Meanwhile, the hole comes ever closer.  Baraku asks Rabena if he can throw it, and she passes it to him because although her vision shows her throwing it, it shows her failing.  He first throws his throwing stick to check the range, planning on waiting until he has a certain shot with the rock.  His stick heads straight into the hole.  He still doesn't feel a stronger pull on himself or the rock, just the ship is flying into the hole, so he waits longer.
    Hosei stands still at the while, bleeding while blades and axes whirl around him.
    Miyara and Ashu continue to fight.
    An air elemental delivers Kyosuke to the ship.))

    I wake on the ship, recovered from my.fatigue  Miyara and Ashu are fighting.  I want to help her, but she will clearly win soon.  I must continue my original plan.
    I run up to Baraku, yelling to him to give it to me.  I try to grab it and will it to me, but we are balanced.  I yell to Rabena to tell him to give it to me, I will fly it in and close the hole so they will live.  She says something to him in a barbarian.  I tell her to tell him I'll try to throw it, but it has to go in ahead of the ship.  Baraku gives it to me.
    I take off and fly as hard as I can at the hole.
    Meanwhile, Hosei faints.
    Miyara and Ashu continue their fight, Ashu parrying surprisingly well.
    I gain five yards on the ship.  It's slow progress.
    Baraku tells Rabena to take over the wheel, and runs over behind Miyara.  Rabena stands at the bow watching me, ready to summon it back if I don't get it through.
    Miyara continues to slice away at Ashu, but with barbarian stubborness he refuses to yield to his wounds.
    I am ten yards from the ship, holding the sogin roku out in my left hand.  I will throw it through if I can see where the boundary is; if not my outstretched arm will go through first and with luck the hole will close and merely sever my arm.
    Baraku swings at Miyara from behind, trying to knock her out.  He hits her extremely hard over the back of the head.  She staggers and collapses, stunned, dropping her katana.
    I think I can see the boundary.  I am close enough to throw, maybe.  I try to throw it from about 5 yards away.  The hole is a sphere the size of a house.
    I throw the rock.  It goes in, in slow motion, sliding through the hole.
    There is suddenly a huge sucking.  It sucks into itself and vanishes, while we are sucked towards it very hard but not into it.

    We go flying on past at very high speed.

    The hole it gone.  The rock is gone.  The clouds are still here, but the sucking has gone.  I still have my wings, out ahead of the ship, and it is headed down with Baraku trying to get it under control, using all his strength to get it level.

    Ashu is now sitting on Miyara, burning her, on fire.  Her urge to kill is gone, but she remembers it all.  She shouts to Ashu to get off him.  Baraku asks if she's going to keep attacking.  She says no, while Rabena comes over to see who's worst off.  Baraku screams to wake Hosei first.  She does that, despite Ashu's vicious injuries.

    I am feeling very light-headed.  I try to fly back to the deck of the ship.  ((Rabena is light-headed too.  Baraku is feeling very strange in his bowels.  Ashu is starting to feel the effects of his burning.))

    Rabena gets Hosei up, although not fully healed from Miyara's expert blows.

    I get back on the ship.  I see Miyara is standing up and has picked up her weapons.
    Seriously light-headed now, I suddenly POOF! and become dust, blowing away in the wind.  So does Rabena.  Ashu ignites and burns him instantly into a greasy smoking spot.
    Hosei takes over the wheel from Baraku.
    Torrents of bodily fluids rush out from Baraku under pressure, eyes popping out, leaving only the skin lying on the floor in a large sticky puddle.