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Akhu
After a vague series of time flashes and a smorgasbord of scenarios unplanned, I’ve tried to get some semblance of order for the webpage inasmuch as possible. The following is the future scenario whereby the characters are hunting for Saint Princess Taranushenko’s rosary beads - one of her artefacts (see Affairs and their Outcomes 1).
The future setting is on the planet Beyond the Rim where her rosary beads are kept and the characters are suddenly thrust there with no explanation. Actually they themselves took the Inferno drug mentioned in previous adventures in heavy doses and so reality crumbled around them. Another note is that Petr’s watch, given to him by Sandolphin when the Nepharite when he only an angel, began to move back and forward at opportune moments (it was broken) and now in this future setting it moves back and forward fluctuating in speed and in large leaps physically impossible for any pocket watch.
Beyond the Rim
The futurist term for the limits of space as they define Space’s borders within the Illusion the area beyond is timeless and spaceless, although in this futuristic setting that is unknown. The characters are the first to be sent Beyond the Rim via space-craft.
The Planet: ZB-13x
This small red planet’s surface is a sandbox of sulphur and dried red ochre desert. The land is unstable and vociferous in terrain. Few caves dot the landscape and are largely removed in terms of hundreds of miles from each other. Inside of them remnants of a civilization can be found, as can a civilization established afterwards. A small satellite orbits the planet, although this gaseous satellite is becoming more unstable since the character’s arrival (See Below). Small dust particles in the air capture the light effusing from the satellite and release over the following hours the energy - the terrain is never in darkness. No sun can be seen and neither the stars.
The Caves
The Aetats were conceived here by the Demiurge and the Archons to stop those manipulating time and space and rudiments of their existence in a nascent stage can be discerned in cave paintings deep in the red rocky tunnels that chaotically spiral down. These crude paintings in black clumsily and with perfect lines outline strange creatures with between four and eight legs and twisted, elongated heads, the tips of which are smeared in a lighter red band of colour.
The echoing of metal bells can be heard faintly among the ongoing rumblings felt under the earth. These come from deeper in the caves.
Now and then along the walls gaps in eternity opening to Ktonor repulsingly gape. Space and Time whorl and dissolve in 2D and 3D images into black vortices. Looking to long into these gaps can bring Guardians of the Labyrinth or they can even drag the victim deeper into the folds of Chaos.
These smaller caves eventually descend to larger, ribbed channels of round rock. The red ochre is transplaced with more stonelike masonry. These caves are burrow channels of the vast worms that are controlled by the Lictors of ZB-13x (See Below). These caves, if followed lead to more upper caves like described above distanced hundreds of miles and link to larger ribbed caverns descending further into the planet and to the City of the Monks, the Lictors (See Below).
The Lictors and the City of the Monks
The Lictors who colonized the planet after the Aetats were created are the very Lictors from an even more extreme future in which Binah succeeds in destroying Saint Princess Taranushenko who then drags herself into a personal purgatory. Saint Princess Taranushenko takes her Lictors whom were made to convert to her during the warring times against the Feodorova family which controlled St. Petersberg. These Lictors managed to escape and steal from the Princess her rosary beads from her casket as she died, hoping to protect themselves from her.
Beyond Time and Space they have managed some semblance of life and erected vast cities under the earth with whatever enslaved being they summoned or caught. The worms they ride are the very worms (Metromortes from ‘Metropolis’ Sourcebook) the Lady and her court in the present evade in the Subways and Underground. The Lictors are beyond time and manipulate it to their will, always returning to safety beyond time from the Aetats or other agents and can be found in the present.
Dressed like Daoist monks, they chime brass bells and consecrate and bless everything around them with the liquid from their own bodies they carry in wooden dishes. When riding the worms they actually enter the creature and control it. They only travel in time and the large tunnels are those they return to from time and space back to the central city in the centre of the planet.
The City of the Monks is shrouded in weak red light, mostly the archaic buildings obscured in shadows. The city is a maze of latticed Metromorte bone and flesh, soft walls… occult symbols painted in black on the meaty undersides. Buildings consist of stretched tendon and exo-skeleton, stairs springy, and windows filmed in sheets of skin and stretched gut. The buildings serve as private sanctuary although these have all been abandoned, including the library (entire human skins tattooed in precursers of ancient languages) for the main chapel where the Lictors prepare powerful rituals and open gates for the worms to puncture time and space.
It is warm and damp, the air slaughterhouse redolent. The Lictors themselves are few, but their enslaved number twenty or so at a time. Azghouls are the most common captive, but none serve as guards because the Lictors ignorantly conceive themselves as untouchable.
The Rosary Beads
Saint Princess Taranushenko’s Rosary Beads are contained in the main chapel as the centrepiece. They are retained in metaphorical form which takes form as a graceful pallid human-woman creature without facial features or orifices. The rosary beads must be integrated with another creature for transport.
Omen: The space-craft
The Omen is the first of a ship that actually presses Beyond the Rim, a technical process known only to the scientists working for Saint Princess Taranushenko. The Ship theoretically punctures time through travel. The handling of the ship requires five individuals (the characters arrived with five).
Visually the ship resembles a black-carapaced scarab beetle, the forelegs more static, serving as two gunnery mounts for interstellar combat should the need have arrived, containing forward-mounted laser cannons and two fusion warheads. The ship is smooth and rounded, its insides veined in black cables.
The bridge of the ship resembles vast sheets of Plexiglas replete with digital and 3-D images and outside camera scenes suspended and tabled. There are no screens to the outside - everything is maintained with external cameras and sensors.
Five separate cabins with full ablution suites are large and Spartan. No recreational material and only the sparsest of needed materials.
A gallery and sick bay are two other features. Fusion engines can be reached via spiraling corridors to the wings of the scarab which fan out to either side, retracted at landing. In the rear of the ship two six-wheeled bikes, whose legs bounce across the terrain with incredible suspension carry five people in each.
Personal weapons are stored with the bikes, laser carbine rifles and pistols and actual bladed swords of strange steel that is light and strong.
The Computer
The Ship is maintained by a computer. The computer is not all-knowing and is subservient and is available only in a capacity of detailing and arranging. Its information is more restricted than the characters and it knows little of the mission, but knows that the mission information can be accessed through it. The computer is limited by man, because it is not man.
The Impact of the Characters on ZB-13x
Although the characters do not remember the travel to the planet, their actions were nonetheless carried out. They will not play their arrival to the planet. Some things in the mix of time they will never be enacted in.
Dimitrii, who is working as an agent of the Feodorova Family was told to infiltrate Saint Princess special agents and rise to a level of trust. He was successful and with four others, chosen to go Beyond the Rim to retrieve the rosary beads. The captain of the trip was Sergei Markevich, and overall leader. Only he was presented with the mission goals recorded onto chip which he has in his cabin room.
Dimitrii was told to fire an energy accelerating charge into the moon of ZB-13x’s surface prompting its rapid expansion which threatens to eclipse the planet in several days. He did so and the moon is growing and the radiation it exudes is life-threatening. Characters must seek cover from its deadly waves or slowly melt. None of the characters know Dimitrii did this, save one… who is now dead, an NPC crew member of equal status to the rest under Sergei. Dimitrii murdered the man in his room and dragged him to the bike and drove him to the cave and dumped him deep in its maw. The bike is covered in trails of blood (showing that one of them is a murderer, but they know not who) and gore. The crew member was beaten to death with Sergei’s cyberarm (which is more developed in the future).
The Lictors have not noticed the character’s arrival, so concerned are they with travelling through time and trying to rectify the danger they were thrust into by Saint Princess Taranushenko.
The adventure begins with the characters separated.. Petr is at the ship just as the moon crests the horizon and radiation warnings are issued to him by the computer. The rest of the characters used the other bike to reach the cave one hour ago (not the bloodied bike) to search for the other crew member, Nicolas Borisievich (although they don’t know that). Petr waited to watch the ship. The other characters stand outside of the surface cave and the moon begins to rise and with it, radiation warnings from the computer. The characters are all dressed in full black rubber suits, tubes and wires sprouting from them like a peacock’s tail. All of the characters can communicate with each other via a small metal implant buried at the back of their ears drilled into their bone working on the resonance of sound.
What do they do?
Lingering in the moon for more than thirty minutes begins to break down the suit’s defense. Petr can speak with them and explore the ship (he cannot get other private cabins save his own). Petr might be able to find the other bike, spattered in blood and gore and the trail leading to it. The bike has record of its travel and to where, the very cave the others are hiding within.
The others can explore the cave, study the strange murals and the bizarre vortices. They will find the body of Nicolas Borisievich farther within. His head has been smashed open by something large, his skull fragmented and compounded, brain and its fluid pressed between the bone like shattered shellfish. He is wearing an identical suit to the characters and his name and ensignia are visible on the right breast of the suit, as with the characters.
Not knowing where they are and that there is a murdered somewhere should incite some fear, and play up the sounds of the bells from below (which the characters heard in earlier scenarios set in the present) and the earthquakes. The group in the cave can descend toward the larger tunnels where the bells are slightly louder, but still echoing.
Returning to the ship will prove difficult. Their bike is ruined - the console not responding to their commands. This is a genuine fault - one which the computer can fix if the bike is returned. Petr can drive the other bike (discovery of the gore) to them and take them and the other bike back to the ship or he can aid in exploring. Whilst contained inside the bike they are immune to the radiation.
Nothing is stopping them from exploring the landscape, but they soon find it as described earlier. The computer can give them location of the nearest cave.
On the ship the characters can explore this thing they assume they arrived in and enter their personal cabins. Nicolas’ cabin cannot be entered unless Sergei overrides security and enters himself. Here is a list of what is within each of the crew’s room.
Sergei
- Digital hologram movies of him and his wife’s marriage in the state (not a wedding, but bonding of comrades in kinship - a communist co-joining). His wife is his sister, Sofia. Georgii watches dressed in an army uniform (like Sergei has seen, large and bulky white and red ceramic armour and a featureless helmet of mirrored white). These continue to other movies showing Sofia pregnant around the house and the two of them playing like lovers (nothing explicit, yet) which deepens into erotic sexual interplay with them and other comrades who join in ("Brothers should be close, don’t you think")
- A small chip which slots into a holomedia projector. The 3-D image of a soldier dressed as Georgii was asks for security clearance (Sergei’s voice) and then reiterates the mission. To travel to planet ZB-13x and retrieve the rosary beads of Saint Princess Taranushenko and return with them back to Moskov avoiding any Feodorova attack.
Dimitrii
- Nothing incriminating for Dimitrii, just a collection of tools for the use of tailoring his arm and fitting it with razor wire within the fingers, small laser carbine, and other more engineering tools.
Petr
- Petr has his silver watch given to him by Sandolphin (although wasn’t it his father…) and the clock is mad, moving back and forward in time at differentiating speeds, leaping hours and seconds which the clock should not be able to accomplish.
Anichka
- Anichka’s forgetfulness and her desire to escape reality has centred on her own mind rather than turn outward and in her room a small computer reminds her regularly who she is, but nothing else.
Nicolas
- Nicolas ran communications for the ship and intercepted Dimitrii’s charge but could do little to stop it. He did however begin recording a verbal manual of what he saw when Dimitrii opened the lock with the tools from his hand and killed Nicolas. The verbal tape that is still running records Nicolas. "I Nicolas Borisievich did witness the release of a charge against the surface of the moon, which penetrated the gaseous clouds and began inciting its acclimation of energy. I report. The moon is expanding expedientially. (sound of a door opening) The traitor… what? What are you… No please. Please leave me alone. No, Arghh. Thud. (sounds of something heavy dragging). Opening of door and the locking thereof."
The characters now will have confirmation of a murderer and a mission, so it seems, and a deadline since the moon is to explode within the next two days. Should the characters decide to go deeper into the tunnels use the following. Trying to leave will prove difficult. Dimitrii can engineer the computer to waylay communications so they can leave, but time and space may not prove to be so mutable.
The City
The following are encounters to run once the characters reach the City.
- Three Techcrones dismantling the bone and flesh on the outskirts of the city and taking them toward the Palace of Worms to add to the Palace. Will the characters be mistaken as architecture?
- A vast section of stretched skin and flesh painted with a myriad of glyphs and symbols hypnotising and disorientating. Looking to closely at the glyphs reacts with the characters’ implants - Dimitrii’s arm and all of their ear pieces, causing them to throb and twitch uncontrollably. Simply not looking prevents any reaction. The Techcrones if close may go to help with the problem of their failing machinery and operate removing the necessary.
- An escaped Zeloth, trapped in the city, leaps up from a knot of vein-like tunnels and grabs one of the character and descends back into the tunnels and flees with his food.
- A bloated Cairath who has attached itself unwillingly to the city. The predator’s limbs mesh with the bone of the worms into a lattice work of living steel and rotting flesh. Though unable to move the Cairath is capable of attacking with its network of sharp thin bones and vein whips.
- A garbage dump of the internal organs from the worms not needed. A huge black pit stinks with the guts of these vast worms, the slabs of slippery flesh rot and Compostates dig through the filth and will attack the characters if they come too close.
- After a lengthy walk through artery they come upon a conglomeration of seven carved bone statues set in a pattern of a circle on a raised dias. They are ornately carved resembling each other. They are naked woman, without facial features or any orifice of any kind. The dias of soft spongy ground has thirty steps to reach the statues. Closer to them the statues face the centre where there is a black hole much like the gates to Ktonor.
- The library. Here the characters can unravel entire human skins and read in varying dialects strange and blasphemous texts. Taking them will not bring them into the present when the characters finally return.
The Palace of Worms
In the centre the Palace is the crown of the city and the only place where the monks/lictors can be found. The building comprises of the exoskeletons of these massive worms, broken and arranged as a vast elongated dome. Blood seeps in the cracks of the exo-skeletons, forming a pool. Inisde the clamouring of bells comes and goes. Two Azghouls stand sentry outside the huge bone-wrought gates that lead into the Palace. The Azghouls will not stop the characters unless the characters make themselves a threat in which case the Azghouls react.
Inside the Palace flesh drops from the ceiling splattering the bileous floor. Pews of amorphous flesh shift under the bulk of the monks sheathed in brown robes who pray with heads bowed and wooden bowls upraised to the sky before the central glass cylinder where Saint Princess Taranushenko’s rosary beads manifest. Blood trickles from the strands and filaments of skin and muscle overhead into the wooden bowels and once filled the monk/Lictor stands and waits for the six others then joins them in heading to the back of the Palace. Rumbling prequels the arrival of a Metromorte which the Lictors chant before and enter… the Metromorte then leaves and the Palace is empty, but only briefly. Time has no constant here and the Monks arrive back in moments, though they may have been gone years. This is the only time the characters can get the rosary beads, although they probably have no idea what is in the glass cylinder. If shattered, the rosary beads enter Dimitrii (unwilling medium).
As soon as the cylinder has been shattered the Lictors are alerted and return. Now with the rosary beads the characters can better fare against the Lictors who give chase, but the beads offer protection against the Dark Art and if they do manage to escape the Lictors and make it back to the ship they can finally leave… the Lictors will be consumed by the moon now obscuring most of the sky.
As soon as the ship powers up and takes off the characters are plunged back to Sergei’s apartment.