Episode 2 "Valentine, Virtue & Virility" - Scene 1 "The Girl"

The Sword of Kings was laid flat on its stand, placed at the centre of the table. It bristled and flickered with magical energy and Pri could see it affecting the Lionheart, almost seeming to taunt him.

'The Sword of Kings,' Mister Thompson - a Society agent - said, dragging Valentine out of his reverie, 'my father had described it to me but there's nothing like being in the same room with an object like this.' His blue eyes seemed to shine with wild curiosity. 'It will not take long for you to learn to wield it,' he continued, assuring, 'I think there's a poetry to the sword being lost for so long and now reclaimed. These are dark times but you are a light in the darkness.'

The dark times he spoke of included the brutal killing of James Robinson just a few days ago. Tanvi intervened then, diverting the conversation away from the sword and towards things of greater importance, 'does the Society have any leads?'

His eyes remained glued to the sword as he spoke, 'from your report, we know that the satyr was attempting to hide from Miss Dubois. The manner of their deaths seems to suggest that she was the killer. How she found them, where she went after she was finished with them, and whoever she has working for her, the Society is at a loss to answer such questions. We have dispatched an agent to New Orleans but most of us assume it is likely to be fruitless. If it is her, however, she almost certainly wants that sword back and knows that you have it.'

'She'd be a fool to attack us,' Joshua announced, 'we are much tougher foes than an unarmed scholar and a craven goat man.'

'Indeed,' Thompson replied, 'and once the Lionheart can wield his sword, you'll be untouchable.'

Tanvi then drew the man away with the promise of tea and biscuits, leaving Valentine to continue the meditations that Pri had taught him. It felt right to be by his side, as he attempted to make that final leap towards his destiny, and she dared to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder. The calm was soon interrupted, however, by the sound of a woman at the foyer pleading for help. 'Let me in, please! Lionheart!' She whipped her head towards the noise when she heard Valentine's title, and saw a dishevelled blonde young woman wearing a dirty nightgown and nothing else. She was heavily pregnant, with angry circles around her eyes.

Judah looked at them for approval before opening the door and she immediately rushed towards Valentine, leaving a trail of blood across the carpet, apparently from cuts on her feet.

'You have to help me,' she cried, falling into his arms, 'he's sent a monster after me, a stone creature, to bring me back.' Though the poor woman clearly deserved pity, Pri could not keep herself from feeling a pang of jealousy, seeing the physical closeness of the two.

The commotion attracted Tanvi's attention, and the agent's, and they came through. 'We can protect you,' her mother said, 'come through to the infirmary, we'll get you cleaned up and you can tell us everything.' After that, they took her through to have her wounds washed and bandaged. 'Now, tell us what's happened.'

The lady wiped her tears away and steadied herself, 'about a year ago, I met this man, he seemed nice at first but he,' her voice became shaky, '**** me, put me in a cell with some other women and, well,' she gestured to her swollen belly, unwilling to spell it out, 'then, a few days ago, he brought us here,' she turned to Valentine, 'he mentioned you, he showed us pictures of you, said you were dangerous,' her voice became somehow even hoarser, 'he ranted and raved about how he would kill you.'

Pri's blood ran cold. 'That's not going to happen,' he said, matter-of-factly. His strong, confident, voice warmed her blood an instant later.

The girl smiled at that, 'I knew that I needed to find you, if I ever escaped. He said you knew magic, that you fought monsters. I knew no one else would believe me, but he showed us a picture of this building, and I knew I had to come here. There's a monster chasing me. It's made of stone, it,' she shook her head, 'they come for us if we escape. A few of the girls have managed, but they bring them back.'

Tanvi mused, 'a golem, perhaps? A living statute, a gargoyle?'

'I don't know,' she said, 'they are made of stone, they come for us, that's all I know.' After thinking for a while, she added, 'they glow purple, from inside, you see it through their joints and their eye holes.'

Pri raced up to the library upon hearing that, remembering a reference to the different colours of animation magic. A few minutes later, she'd found it and called down, 'they're Pseudo-Golems, most likely. It's not certain, of course. Skilled mages can change the colour of magic, at will, or even obscure it entirely, but this would make sense. A true golem is extremely difficult to make and often difficult to control. Pseudo-Golems are much weaker but they're easier to direct and cheaper to make. It would explain there being multiple.'

'That's really good, Pri,' Valentine called up to her and she blushed, 'how do we fight them?'

At that, she rushed to a bestiary she recalled containing an entry on them. She flicked through to the right page, 'well they're really tough but they can be destroyed through physical ****. They're exact weakness is, um,' she became less confident, 'true power. Uh, they can't bear to witness true power.'

'What does that mean?'

Pri's brow furrowed, 'I'm not sure. Uh, if I recall, this bestiary refers to the animal spirit as the true power,' she flipped to the front, 'yes, that's right, it's the Beast. Lots of lesser creatures, especially constructs, are unable to stand in the presence of the Beast. The magical ****, the, um, the motivation of the creature, it evaporates.'

'So, I just need to stand in front of it, then?'

Pri smiled, pitying him a little. The others knew what it meant, of course, especially Joshua, whose face had grown dark as soon as she'd mentioned it. 'No,' she said, deflating him a little, 'they need to see a flash of the Beast. You've done it before but not consciously. If you really concentrate, you can let the animal spirit slip loose, just for a second.'

His guard spoke up, 'out of the question! We'll destroy it through mortal means.'

Pri bristled, as she returned the book and walked down to meet them, 'we shouldn't deny ourselves a useful weapon.'

'The Beast is a monster, just as dark and vile as whoever held this girl, and the others, against their will and impregnated them. Valentine does not need to let it out, even for a second. He has the tools, the training, the memories.'

The Lionheart seemed torn. 'I don't want to let it out,' he announced, finally, causing Josh to smirk, 'but I will if I have to.' The smirk vanished, then. He looked to his sword and, as if on cue, a strange stone creature, awkwardly dressed as a servant, with an ornate mask, walked into the foyer.

Notes:

In general, this session was more fruitful in terms of my use of the Mythic Game Master Emulator and the other oracle-style rolling I did against various tables. I made a few rolls before the sessions started but I'll bring them up as and when they become relevant. Unfortunately, I don't quite seem to have hit my stride yet as, most notably, I forgot to make the Monster Of The Week rolls one is expected to before the "adventure" begins.

So, I began by properly using the Chaos Factor to alter my initial scene. However, a trend actually emerged where "interrupted" and "altered" scenes seemed to throw me prompts that actually implied I should just run the scene as normal, and I struggled greatly to come up with an alternative. For instance, here I set my expectation for the opening scene as "pregnant girl arrives at headquarters," since this was something I'd pick out as my "hook." I rolled a 1 on my d10, an odd number that was under my Chaos Factor of 5, which resulted in an "altered scene." I then rolled my die against the scene adjustment table, getting a 9, causing me to "Add Two Adjustments" and reroll, getting a 6 (which meant "Add An Object") and a 2 (for "Add A Character").

I interpreted the object as the Sword of Kings, since I'd left that as a plot hook from the previous session but the second adjustment gave me pause. I was already effectively "adding" a character in the form of the escaped woman but I assumed that either this violated the spirit of the "altered scene" or the book didn't account for one's expectations for a scene being an introduction of new plot elements. Either way, I decided to create Agent Thompson, and used him to just add a little foreshadowing with regards to Valerie Dubois.

Next, I had Pri make an "Investigate A Mystery" move, rolling a 1 and a 6 which became 10 after adding her Sharp and the bonus from Lore Library. I then spent the two "holds" to ask "What Sort Of Creature Is It?" and "What Can Hurt It?" The first question was easy to answer, since I had already used Mythic to roll up a class of minions for the villain before the session started. I rolled two d100s against the "Alien Species" meaning table, with an 83 getting me "Strange" and an 80 getting me "Slow," and the idea came to me of a group of pseudo-golems. The latter question was harder to answer and, presumably, I should've rolled randomly on a chart of some kind. However, as you can likely tell from the episode title, this session involves themes of male sexuality, so I thought it would be really interesting to play with my arc theme of "man versus beast."

This idea, specifically, which technically didn't come from a roll, but just asking myself a question I wasn't prepared for (if that even makes sense), ended up becoming a recurring theme throughout the session.

The last bit of book-keeping to mention is that I didn't know whether to raise or lower the Chaos Factor (I actually struggled with this a few times), so I kept it at 5.