The Meijin

"The Meijin" is episode 56 of SuperQuest Saga. Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian follow a mysterious voice and meet The Meijin, who offer to help with the party's quest in exchange for a price.

Sponsor
This episode of SuperQuest Saga is sponsored by RPG Sounds on Steam.

Introduction

 * Will Stark shall be your cryptic dungeon master for this evening.
 * Josh Freeland is playing Sebastian Crenshaw, Oathbreaker paladin/Hexblade.
 * Your Special Guest Jake is playing Persephone Goldpetal the Galactic firbolg druid.
 * Brian is playing a space wizard and rogue named Echo.

Recap
Last time a lot of things happened. Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian ventured deeper into the giant, black ship The Bellerophon where they found a bunch of spooky ghosts doing menial tasks and computer work. They found a couple chambers of frozen, undead bodies that seemed to be kept in some sort of cryosleep and they left those doors open. A little further they found a line of ghosts waiting to be let into a room to gather electrical supplies. After that, they found the disposal vats where they awakened and fought some ooze monsters in the form of skeletons, Persephone got a disease. Then the frozen, undead cyberwights then came searching for the invader that may or may not have left the doors open. Echo cast Invisibility so they could hide, and when the coast was clear they went through a giant door with red glowing lights into a server room powered by a giant, glowing skull. They made their way to a super long hallway where they found a door covered in weird runes and encountered a zombie janitor in a custodial closet. Before they could take a rest, a voice whispered to them that it would give them something they want if they are willing to pay the price; and the door with the runes opened.

They Can Wait Eight Hours to Kill Us
Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian discuss resting before they venture into the room to meet the voice. They decide to head into the door and find a place to rest there.

Sebastian approaches the door first and finds that it is open; when he peeks inside he sees a very open room with glowing glyphs on the floor. There are shallow steps leading towards the room’s center with more steps that climb to a center dais. Floating above the dais is a cross-legged humanoid figure dressed in robes that hang loosely from its thin frame. A square-ish, pointed shawl is draped over its head, but two yellow, glowing eyes can be seen through the veil. Glowing geometric shapes and symbols seem to appear and disappear around the figure; every once in a while the figure reaches out and manipulates the symbols with its hand before they disappear.

As they watch, Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian realize that there are actually three beings sitting back to back forming a triangle. One of the creatures says “You seek the Soul Eater, truth this is.” Another voice calls, “Please, come in.” Echo sends Jhank in first to walk across the floor, and Jhank does not trigger any traps. Sebastian enters.

“You may call us The Meijin, to whom do we owe the pleasure?” Sebastian introduces himself as “Sebastian Crenshaw, half-orc paladin Oathbreaker/Hexblade.” Echo and Persephone join and introduce themselves as well. All three of The Meijin seem to take a deep whiff as the party says their names. In unison they say “You reek of Ramazall’s bindings.” One voice from the back notes that it is well they disabled the security system ahead of the party’s approach. Echo and Persephone are surprised to hear The Meijin are providing help, and Echo asks why. The Meijin reveal they do not serve Ryoka of their own will, they serve a different power, the High Prince of Interritus. Echo and Sebastian recognize that Interritus is one of the four hells in The Voidharrow.

Echo asks how The Meijin are in the service of the High Prince while maintaining their position on The Bellerophon. The Meijin reveal that they are, always were, and always will be of the High Prince; they are of Interritus itself. Ryoka summoned them here and bound them to her service. Echo asks what price they have to pay in exchange for the information.

We Are The Meijin, No Other Explanation Necessary
One of The Meijin smiles widely beneath its veil; they can see off the glint of the light that its face is not shaped like a human, it is almost animal-like and has very sharp teeth. All three begin to speak in rotation.

“You wish to foil Ryoka’s treason; perfidious deception verse friends and demons. You gain to thieve the bale Soul Eater; device of voracious hunger and eldritch evil. The Meijin can abet you thrice, for its own reason and at its own price. From one we take its deepest secret, something luscious, something piquant. From one we take a dark emotion, something vile, something loathsome. From one we take sweet recollection, a single moment of precious affection. Would you agree to our request?”

Echo asks how they do not know the party is here to simply destroy Ryoka. The Meijin respond that mortals are always tempted by power, and there are few things as powerful as the Soul Eater. Echo asks how they know this information about the party in the first place. “We are The Meijin, no other explanation is necessary. We know things.”

Persephone is very unsure about dealing with The Meijin; they already made a deal with Ramazall and she is not interested in making more deals. Echo asks The Meijin what happens if they decline the deal, and The Meijin tell him that the party’s endeavors will be near impossible unless they slay the Queen herself.

Echo and Sebastian are down to pay the price, so Persephone agrees as well. They discuss who will give what and decide that Persephone will give her deepest secret, Echo will give a dark emotion, and Sebastian will give a sweet memory.

Too Many Mimosas
The Meijin will take the deepest secret first, and gesture for Persephone to step forward. She steps up and says “I am worried about what my relationship will be like with Sebastian if he continues down this path and continues to enforce Ramazall’s will. I feel like it’s a direct affront to everything I stand for. I’m trying to be real cool about it, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last.”

As she reveals her secret and feels shame, reluctance, and guilt, mixed with determination and hope, the three Meijin begin to inhale like they’re greedily feeding on the emotions. It’s delicious to them and they’re sucking it in; she can feel them tremble with the pleasure of making everyone feel these emotions.

The Meijin speak up and ask for the dark emotion next, gesturing for Echo to come forward.

Echo speaks. “I hate myself for leaving my comrades and my love, and not dying with them. I hate myself for what I did in its wake. Not a moment goes by when I am not attempting to reconcile this. Now that I am done running from it there is not a moment that goes by that my every action is to make right my wrongs.”

The Meijin start losing it, they suck in the emotion and start growling and barking almost like dogs. Echo feels that emotion emerge to his surface, usually he is able to stuff it back down and compose himself, but he is struggling to do that. It feels almost as if they have drawn that emotion out to the surface and he is being forced to deal with it right now in this moment.

Finally, The Meijin calm down and demand the sweet emotion.

Sebastian steps forward. “My memory from my childhood is of my mother and my father, the one time I actually remember them being happy together. We were on vacation out in the fields, I don’t know exactly where, I just remember them laughing and playing with each other, pushing each other around, and just having a good time. It’s the only time I ever remember seeing them both smile at the same time. It’s something that’s always stayed in my mind, knowing that there was love there at one time even though I don’t remember it very often. I do know that at one time they loved each other.”

As he speaks he starts feeling the warm, positive emotions this memory gives him and The Meijin once again inhale to feed. His memory stays intact, but the warm fuzzy emotions associated with it are siphoned off. Now he thinks of the memory and doesn’t feel the way he used to, it feels like an empty memory now. They have drained the emotion from him.

The Meijin inhale, trembling for a moment before composing themselves, and say:

“The device is shielded by forlorn souls, former companions the Lich Queen holds. The Princess weeps for her lost song. The Child sleeps, though her dreams are gone. Last there are The Warriors Two, whose blazing emblems have been removed.”

The Meijin in front waves his hand and three spherical, clear orbs with gemstones suspended in their center appear and float towards Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian.

“You must coax a piece of their souls into these then return here to forge the key. The Princess you’ll find down the way, the other two we cannot say.”

A Rest
Echo asks if they can’t say or won’t say. The Meijin reveal that Ryoka does not allow them to see beyond this level of the ship. Echo asks if it is ok for them to rest here and The Meijin promise the party will be safe. As Echo casts Mordenkainen’s Private Sanctum, The Meijin warn that The Bellerophon will only remain in this sector for sixteen more hours.

Echo calls in some fog as a safeguard for the Inner Sanctum and they notice that the fog swirls around The Meijin as if blocked by some sort of barrier. He asks The Meijin if they would help the party defeat the Lich Queen in exchange for freedom from their bonds. The Meijin note that if the party was capable of releasing them, that would have been their first request. Echo observes that if they defeat Ryoka then the bonds would be broken and The Meijin confirm that is what would happen. Echo asks if they’d give the party something in exchange for defeating the lich, and The Meijin note that by stealing the Soul Eater, Ryoka’s demise would happen eventually.

Echo’s Private Sanctum looks like a studio apartment with a workbench identical to the setup on The Starling. Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian prepare to rest. Before they go to sleep, Persephone approaches Sebastian to talk about her secret. She assures him that she was going to talk to him about how she was feeling soon, so her secret wouldn’t have been a secret for very long. She puts her hand on his cheek and looks him in the eyes as she tells him she is not going to give up on him. He is still as good a man as he has been this whole time, Percy is just worried that one day the ends will not justify the means and he will lose himself.

Sebastian is rocked to the core; he had been feeling that no one in this world really cared for him deeply so he is taken aback by Percy’s friendship. He thanks her and appreciates her support. He doesn’t know where his path will lead but he knows that Percy will have his back and that she is his family. Percy gives him a big hug.

Persephone turns to Echo to tell him that she is here for him as well. She knows that he is on his own journey and going through his own issues, but they are available if he wants to talk. Echo has a blank look on his face and thanks her for the sentiment. They are able to rest for eight hours without incident.

I Do Not Want Food All Over My Glyphs
When they’re ready to go, the party exits the Private Sanctum and back into The Meijin’s lair. Echo takes a closer look at them before they depart and recognizes them as arcanaloths, a type of fox-like fiends specializing in magic. Usually they are individuals, but these three seem to be connected with a sibling bond or psychic link.

Persephone asks where they will find the Princess and The Meijin gestures to the east. She asks how they get the piece of their soul and The Meijin advise that they must coax it from them. The Princess longs for her lost song, they must find it. Each of the four souls is broken so the party must help heal them.

Before they leave, Echo asks if anyone wants breakfast. Persephone says that she can conjure up a Heroes’ Feast, and The Meijin insist that if the party is eating they need to leave the room. Instead, they go back into the Private Sanctum and have their feast.

Sebastian takes the lead and marches down the hallway in the direction The Meijin gestured. He follows the hallway to a large heavy, metal door obviously meant for staying closed. There is a glass porthole in its center and when Sebastian looks through he sees a long, steel catwalk lined by a railing; on the other side of the railing are countless tubes and wires converging at a machine at the end of the catwalk. The machine is encased in smooth metal and integrated into its face is the form of a young, humanoid woman. She is only visible from the waist up, her arms and lower half all seem to be integrated with the machine. A hulking, metal visor sits over her head obstructing her forehead and eyes, her long purple hair cascades around her face and down to the floor, the tattered remnants of a colorful robe adorn her body which is further covered by a white shawl.

Sebastian calls Echo and Percy over to look. Percy thinks this could be the Princess and Sebastian tries to open the door. There is a digital lock but no obvious means to open it; Sebastian scans the area and finds a panel that he can pop open. He calls Echo over to see if he can hack it. Echo is able to bypass the digital lock and accesses the computer interface to disengage the lock on the door. Sebastian opens the door and enters the room

The Princess
The room is rather cold as Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian look around. Echo tries to talk to the Princess but gets no response. Sebastian looks for a console but the machinery looks more industrial than digital. Echo casts Message in an attempt to speak to her; “I hear that you weep for your lost song.” There is a pause and she whispers “Yes.” Echo asks for more information because they wish to help. After another long pause Echo hears “Please, return my guardian song to me… She tricked us… that wretched woman.” Echo asks how to retrieve it but all she says is “My song… my song… return it to me” and she starts crying.

Echo tells Percy and Sebastian what he has learned. Persephone tells them that Rohorn taught her something when she last meditated but cautions that perhaps Echo and Sebastian should leave. Echo perks up to the news that she spoke with Rohorn; Percy tells him about how Rohorn met her on her spiritual sphere and helped her remember something from her past. Echo asks which song Rohorn showed her and Percy reveals it was the Song of Remembrance, but perhaps since the Princess hasn’t forgotten then this is not the time for that.

The trio decides to move on to find more clues about the song; they backtrack to an area they have not explored yet. They find Stinky the zombie janitor as he’s mopping the hall, Sebastian says “Good job” as they pass. All the way at the end of the long hallway they find a doorway that opens upon approach. Sebastian slowly enters the room and notices that this room is the very bottom of a spiral staircase that wraps upwards.

It's Fucking Lit in Here
He tells the others they have to go up and they climb to the top where they find another door that opens upon approach. Sebastian slowly enters the door and sees a large, open lobby with two elevator doors on the northern wall. The entire south wall is a glass window, 40-ft wide and 20-ft tall, and outside is the great, inky void of space. Looking down from the window is the ship graveyard, now disturbed by The Bellerophon’s feeding. They see a hallway that moves north and south.

Echo gazes around the corners and finds an extremely long hall stretching before them with three identical, closed doors. Echo heads to the first one and presses the door to open it. He sends Jhank inside and Jhank finds a large computer bank. Echo follows and the lights turn on automatically when he enters, he sees all the computers have power. Echo tries to find some information from the computers but is struggling, and Sebastian tries to help out. They accidentally opened a menu in a language they didn’t understand but managed to close it without incident. Sebastian does not trust these computers.

Echo moves on to the next set of doors down the hall, they are flush with the wall with no obvious mechanism to open. He checks it out and discerns that the doors seem to be on some sort of remote system; there’s no way to open them without a security card they can scan on the door or doing a systems override. Echo pulls out the card he made and tries to swipe it, but it doesn’t work. Echo casts Comprehend Languages and they head back into the computer room.

It is pretty obvious that without security clearance they can’t get into any of the higher functions of the computer but they can control the door system and the light system on this level. The door system is currently on “Clearance Access Only” and the light system is currently disengaged. Echo engages the light system; all the lights turn on in the hallway. Echo turns them back off. He then turns the door system to “Automatic” so they should open upon approach now.

Echo, Persephone, and Sebastian head to the door on the north side and they see a hallway stretching to a wider room. Before they can do anything further, they hear something big and heavy heading towards them from behind a door.

The Party

 * Sebastian Crenshaw: A half-orc paladin/warlock. Maybe realizing that people actually care about him.
 * Persephone Goldpetal: A firbolg druid. Thinks there's been too much selling of souls but determined to be a good friend.
 * Codename: Echo: An elf wizard/rogue. He definitely did turn all those lights on.

NPCS

 * The Meijin: Three arcanaloths acting as one entity and bound in service to Ryoka. Emotional perverts.
 * The Princess: A humanoid woman integrated with a machine. Crying for her song.

Music

 * SuperQuest Saga Theme - by Brian

Out of Character

 * "The Horns of Nyarlathotep" the players have been mentioning are the sounds from a really loud train horn going by in the background of the recording.
 * The card Echo made a copy of was a materials card.

World Building

 * There are four planets, basically four Hells, in The Voidharrow.

Nat 20's (2 total)

 * Brian (Perception)
 * Brian (Arcana)