All 35.0 - Echoes of Yeto's Past

On the fateful day when the Gunakadeit would set out back towards Mirilarin, Caitlyn and Cheko decided to stay in Engiadina: for what help they could give, it was better that they stay with the children and ensure that they would not become orphans should their attempts fail, as well as act as a back-up plan if the others were not heard from again so that there would still be people to contest the All. Carrot decided to stay with her new family in Akroum, living in the the boat dock. This left Victor, Lucca, Ryuji, Pierce, Cohen, Cress and Nisa, accompanied by the fey Harlequin and Gemini, to board the ship for Mirilarin.
The Firehawk’s robe took a serious toll on Lucca over the ride, but he managed to survive the trial. The fever broke and his health returned the morning before they were to dock. Upon the trial's culmination, the robe transformed into a flaming aura.
As they approached their destination, Pierce gave a Sending to Ratik’nun, telling him that they were going to be in Mirilarin to seal the final deal. He told him to meet him in his house.
They docked on the beach in Yeto. Everything was grey and still; the All had taken over everything, though there was no sign of any of them in this particular location. Nisa set the ship to submerge itself after they had all disembarked, hopefully hiding it from prying eyes. Without ado, they set about finishing Pierce’s deal, so that they could remove Ratik’nun from the plane. They teleported to the Kamun mansion.
Shares blanketed the property, and the reaction was obvious: the All knew they had arrived. Finding an open window, the group went inside. Shortly, they found Ratik’nun. The devil greeted them, and made to cast Dimension Door, taking Pierce to where he would craft the teleportation circle for him. Cohen and Ryuji tagged along uninvited to watch him.
Everyone waited while Pierce drew the circle for hours; Ratik’nun’s fell power appeared to keep the All at bay, preventing them from entering the building. The devil tried to coerce the three men further: Pierce had become panicky and withdrawn, trying to ignore him as best as able; Cohen shut him down entirely, despite his offer to remove the werewolf curse that plagued him; Ryuji, however, despite his disdain and rejection of evil, could not help himself from asking if it was in his power to restore him to life. Ratik’nun said that he could. Ryuji would not offer anything from his family or name, so the devil asked him to do a favour for him instead: go to the castle in Miyagi, and enter the echo in the basement. In exchange for the item he would find there, Ratik’nun agreed to return him to life. Cohen tried to convince him it was a bad idea, and that he was getting cheated just as surely as Pierce was, but the temptation proved too great for him, and he agreed. When Pierce finished, he handed over the gem that would activate the circles, and with a magical flourish, Ratik’nun removed the werewolf curse. 
Gathering together, the group teleported to Miyagi, where they found, in a hidden basement chamber of an auxiliary house, an echo. Victor, Lucca, Nisa and Ryuji entered. As they did, Cohen hissed to Lucca not to allow Ryuji to claim the item. The others waited with Ratik’nun, his power once again shielding them from the Shares.
The echo was a grey room, where two men sat at a table playing a game of strategy. What was striking though, was that the two men weren’t clothed in the sepia tones of every other echo they had seen: one was robed in white, while the other was red, both with their faces hidden from view. As the adventurers looked, they quickly noticed that Victor was missing.
A voice captured their attentions from behind them. Turning around, there were 7 people tied and bound to the wall, their arms and legs tied together tightly. Three were unconscious and three were gagged, but the center man was both awake and vocal. He called them over. The man introduced himself as Takuetsu: he explained that he and the others had been unjustly bound by the man in white. The two men were fighting to be king, he said, and they were playing a game that would give the winner advantage over the other. Regardless though, the two would fight, and the winner would be ruler. Neither were just in their claims of rulership, but should the white man win, he’d execute all of them without fair cause or trial. Takuetsu urged them to interfere with the contest, and support the red-robed man.
Nisa marveled at the echo, seeing it as some sort of interpretive metaphor for past events. Ryuji and Lucca tried to puzzle out who the winner should be. Eventually, Lucca settled on the fact that this must be an event that he had read about in the past, where two devils fought over the throne of Yeto, and ownership of seven evil swords that one wished to destroy. It was from that that he was reasonably certain that the red man represented Raito Kamun, now the devil known as Ratik’nun, and the white man represented Osamu Miro, the devil that Lucca strongly suspected was now Victor. They agreed to support the white figure, and interfered with the board and pieces to ensure his victory.
When the red clothed man lost, he flipped the board and table over, and revealed his form as the same devil who now waited outside the echo. The white man disrobed in turn, revealing a pale human-like devil with bat wings, horns, and a black, whippy tail. The two began to fight with swords and spells; the gathered adventurers all sided with the white devil to defeat the red one. When the battle was won, made simple by the one-sided nature of the fight, the four who had entered found themselves in the basement once again. Victor had reappeared, though he had no real memory of where he had gone or what he had done. At his side was a new sword, possessed of an oily black blade. Ryuji asked for it, but Victor declined to pass it to him.
When they re-entered the room, the others were waiting. Specifically, Ratik’nun awaited his sword. There was some embittered argument, as several people were extremely disappointed in Ryuji for dealing with this devil after the problems that came from Pierce’s actions. Ryuji tried to defend himself, but his words were hollow. Regardless, Victor gave him the sword. Passing it to Ratik’nun, the devil explained that this process would take some time to complete. However, he began the spell, allowing the man’s heart to beat once more. With that, Ratik’nun teleported away once more, his summons extended on a technicality once again.
Frustrated, but now without the devil’s power holding back the All, the group teleported to the center of the desert, hoping that its lack of things to ‘organize’ would make it mostly devoid of prying eyes. There, they spent the night.Category:Advent of the All