So we re-entered the citadel, arriving at the control room where we last where. The gate seemed to stay open even after we passed, so perhaps it was a semi-permanent fixture put there so the demons could get back in here. We couldn't have that, so Rath dispelled it. It disappeared, violently, and we heard voices further in the ship. Voltaris (the name Az seemed to go by now) and I went and checked it out. I first banked some essence to allow me to power my flame pieces while we were in here, and then we ascended some stairs and four armed men spotted me. I thought it was the Empress' men, come to attack us, and on pure reflex I quickly pulled my guns and shot all four dead in an instant. I guess I'm still getting used to these powers, I reacted so fast, before I could even think. I had also forgotten about this place sucking out essence, so the expenditure took a lot out of me.
Upon further inspection, I noticed it was actually town militia men, but they seemed they were still hostile. It seemed since we left the door open, after our disappearance Redfeather sent his thugs to claim this place. They were trying to figure this place out, but with no luck. Anyways, Isha went to see what was going on with Gale (I reminded her to see what happened to Belladonna) while Rath tinkered in the control room, guiding Voltaris and I to the bowels of the ship to find the gear that called to us in here.
Rath sent us down the wrong path at first, almost leading us to hazardous room. Luckily we spotted the signs and asked Rath if he was sure, and he realized his folly. After setting him straight, he guided us through the ship, we had to dodge hazard after hazard, passing through hangar bays of airships and warstriders, until coming upon a hall with a golem patrolling, warning us to stay back. Voltaris muted his anima so he could sneak past it, but unfortunately since I blew through much of my essence, I could not. And I didn't want to fight this thing and waste more essence, particularly since this thing was prolly needed to help repair the ship. This place was in such disrepair that we didn't need to add to that.
So I waited, spinning my guns, until I heard something that sounded like a dam bursting. I braced myself for a rush of water, but nothing. Eventually, Volt returned with our gear, and we returned to the control room. Isha said she encountered more resistance from the town militia, and that Gale and his granddaughter (possibly more of the bird people) and Belladonna were being held by Redfeather. With our stuff retrieved and some intel gathered on what was going on outside, we decided to check in with Marianne to tell her what we had learned.
She soon appeared, and was quite perturbed at the news we delivered, about the Scarlett Empress getting ready to wed the Ebon Dragon to break the Yozis out of hell. She gave us a few hours to take care of things here while she ran off to do something about the news.
So Isha and I went to rescue our missing allies. We were met by some stogy fancy dressed Dragonblood, who tried to make us turn from our course or something. When we refused, we were suddenly ambushed by several town militiamen and a couple of dragon bloods. Many of the mortals fell quickly to our daiklaive and arrows, causing the mere humans to break. The fancy looking one cast a spell at us though, and a torrent of flying black glass shards hit us, shredding the fleeing soldiers in the process. This callous disregard for life angered Isha, and she stalked towards the jerk. Since she was flaring, looking like a really angry she-bitch, I used her to block their view of me, then quickly sprung out from behind her, peppering the remaining dragon bloods with arrows. As she engaged them on the ground, I jumped to the roof and sniped at them while they were distracted by her assault. As one went down, I ran across the roof's edge towards the remaining two, jumping off. I fired one in mid-air felling one, landed in a roll, came up with my bow and put a righteous judgement arrow through the head of the despicable mage.
We made our way to Redfeather, who was full of resignation, knowing he was beat. He gave us our friends and we took them back to the control room. We also grabbed the gear off the fallen dragonbloods to give to Ejava so she had something to use to fight. We told Gale the deets about this mountain, how it was secretly a giant warship, so we couldn't just leave it here. It was decided that anyone who wanted to leave could (indeed, we quickly learned Redfeather quickly turned tail and fled back down to the surface) as more people would come for it. But this was the bird people's home. Given the sheer size of this place, Redfeather figured we needed a crew. His people know a lot of the nook and crannies of this place, and we figured they would be a big help, so we agreed.
Marianne showed up soon afterward and took us to Yu Shan. She said she had contacted all the Sidereals to meet with us and hear the extremely troubling news we had. She only found 94 of them, the other six hadn't showed up yet. Apparently there hadn't been a gathering like this for hundreds of years. Something about them all sitting in one place did not sit right with me. I kept thinking, geez, this would be a good time to attack and take them out in one felled swoop. But I told myself, that's crazy, this is Yu Shan, who would dare try and make such an attack, it would never work, there's prolly all sorts of heavenly defenses preventing that.
So we told our story, some were skeptical. And a group even wanted to go down to the Creation and bring the Scarlett Empress up here herself to find the truth. I thought these guys were supposed to be really smart?! We were dumbfounded at their stupidity. First, if they do that, like way to tip our hand and reveal we know the secret plan to one of the conspirators herself. And given this is a huge plan that the Yozis have a lot riding on, surely they don't think they can just go down and abscond with her. She prolly has tons of guards.
Part of me thought, “Heh, maybe they're secret traitors who just want to flee before the big bomb goes off that kills everyone else”. But again, I convinced myself it was just them being arrogant- they were sure our tale was wrong, and even then, they could handle anything down there.
I should've listened to my gut. One of the Sidereals stood up, as if to say something, but then quickly exploded, slaying nearly half the crowd. This was bad, even worse, the guys who wanted to leave, they went into weird martial arts stances, which Volt recognized as being very Infernal-ish. We lost track of Marianne, we quickly need to save the remaining Sidereals and drive the traitors off or flee with the survivors. I got ready to quickly draw my bow and rain holy death on the monstrously twisted Sidereal traitors.