GM: Sam Tillis
Players: Adrienne Mueller, Dylan Arena, James Lawton, Sean Nittner, Sarah Terman, Matthew Fisher
System: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition
Content warning: body horror and graphic violence masked (like this)
Sorcerers. They are more than a blight upon reality: they are breeders of blight. With each spell cast, the world tilts more askew, away from a place of stability that follows natural laws with constancy, more towards the madhouse whirligig of horrors where minds snap with a glance and servitors haunt the skies. The blood of two such men has spilled unto the streets of Shanghai, but more remain at large. And night falls, and the moon overhead grows slim.
And so, we opened on the evening of June 13th, 1925 with four objectives in mind
- Find and finish Ho Fang
- Make plans for Grey Dragon Island
- Learn what we can about the Mirror of Gal (we’d learn it’s name soon)
- Learn the fate of the Stumbling Tiger Bar and Fergus Chin
- (Catherine specific) Determine if the Yith technology could make post-cognition (rather than pre-cognition safer, and if so could it be used to heal (by helping people remember better times), to learn (recalling memories of the past), or to harm (trapping them in a past stupor)
With the following constraints in mind:
- We must return the Seven Cryptical Texts to Madam Lin by June 20th or she will take action to obtain them herself.
- We must leave by June 17th for Grey Dragon Island if we want to make it there in time to stop the ritual.
- Jing Lai Hotel (where we stayed previously) has been taken over by Ho Fang’s cultists. Guarded by the police (albeit not to their liking).
The Play is the Thing
Francois and Amos (with Jimmy “chaperoning” from the bar in the Seaman’s Club downstairs) spent the evening discovering what they could about the mirror we took from M’dari. Francois nearly cackled “Shall we unwrap our present?” The mirror was accompanied by two sandstone vials containing a red substance “obra’an” and a black powder “gabeshgal”.
Referencing the complete texts of Ibon, they realized that he likely did not make the mirror, but it’s the kind of thing he would make. They pieced together the following:
- If a user conceives of a person, place, or object within 200 miles and draws and inverted ankh with obra’an, they will pay a small cost and be able to see what they focused on for 10-20 minutes.
- If, during that time the user covered their image with gabeshgal and paid a much heftier price, the target would suffer a horrible demise.
Upon making this discovery the began planning how to protect the mirror (separate the vials from it) and how to use it (to find and kill Penhew).
After learning all the could about the mirror without using it, they took to looking through the M’dari’s other belongings. Mostly common travel attire, but notably there were also newspaper clippings from New York and London that never pointed at us, but nevertheless followed the same events we were active in. Erica Carlyle vanished, as had many wealthy socialites. Those that did survive were conspicuously quiet about the events of the night.
Fate of the Stumbling Tiger
Catherine, Charles, and Li-Wen went on a circuit of the bars near the former Stumbling Tiger. None of them had the same environment of espionage of watchers watching each other. The game, it appeared, had moved on. As they walked Catherine asked Charles if his recollections of his wife and daughters were painful. He said that at first they were, but now that he had done it, it felt like there was a great weight off his shoulders, and he welcomed those memories, especially of happier times. Catherine asked if he would like to revisit them, like to relive those moments as though they were right now and Charles said he very much would.
After some time of searching we found Isoge and after series of subtle signs we setup a meet, only this one wasn’t particularly clandestine. He stood open, exposed, on the waterfront. Charles took in the surroundings and though and from his reconnoitering it seemed the Isoge was trying to draw enemies out. Perhaps daring them.
We, however, had a peaceful conversation. He wanted to meet Brady but understood why we wouldn’t give up his location. Catherine had little time for subtlety, so she just said outright that we are not trying to advance the political ideologies of any country, we’re just trying to stop sorcerers from ending the world…and Brady wants the same. We talked of weapons, the kind that summon things from other realities. Catherine showed him her artifact, which took much more interested in that she had intended, as evidence that it is possible to harness power from other worlds. Isoge seemed at the very least interested in finding out whatever “weapon” was being built and wanted to talk to Brady about it. Location was difficult however. We needed to find a neutral location that was also discrete. We agreed to meet on the water and developed light signals to indicate Brady was arriving, that we were arriving, and that there was danger.
Charles noticed that Isoge’s eyes kept being drawn to where Catherine held the artifact, and at one point when he looked up they locked eyes and Charles made it clear just with his gaze that Catherine and her device were not to be tampered with [successful intimidate roll, huzzah!]
What we came for, however, was to find out what happened to the Stumbling Tiger Bar. Isoge saw that it was burned down by Ho Fang’s cultists and Furgis Chin was dragged away by the, presumably to their new base of operations in the…
Jing Lai Hotel
When the light goes out of a human’s eyes, it becomes a corpse: an instant translation from person to object. So to is it with buildings. When you left this place last, it was yet a hotel: burning, to be sure, but within the realm of salvage. Now it is a ruin, a shell, windows boarded up, passersby hurrying past trying not to see it. It is not empty—lights flicker within—but now it feels not as people inhabit it so much as they crawl through it, like maggots squirming in dead flesh.
Iris, Colby, and Nails set out to scout our former residence and with some time and effort they eventually gained access to the rooftop of a neighboring building, and from there Iris and Nails saw that the windows on the ground and 2nd floor were boarded up, blocking entry and conventional surveillance. Thankfully Colby was able to detect much of what transpired withing, thanks to his new Yithian ocular device. Imagine if the maw was a well of ink on the ceiling of our old suite (room 208) and since we left the ink had spilled over to to spread across the hotel, to stretch Ho Fang’s power throughout the building. He detected people moving inside, maybe a dozen of them, all on the boarded up floors.
The started formulating a plan for returning with the entire group, but Nails protested. Why not just go in and kill them all now. “Three of the four of our deadliest members are here right now, and the fourth is too soft. We should go in now, kill them all, and call it done.” Iris eventually dissuaded him that we didn’t know what other defenses Ho Fang might have and that we should wait till everyone was together.
After watching for sometime, eventually Aubrey Penhew exited the building and got into a car from the parking lot. Iris had an opportunity to shoot him with a dream bullet right then and there, but she hesitated and the moment passed.
Nails stayed on overwatch to see what direction he was heading and Iris and Colby raced to street level to get in the car and chase after him. Iris put herself in Pewhew’s shoes. What streets would I take if I was trying to avoid the police or other surveillance? She hated thinking like him, but it worked. She gave the driver the right directions and eventually they spotted his car. Colby was able to take it from there, tailing him even from a block away. Penhew arrived at docks and boarded his boat, the Dark Mistress.
Though Colby could detect the bloated forms of the sailors, their rotting pustules, and deformed figured, but to him this was all just data to be perceived and analyzed. Iris on the other hand, saw the drowned crew of the Dark Mistress and cried out with terror. Penhew looked up and met her gaze with a curious express on his face. “Punch it!” Iris yelled and the sped back to the Seaman’s Club with all haste.
Regrouping at the Seaman’s Lodge
Once we had all returned it was quite late. We speculated about how we could defeat Ho Fang. The conventional fire we set in the hotel didn’t destroy the maw, we would need something more powerful…a dream of fire, or rather a nightmare!
Iris and Amos tried to enter Dreaming together but failed to find the nightmare they sought. Amos, with his own fear of fire, found it to hard to dream himself to the edge of nightmare.
Francois and Catherine also tried to entering Dreaming together to visit the Blue Temple so Catherine could begin her next experiment with Yith artifacts. However Francois’ allegiance to Nodens made it difficult to enter the domain of another great power.
Clearly we should have swapped dreaming partners!
June 14, 1925
Francois could not hold off any longer. He drew the inverted ankh with obra’an and envisioned Fergus Chin. He cackled to himself with glee. “What power it has!”
[Possibly in, possibly out of character I made the joke which Sam required that I record here. “What do you see? Is it galling?” Get it, Mirror of Gal? Galling. I made a funny.]
Francois, and all who looked into the mirror saw Fergus tied up naked in a room with three other people in the same state. The seemed to make occasional noises of discomfort and appeared to have already been tortured, but they seemed alive and their bodies moved with enough sensation, that it appeared their souls had not yet been consumed into the maw.
As we considered ways to rescue the victims and destroy Ho Fang, Catherine admitted that she was okay with the plan of killing everyone inside, getting the prisoners out, and then burning the building to the ground. The fact that Nails Nelson also readily agreed to this approach gave her pause. Who was she becoming?
Nails protested trying to save the hostages, but thankfully his opinion was drowned by the members of our group that still held onto their humanity (though that number does seem to be dwindling).
Iris had the dates on the documents transferred to the Gregorian calendar and found that dates of sorcerous rituals all consider with wars or natural disasters. Though written about in the past tense the last entry was January 1926…in the future (if such as thing can truly exist).
Amos reached out via Li-Wen to arrange for a fireworks display to happen tonight, just outside the Jing Lai hotel, hopefully as cover for our gunshots.
Charles, Amos, and Li-Wen set out to meet with Jack Brady and inform him of our progress. They found him at the warehouse with Chu Min. The remains of the mutilated sorcerer were gone. Charles asked for a private meeting, and though Brady granted it to him he said “I trust that man with my life (referring to Chu Min). What is it that you want to tell me that he cannot here?”
“We have a message from Isoge. He wants to meet with you.”
Brady burst out in a giant laugh. “You were very right to send him away!”
Charles conveyed what we know of Isoge, his means, and his intent (what little we knew) and Brady agree to meet with him on the water, but would wait a day so that we could go with him.
When informed that we killed yet another sorcerer (two in as many days) he once again barked with laughter “You people! I neve thought I would find others who understood how dangerous they are, and be able to do anything about it. You absolute people!”
Brady noted that the offer Amos made, to help with the transcription, would be useful after all. Mu Hsien, who had been working on the texts was deteriorating quickly, and he no longer believed he was capable of finishing the job. Amos and Li-Wen agreed to aid and he instantly summoned Chu Min to ferry them to Hsien’s domicile to aid him.
With just Charles remaining Brady addressed him with an uncommon camaraderie. Much as he appreciated the actions we had taken, the powers that we’ve dabbled in made Brady untrusting of us. Untrusting of most of us. To Charles however, he confided “You don’t have the stink of it like your friends do. I remember when my friends began speaking of dreams and gods and portents. I had the chance to end them all but I stayed my hand because they were my friends. Remember that when such a time comes for you.”
Iris and Francois headed to the burn ward to capture the dreams of burn victims. A macabre task, but also one that offered some reprieve for the victims. Francois stood over Iris and the victim as the both slept, whispering what sounded like prayers, but were truly murmuring from the Lord of the Abyss, welcoming them both into Dreaming. There Iris found what she needed, water mixing with fire to form steam. Iris dreamed of the Stumbling Tiger Bar erupting into flames, a nightmare of fire that she grafted with the skill of a dream botanist. The walls of the burning building sprouting flaming flowers which merged with her plant.
Catherine started work on her new ideas for the Yith technology. She believe the devices might make it safer to reach back in time and help people to remember things to sooth their minds, like the first time Charles held his daughter in his arms. And if possible, such a device could likely also be used to make others remember thoughts that would help us gain information from them (willingly or not). Catherine and Colby, started work with the devices and by the afternoon had a rough prototype, mostly a bundle of wires, temporal transformers, partial phase asynchronometers, and quantum crystal capacitors. As they worked, Catherine alluded to memories she wouldn’t mind revising herself. One particular kiss stood out in her mind.
When Charles returned from speaking with Brady, Catherine asked if he would be willing to text the prototype…and it worked. He sank into a memory that was more real than the moment it happened. For a flash he was in the hospital holding his daughter feeling nothing but love for her. And it was not just a memory, he was truly in that moment, able to take in sites and sounds that he had not experienced the first time. It was though he was living it anew. Then the moment was gone and as he surfaced to the present, he was crying. He grabbed hold of Catherine and held her in a bear hug, thanking her for the gift. There were a few singes on his temples where the current terminated, that would have to be insulated so as not to cause harm, but it worked. Perhaps Francois and Li-Wen could be reminded of their lives before Nodens, perhaps Colby could remember a time before his mind was tormented in the maw.
Amos an Li-Wen were chamfered to to Mu Hsien’s home and found him in a terrible state. He was shackled to the desk that he worked at and it was clear he had not left it in many days. He babbled “Seven books. One scroll. But not in order. Like a rope woven together.” Amos tried to ground him and give him a framework for the overwelming experience he was having as he decoded the text. He reminded him that the power to open and and close gates must be held in this text and that he would help Hsien assemble the pieces. Though they only wanted the spell, the whole text would have to be understood to know the context in which it was cast.
Amos, after getting Hsien to drink a bit of water, began working on the text alongside Li-Wen, attempting to decipher H’san’s journey through the realms of Deaming and beyond. He started to understand the meaning, but as he did so, also began unlocking horrible fates.
H’san may have fought a threat to the world like the one we are fighting now. Something akin to the Crawling Chaos. Something that wore many masks.
As he wrote translations, sometimes the ink would refuse to stay on the page as though it did not want to hold onto the text he wanted to write, for it was sacrilege.
In some parts of the text it became unclear what side H’san was fighting for, or if there even were “sides” to this battle.
And once or twice in the process fatigue set in and Amos nodded off, he felt Dreams, a place he usually found comfort in pulling at him, with some agenda of it’s own..
Assault on Ho Fang
We mustered our assets. Nails has rounded up some Molotov Cocktails, and we arranged for the police below to hold a rescue blanket to catch victims if we had to throw them out the window. The police would only help after Ho Fang’s people were no longer a threat however. The could not be seen aiding us if Ho Fang was still in power.
Before we headed out Charles gathered us all. We thought this might be an huddle to coordinate our efforts, but it was a confession. He shared what Brady had told him about his friends descending into madness and told us all that he from what he had seen of us we were not on the same path as the Carlyle expedition, but that if any of us should falter, don’t keep it to yourself. Reach out and ask for help. We’ll be there for you. The investigators solemnly agreed.
We split into two teams. Amos, Iris, Li-Wen, and Nails Nelson would stay on the roof opposite the building and create a distraction (setting the building on fire), while Colby, Charles, Catherine, and Francois would climb down a rope to the 2nd floor and rescue the victims.
Colby (still indefinitely insane) felt confident that he knew what “actually is”. The devices which detached him from his perceptions while also widening them allowed him to truly understand. He realized that entropy was not truly a thing. The relationship between possible microscopic arrangements of a system relative to the macroscopic condition, as codified by mathematician Ludwig Boltzmann was a incomplete understanding of a greater model where those microscopic arrangements were increasing, but merely shifting from a previously undetectable state. He also observed seven cultists on the first floor and five on the second, plus the four hostages. He detected no one within that was warded with magical protections. So perhaps Ho Fang was still in the maw (we speculated that Aubrey Penhew could have pulled him out) or he had been released, but had not the time or energy to build up his magical defenses yet.
With this knowledge he jumped from the roof of an adjoining building and held a rope for the rest of us to cross. Catherine spotted a shadowy tendril covered in Chinese characters, nay, blasphemous morphemes moving towards Colby. She forcefully whispered for him to watch out!
Once we were in position Amos bravely gripped a fiery explosive and threw it at the building, but his own fear of the flames made him flitch and the bottle fell short. He tried again and the second time his homemade incendiary broke through the window of the 4th floor and started a fire. Tendrils in the room were suddenly illuminated.
Charles climbed down the rope and pried open the plywood over room 210, where the victims were being held. But as he did so, a blasphemous morphemes fluttered off the tendril and stuck to his face and then started climbing towards his orifices, he brushed it away, but like clingwrap it merely moved to his arm, where it continued to crawl.
Francois climbed down and more flew out at him. Some he dodged buy sliding down the rope faster (and burning his hands) but one made contact.
Colby was going to climb after but Catherine bade him wait for a moment. Then she unleased the Mark 2.0 device and fired on the tendril causing it to writhe and the retreat back into the building, but not before shaking free a cloud of characters that floated lazily in the air like confetti from hell.
Colby slid down the rope carefully but was still touched by one of them, which scraped across his skin like a blade pealing him open.
Catherine donned gloves and started climbing down but lost her grip on the rope when the characters fluttered about her. She avoided them and would have fallen to the ground below had Colby not been waiting to catch her at the window ledge.
On the roof nearby Iris, Amos, and Nails Nelson took aim through the window, ready to obliterate anyone who walked into the room.
Inside the Jing Lai Hotel
Charles, once inside heard cultists coming his way. He tried to detach the symbol from his body but it danced over his skin, seeming to lack a 3rd dimension.
Colby and Francois wanted for the first cultist to entered and then stabbed him with knife and bone spear. The later, Francois had used force of will to pull the character from him and deliver it to his target. Sadly, it had no interest in the cultist and fluttered back to the tendril from whence it came.
Meanwhile Li-Wen had been preparing her servitor and finally brought it into being. A faceless creature of shadow entered the room, causing no disturbance to Francois (who relished it as a servant of his god) or Colby (who perceived it as a creature with aberrant qualities, but was no longer subjected the the terror that such unnatural phenomena created). Catherine and Charles, were disturbed, but the nevertheless steeled themselves (successful sanity checks).
Amos, Iris, and Nails all took shots at the cultists who entered the room. Nails, who had witnessed the shadowy creature form as well and not taken well to it, was not content to fire from afar. He leaped into the room with the cultists (and the flames). A cultist attacked him but he turned the blow and stuck two knives into him, then dodge the second cultist by turning the first into a human shield.
Catherine tried to use her Mark 2.0 device to fire a suppressing blast of lightning that would distract the cultists, but it was as though it had been drained of power. She formed theories that if she had charged the Mark 2.0 device by taking the power that had been in the Mark 1.0, perhaps a future Mark 3.0 device was fueled by stealing power from it now. Just a theory…
In room 210 cultists attacked the servitor and there sickles began to cut through it. One also swung at Charles but his attack was rebuffed.
Charles, realizing the cultists coming in were creating direct line to room 208 (where the maw was) kicked closed the door as he grappled with one of the sickle wielding cultists.
Francois tried to pull his bone spear free of the cultist it was impaled in, but he would not let it free.
Colby stabbed another cultist in the kidney, dropping him to the ground writhing in agony.
Catherine decided to recharge her device, the same way she had charged it the first time, but impaling the pointed hilt of her device (okay, it’s a fucking light saber already!) into the cultist that had been grappling with Francois and his bone spear, killing him, causing him to shrivel and implode, and recharging her device.
Just in time for a cultist to plunge his sickle deep into her chest. She fell to the ground, blood pouring from her dying body.
Amos shot another cultist that was attacking Nails, and Nails chased after the one who was still alive but fleeing downstairs.
In room 210 the cultists kept hacking away at the servitor until eventually the shadow was extinguished. Another one opened the door, creating a direct line of site to the map. Charles had his back to it, Colby was unaffected by the vision, Catherine was unconscious, but Francois…Francois looked up and locked eyes with the swirling characters, the blasphemous morphemes as they tried to lure his soul in…BUT COULD NOT DO IT. HIS MIND WAS TOO POWERFUL!
As Francois resisted he heard Ho Fang’s voice and he spoke back to him “You are expending so much energy. So foolish, when I’m just going to take it all from you anyway.”
Ho Fang raged in his mind “You dare come into my house, you servant of a lesser god.” But then he regained his composure “This can all be over if you bring me Jack Brady and his book” He tried to sound confident but Francois knew that he was losing ground, that he was making desperate bargains, that was sacred, that he was was going to fall.
Charles slammed the door shut again and barricaded it with a cot.
Colby saw Catherine fall, he could see into the wound and knew she was dying. If the still had eyes, they would have turned red. He stabbed a cultist in the armpit and levered the bone over his blade dislocating his arm.
Catherine bled. But she did not die…yet.
The minions of Ho Fang continued to attack. One used his one good arm to try and strangle Colby, but the near feral doctor bit off one finger, then bit off another, until the cultist finally fell in agony.
Iris, on the roof with no one to shoot looked to console Li-Wen who had fallen and slumped to the ground, looking defeated after her servitor was destroyed. “That’s it? That’s all my spell did? I thought it would matter. I thought I was important.” Iris tried to reassure her, but Li-Wen was not hearing her words.
As a tentacle came up the wall, Iris provided Amos a vial of acid from her medicine kit that the threw at the tentacle and caused it to recede back into the building.
Ho Fang cried in anger inside Francois’ mind. Though the door had been closed by Charles, Francois chose to keep the connection. His body slumped to the ground.
At the same time however a character crawled inside Charles’ nose and began to sap him of his strength.
Charles, despite the wound tried to tend to Catherine but she was bleeding too much. He tried to staunch the wound, but it was too deep.
Francois was feeling his way to Ho Fang, trying to see if he could use the tendrils to strike back at him. He sat glassy eyed as his mind wandered farther [losing more sanity] and realized that if Nodens was drawn into the maw, he would be trapped there (for a time) but would likely be able to destroy everything in side.
Colby realized he could see inside Catherine’s wound to the severed artery and he plunged his bare hand in her chest to pinch it closed. Catherine woke to a feeling of incredible agony, but also the realization that Colby was keeping her alive, holding her artery closed with his bare hands. [Extreme first aid success]. She squeezed his hand with all her might as a sign of life, looked at him lovingly, and then blasted a cultist with her newly recharged yith artifact.
Despite the bolt of lightning that struck him, the cultists still fought on and cut Charles savagely. The letter digging deeper as well.
Charles called to Francois “Attention!” (with a French accent) reminding him of the speech he gave earlier that we are strong together.
Francois snapped out of his reverie and cast a spell of protection, The Barrier of Naath-Tith, which he used to surround the maw, cutting Ho Fang off from this world. The tendrils collapsed lifeless and the characters drifted to the ground inert. The one inside Charles stopped seeping his strength.
On the street below Iris tried to rally one of the officers to help her, Amos, and Li-Wen hold the rescue blanket, but the horrors of the letters descending had either killed or driven them all into incapacitating fear.
Nails came into room 210 holding the head of a cultist and Catherine weakly called to him. “If there’s one thing Nails Nelson can do, it’s gently pick Catherine up so that Colby can keep pinching her artery closed and she doesn’t bleed to death in this god forsaken hotel.”
He puzzled for a moment “That’s a very specific thing for Nails Nelson to be good at.” But he did as she requested and together they carried her down stairs with Colby [Successful Charm roll].
Francois send Ho Fang to oblivion with final parting words, that all his efforts had been in vain. Ho Fang raged that as long as the thousand masks remained…yada yada yada yada. Eat eternity sorcerer!
Once we had evacuated Iris used the fire pod of her plant to ignite the building into an inferno. Li-Wen translated what one of the officers still cogent enough to speak said “What is that?”
Iris turned to him “It’s a nightmare!”
Recovery
As we sped away, Iris used the whisk to draw out the rest of the ink form the letter from Charles, the black ink oozing out of his nose [High whisk, high reward]. She also tied off Catherine’s artery so that Colby could finally release the pinch that he had been holding. The held bloody hands on the ride to the hospital.
Francois gloated about the power of Nodens and how Ho Fang was trapped for ever [we did indeed get permission to tear up his card]. He did this both to revel and to encourage Li-Wen. Her servitor has surely saved our lives. Meanwhile Amos tired to ground Francois, assuring him that yes, he was great indeed, and also look at all the people he cared about and how he helped them.
At the hospital Colby would not leave Catherine’s side, so they eventually got him a bed beside hers. They were separated by a curtain, but that had no effect on his panoptic vision.
The rest of the crew went to the Seamen’s lodge and emptied out the rooms. They found a hotel that still had rooms at 2 in the morning and collapsed into what passes as beds.
Aftermath
In the morning we read in the newspaper that the fire was truly horrible, it rapidly spread to burn down five other buildings around it, and then just as quickly went out, before even the fire brigade could arrive. Like a dream, it suddenly ended.
The investigators, minus Catherine and Colby in the hospital, met with Brade in the morning. He threw the newspaper on the table and laughed. “Another sorcerer?”
Amos proudly responded “Of course!” [For the record, that is three sorcerers in three days!]
“I knew it. What did you lose?”
“Almost two lives…and a lot of blood.”
Together we planned the assault on Grey Dragon Island. Li-Wen (now played by me as Catherine convalesced) reminded everyone that sorcerers can live beyond death, as Ho Fang had, and that the only way to really be sure Penhew was dead would be to kill him with the bone spear and absorb all his power. Her wink at Francois was perhaps not as subtle as she thought it was.
We debated methods of stopping Penhew. The Dark Mistress has not left the port yet. Could we sink it? Perhaps, but if he had drowned sailors on board, that might mean he has a pact with Dagon as well, so that might not work. Could the Japanese Navy aid us? Unknown.
Li-Wen, defeated again
Amos got close to Francois and Li-Wen followed. “If there’s ever a time to use the mirror, it’s now.” So hours late in a dingy hotel room we used it to scry on Penhew and saw that he was onboard the Dark Mistress, leaving Shanghai and moving faster than the ship should be able to. Li-Wen greedily applied the black powder of gabeshgal over his image, and when it fell away he was simply looking at her through the mirror, with the same perplexed curiosity he had when he saw Iris. She had failed, and lost much of herself in the process [-10 power].
Li-Wen was crushed by defeat.
