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Affairs and their Outcomes 2
Petr’s Past:
This deals with an adventure they will play later, set in the past with Prince Vladimir and the hills where he would worship heathen gods before his conversion to Christianity. Petr will find himself in a circular stone staircase with glassed windows, bars on the outside peering out to a dark landscape and a distant hill where lightning converges irratically. At the foot of the stairs, Prince Vladimir’s guards block exit to the Prince’s wife, Anna’s room at the top of the stairs.
If Petr creeps up the stairs and looks through the windows he can see on the distant hill winged creatures silhouetted against the lightning now and then.
The wooden door to Anna’s room is not locked. Through, is an opulent apartment. Red silks and drapery cover the stark walls, and candelabra suspend from the ceiling, white candles brief in their illumination of the room. A large ornate four-posted bed faces a massive half-oval window through which the distant hill can be made out. Anna sits on the bed weeping (there is nothing else in the room to occupy her time) - Dressed in a torn white-laced dress.
Anna knows Petr, though not as Petr. In a future adventure the characters will inhabit the bodies of four court members of Prince Vladimir’s court - Petr is dreaming this now, his nightmare is not of his reality but years before. Petr is well-liked by Anna and she trusts him as an aide, but Prince Vladimir hates him.
Allow Petr to talk to Anna (she has just married Prince Vladimir against her will - this is her wedding day and the Prince is returning from libations to the demonic gods on the hill). Shelaments her innocence that will be lost this day, and how Petr warned her, but she did not listen and now it is too late.
Prince Vladimir will then be heard climbing the stairs, drunkenly calling for his wife. Anna panics and removes a stone tile, revealling an underground passage. She begs him to enter - the Prince will kill him. She closes the tile as the door open. Then the Prince’s rape and mutilation of Anna begins… should Petr care to listen, a ladder pushing through the darkness of a tunnel. The tunnel continues further down.
Sergei’s Future:
To be completed in the future this adventure deals with Sergei trying to break out of the coma from the interstellar journey to retrieve the ‘force’ of Binah’s rosary beads. Doctors are trying their best to restore function to Sergei’s failing body.
A bright light, clinical stilletos of flourescence searing his corneas. Growing used to the brightness he feels somewhat disembodied. The ceiling surrounding the circular light is also white, spotless and flat. Movement is not a function he can not master. He feels automated, as if something is feeding him. Sergei feels a terrible dread lingering, but can not uncover its source. Eventually eyes fail him and he passes out.
Awakening again doctors are busy over him. A doctor stares down, the light a halo behind him. Ashen face threaded with loops of vein-like tubes pumping dark fluid through his cheeks. Over the left eye a metal magnifying glass enlarges a complex eye like watch-face inspecting Sergei. The doctor’s hands are dressed in syringes attached over fingers and his body is laced in a white plate (ceramic) armour. The doctor asks questions:
“Sergei. Can you see? (Sergei can speak and hear and see - senses of the face only).”
The doctor does not want to stress his patient and will not detail the mission or anything - it is not his job to ask. He asks if Sergei can feel his limbs, try moving them. Gets him to try to will himself to move. Doctor gets concerned and moves away to talk with nurses and other doctors. Sergei may overhear.
“I fear the immersion may have triggered synapses recalcitrant.”
“As I suspected. I warned the repurcussions of immersion, remember.”
“Noted. The stimuli-drugs are not working. We may have to resort to more... primitive means.”
“Family?”
“Yes.”
In the future family is disjointed for the characters and rearranged. Sergei is married to his sister (which isn’t his sister in the future, but this will alienate and horrify). Sergei drifts off into a dark sleep again and wakes up - his sister Sofia smiles timidly over him.
Play up her as the sister, worried about her husband (brother). If Sergei refers to father she thinks of their mutual father (hers father-in-law) and Georgii has just joined the army, the corps against Binah. Sofia does not know too much about what Sergei was up too, just that he had to go somewhere beyond the Rim (the outer shell of the solar system). She kisses him deeply saying she missed him. This may pummel Sergei into a fit as he realises this isn’t quite real. The doctors subdue him with the needles on their arms. Dark sleep again.
Last awakening. Flickering eyes - conversation.
“I am afraid we can’t fully ressucitate.”
“Explain.”
“Physical shock was accentuated by introduction of wife.”
“On whose orders?”
“I... thought it best.”
“Since when have you been given the right to think independently?
“I...”
“Your service is terminated doctor. Arrangements will be made to notify your kin. Before cessation, though, tell me when.”
“Immersion is new and results vary. 2nd Doctor has uncovered a possible virus attached beyond the Rim to subject possible the preventation of ressucitation.”
“That is all 1st Doctor.” - sound of a body collapsing, metal on floor.
The military officer makes his way to Sergei. The officer is trying to get them awakened as is his mission to reclaim the rosary beads of the Princess. A featureless mask of white glass that reflects Sergei’s face fettered in reams of metal and tubing.
“You did well, soldier. Don’t worry, we’ll get you out soon and back into reclamation. We are already on the road to stopping the madness affecting our motherland. But tell me... who has the rosaries?”
Sergei blacks out and awakens on Tuesday 17th, the day after rescuing Georgii in the Childhood Memories Adventure. Allow him to go out, find Georgii who stayed. Georgii is grateful for his brother’s aid in rescuing him and has prepared breakfast.
Dimitrii’s Future:
An opening of a chamber, much steam billowing out before him into an ovoid room. Dimitrii steps out of a sarchophagai into a dark chamber, subdued lights glowing around the base of the walls. He is naked, his arm is cybernetic as always, but more futuristic. The wiring has a life of its own and mutates to what ever situation it is called for. Well formed, like muscle but grey.
A door opens ahead and a women naked except for a black robe opened down the front steps through and walks to him, eyes averted, pulls back her hood, kneels and kisses his navel, lightly stroking his penis. She is young, all he can see is a lush mane of brunette hair spilled in front of him.
She, Yelena, stands, smiling secretively and provacatively... desiresome, with soft, fragile and powerful eyes... youthful beauty. She inspects his face, running her finger along his face, she is amazed, truly amazed as if struck by divine insight. The mood changes from lust to faith. This elation will last unless Dimitrii says something. His words bring her back to earth and she apologizes, saying that the hand of God in action is so breath-taking. You look... knew! She exclaims. Dimitrii has had his face altered and is a different person physically, the horror of the body - his body, and what about her infalible love for him (faith/the body).
She then assumes her duties and tells her to follow. As he does so, she berates him for not following proper walking, head low in prayer and hands clapped for god. She leads him from the chamber in the motions. Dimitrii enters large hallways bleak and empty, niches of shadows and webs... the marble floor blackened and cracked. Corridors blur to darkness and are lost in memory as he follows. Dimitrii will descend into Metropolis should he walk any of those corridors, as the church to Binah in Elysium in St. Petersberg has easy access to Metropolis, the only place in St. Petersberg that does - they try to prevent any cracks in the Illusion, keeping it to the church only.
She leads him through the Feodorova Church to Nadezhda Feodorova... one of the descendents of Maria. A large circular chamber of white marble columns cracked and overgrown with black and oily vines. The columns themselves seem to be illuminating the room in an icy bone white. A Roman bench sits in the centre of this strange retreat and upon it, Nadezhda. Sitting in somber black her pale white face presses starkly beside the pillars... serene countenance and poise. Yelena crosses herself and morbidly motion for Dimitrii to move forward. She is cold, refuses to look at him and she promptly walks away. Dimitrii is left with Nadezhda. She motions for him to sit next to her. The very air is crushing in the coldness and the only warmth one could possible get would be to simply reach forward and...
Note: Dimitrii does not know he is with Nadezhda Feodorova, but the importance of the situation should be apparent.
Her face is an angel, skin smooth as velvet, encircled ovoid in black cloth. She speaks perfectly and lightly, telling Dimitrii of the mission he must undertake for Our Lady - Nadezhda’s nouns are a by-product of the church oppressing by using words to simple concepts making them horrific or holy: He must wait in the Soulless Pits (where they keep prisoners) and the Featureless (communist Moskov) will attack and take him to the Gates of Infernus (Moskov) and release him among the Bifrons (demonic name for communists) where he then must masquerade as the dæmonic kind and gain their favour. He should rise among the titles of the Infernals to a level of highest trust to Gatekeeper for Astaroth herself and accept the mission to reclaim the personal possessions of Matron Maria to use against the Church. He must take the holiest of items to the very Gate of Infernus and allow the combined power to forever seal the doorway to Infernus (i.e. take Princess Trakanova’s artefacts to Gleb infused in the Central Computer to be consumed as data and drive Princess Trakanova into rage).
At the end of the commands, Nadezhda puts her mouth to his ear and whispers, ‘God is strong with you, by the Faith I decree’. Hot breath on his ear (sacred/profane) drops to his mouth as she slowly withdraws, the faintest breathe on his lips. She then looks up to Yelena who has returned on order. ‘Go now’, she adds last, ‘be strong in Faith’. she stands and leaves through the pillars into darkness. Yelena turns and leads Dimitrii to a chamber through the vaulted arches strained and broken, vast murals soured in grime. The oaken door is stained heavily, Yelena stands beside it head bowed. She has prepared a nasty surprise for Dimitrii. Inside the Purgators - members of the church who hunt out thoughts impure and simply cleaned them from you with beating, penance through flesh, nothing new. Much like cleaning up a nasty irritation. His crime - for his penice stirring around Yelena. She told his actions.
Inside six large men dressed in totally black capes - a bloody cross over gauze covering their faces. The charges are read out, ‘You, Dimitrii Chernetskii have received signals from Astaroth himself. It is not your fault that you are targeted. Astaroth tempts those who are the strongest and his ways are legion. We the Purgators will aid you in ridding this tempting demon off you.
They then begin slashing at him with light cuts whipping across his body. The slashes grow more numerous and raw. Hours later, bleeding and burning with fire, exhausted they leave after praising the Matron Mother for her aid in exorcising him. (this is a hint, Dimitrii is an unwilling medium. Eventually he blacks out.
Anichka’s Past:
Anichka, or Lady Anna (Here is something which influences the game: Lady Anna, or the Lady as she is known as know, is the elegant woman reclused from reality in madness in the present. Anichka has met herself from a previous era - the face is different) as known by court members - the former only to her friends is the Princess married to the pagan-worshipping Prince Vladimir.
This takes place before her wedding to Prince Vladimir whom she knew little save he loved her, though Anichka doesn’t know that feeling. A new body, a glorious body. She will find the face recognizable (as she should - her own body, or not). Her room is an opulent apartment. Red silks and drapery cover the stark walls, and candelabra suspends from the ceiling, white candles brief in their illumination of the room. A large ornate four-posted bed faces a massive half-oval window through which the distant hill can be made out. Allow her to explore, her clothes in the wardrobes, beautifully ornate and ancient. Jewellery that litters itself in diamonds, equisite craftmanship.
Her maid dressed in a plain yellow dress and white front, hair in a cloth wrap enters and begins to dress Anna. The two are friends but the maid, Meshidah, is a slave and knows it. She will flatter Anna over her choice in men, and here if Anna proves a skilled talker can get information. She finishes and says that the Bishop wanted to see her after she had finished to talk about the wedding and the maid leaves. The Bishop is sent up.
Ensconsed in a heavy black robe to the neck and thick beard and hair the Bishops enters the room and speaks with Anna. This is the Archbishop, whom Anna specifically requested, because to marry Vladimir she made him promise to marry her only with a Christian ceremony. The Bishop will talk of matters such as what does her intended do all day at that hill, he motions through the window. He doesn’t come to my services much, he asks. Anna may be on the defensive in this situation to avoid starting anything, if so this proves a suitable irony later when her husband rapes her.
Closer to her the Bishop asks her what local pagan god he worshipped before pledging to marry you? You know I should insist he convert before we marry, he threatens, but... I could waive that requirement he says closer to her, brushing her cheek and coldly smiling. He then leaves.
She can spend her time in her room preparing. Maybe the maid and some other girls come in to arrange her hair with special lotions and bundle it up so it looks it best for tomorrow morning’s wedding. More talking - more information. Watching out the window at the hill, strange shapes dancing in flashes of lightning across the grey blanket of sky and white down of snow stretched between rusticated trees.
The morning the girls dress her in a beautiful white gown as clear as the snow and laced and embroidered in ivory brocade. Then the priest takes her hand and leads her to the chamber, down the stairs and the long hallway to the chamber. Along the way a boy standing in the middle of the corridor, seemingly not there before offers Anna a small cloth bundle with a smile. Should she take it it drips blood all across the front of her white dress soiling it red. The Bishop just gives a small chuckle and continues with her, dragging her if necessary saying that this is nothing special just a tactic to get this faith overriding any pagan desires. She walks into the ballroom where the court dressed eloquent stand watching as she enters soiled (reflection of her present state). Whispers pass around. She meets Vladimir at the steps, a deadly handsome young man groomed for perfection. The Bishop stands over them and recites the marriage ceremony. He stares at her the entire time. Time wheels, marriage sealed with a kiss, dancing mad to the insane whirrings of fiddles and horns, feasting and drinking and the constant mire and flood of faces.
Eventually she finds herself exhausted on her bed. Vladimir is stripping off and begins to rip her clothing off as well, getting rougher and rougher. Probes roughly with fingers into her orifices and drags her head to his penis and makes her gag and thrusts. He rapes her, sodomizes her into the soft bed but does not penetrate her. He is keeping her a virgin. After the rape he takes ties her up takes out his knife and slices little pieces of flesh and strokes his penis with his other blood soaked hand. Unconsciousness comes to take her away.