Sorry about the extreme tardiness of the log - been pretty busy in the intervening two weeks.
Cast Notes:
Jack Carter: out of action, player was sick.
Choice Quotes:
Sidrophael (describing a ritual purification): But if you have placed your weight on your left foot, all was for naught.
Sergei: I wonder if you give off any detectable emissions?
Sid's player: ... I'm sorry, I just about made a fart joke.
GM to Sid: You could ask your bosses!
Sid: (reluctantly) Yeah.
Doris' Player: They probably want to talk to you!
Sid's player: (even more reluctantly) Yeaaah.
Don's player: You have 43 new messages!
Doris' Player: They probably want to talk to you!
Sid's player: (even more reluctantly) Yeaaah.
Don's player: You have 43 new messages!
Events:
Location: Task Force Starbase
Jack Carter experienced a crushing, missing-player related migraine and retired to his quarters.
Colonel Vunot tried calling the guest quarters after Don's timely computer system reboot. He wanted to know what had happened.
The group explained the circumstances of the attack: the use of bodily possession by the Fallen, etc. They did not hold back any details.
Vunot reasoned that the Fallen had a particular interest in the party. He revealed that the Alliance had no prior practical experience fighting demons.
He said that their first step would be to move to evacuate the starbase, as it was too vulnerable to sabotage. He didn't want his people 'trapped in a tiny metal box with four nuclear reactors' if there were going to be any more attacks. He said they would be evacuating to another planet in the same solar system: Yundi IV, where the Sertai had an old munitions factory.
He asked for suggestions about how to prevent further Fallen
Don suggested using a brain scan implant to detect jumps in brainwave activity. Vunot protested that their technological base was not up to the task, although he agreed to test any gear the party could draw up plans for. He remained dubious about this possibility though, and requested it take a back seat to other research concerning the bugs.
Vunot then asked Sidrophael for help, reasoning that Angels and Fallen were natural enemies. He requested a ritual that could protect personnel against possession in the field, some kind of sanctification.
Sergei requested that the Alliance bring in Great Britain from his parallel. Vunot said that he agreed in principle, but that the practical reality was that Sergei's people would need to be able to offer something in order to get a seat the proverbial table.
Freedom Ranger requested a chance to hunt live samples of the bugs, reasoning that they still needed to be on the offensive (rather than reacting).
Vunot agreed, and offered them several suggestions about where to hunt the bugs, explaining that they could try varying ranges of infestation. Sergei suggested that they go to his world, citing the fact that it only had one they knew about. Sid corrected that, telling the story of how his host got killed when he sought the Akashic Amplifier. This only renewed Sergei's interest in returning and defending his home.
Vunot said that was fine with him.
Kay asked about why the bug fled from them in the Meteor Apocalypse Parallel, noting that they hadn't hit it yet. Sergei believed there was nothing to it, and the others were dubious.
The group joined the evacuation, then broke up to prep for their mission.
- Kay went to Dr. Egaru and asked for more information about the Akashic Amplifier. He advised her that she may or may not ever grow into further powers with it, but that she should keep trying.
- Freedom Ranger studied video of the bugs. He also asked for access to a vehicle mounted railgun for personal use, and got it approved.
- Sergei built ultrasonic/ultraviolet flashbangs and began work on a device to decode the Lemurian data archives.
- Don fixed his scanner, then set up an ad hoc reality stabilizer with some Sertai pylons, on the logic that he could maybe trap a bug inside it. (Based on his experience that they avoided the field of stable reality on Overrun Seattle Parallel #13 with Losora.) Doris stayed with Don to watch and help him calibrate his scanner.
- Sid reported in to his bosses. He admitted he was with the new bearer of the Amplifier. They told him to make sure she came down on their side. They also told him that they didn't know why the Fallen wanted the bugs to proliferate, but that he should investigate. They theorized that the Fallen might want to use the disaster to destabilize governments on various governments.
Sergei took the rest of the stones. They didn't find any bugs though, so they went to the village of the former keeper of the Amplifier... except that Cosmic Coffee couldn't land in the village due to overwhelming interference. Don landed 12 miles away.
The group approached cautiously on foot. Doris heard singing from the town. Don checked and found an open rift. The group ventured closer and found that there were no birds, no plants, nothing alive. They came upon a pair of pickup trucks headed away from the village during the attack, but the engines had been melted, the drivers burned.
When they got closer, they saw that the town had been hit by a mysterious energy weapon that burned the buildings. Kay found a burned bug body too, indicating that whatever had fired had caught the bugs as well.
They found the rift in the center of town. It was invisible to the naked eye, and deflected a rock thrown by Freedom Ranger.
Don wanted to backtrack the rift, but not at its full size. He had Freedom Ranger get the pylons, and set up a reality stabilizing field around the rift. Unfortunately, the field was designed to be powered by Cosmic Coffee, but all he had handy was his stapler... so Don set the stapler to 'overload' and fired it up.
The resulting blast flung Don through the rift, and knocked everyone off-kilter. Sid immediately discarded his wolf body and followed in incorporeal form. Doris had the rest of the group link hands, and attempted to use her powers to slide after them.
Don found himself in an oubliette with about a dozen bodies. They'd been ritually sacrificed. Sid joined him moments later, but found himself stuck in a small stone idol, in lieu of a body. He realized he'd been spirit trapped by powerful magic. They looked at the runes above and he recognized the world: Nalkim, a place of sorcery ruled by potent lich kings, and exceedingly dangerous.
Doris slid the rest of the group into the oubliette with some difficulty: everyone came out with debilitating headaches. They did arrive in one piece, and totally not merged with any solid matter, however.
They freed Sid by scratching the runes on the wardstone he was imprisoned in, and he went to find a host body. He immediately located a soldier defending the wall from an encroaching army of the bugs, and began to participate in the city's defense to get a feel for the situation.
Kay raised Freedom Ranger to the top of the pit, where he used Liberty to slash a way out. Kay easily got the group out of the hole, where they found themselves in the inside of a small black pyramid filled with oubliettes. They reasoned it was a necromantic power source for the place they were in, and that Don's attempt to close the rift had caused some kind of stress-related backfire in it.
The doors to the pyramid were barred from the outside, but Don used his multitool to unhook them and get them open. The group went outside, and found chaos.
Don didn't want to risk Doris' power again, so he scanned for rifts. He found an open one... at the top of a tower, where a lich king was hurling lightning at the enemy army. The group decided they still had to get there, lich or no.
Sid rejoined the group and warned them against the interior of the tower, as it likely had horrible stone golems guarding it.
Kay took a large piece of a wagon instead, and lifted the entire group to the tower, where the lich king demanded to know, "Why are you blocking my line of sight?" The rift was near a swirling orb of dark energy he was using in the city's defense.
They begged him to let them use the rift to flee, promising not to interfere if he let them.
The lich king agreed, if they would 'turn their power on those below.' Freedom Ranger caught that lich was being less than honest, but the rest of the group believed he was sincere. They fired on the bugs, also wanting to test their weapons. Sergei used his flashbangs, which appeared to work. Doris used her void powers. Kay hurled a heavy ballista bolt. Freedom Ranger tried his railgun, but it wouldn't fire - subject to local laws, presumably.
Don worked to open the rift, reversing the polarity of the stapler, (rather than the neutron flow), to make a gate. He told the group to go immediately. The rest of the group followed, except Freedom Ranger. Don wanted to go last, but the Ranger wouldn't let him. Don relented.
Freedom Ranger tried to steal the dark orb on his way out, (in the manner of a football), to get the lich's forces destroyed, but it shattered against him.
The group came out on train tracks, in a rural setting. Freedom Ranger came out swirling with dark energy, his eyes black and his body shaking with pain.
They got away from the tracks, bringing him with them, and Don closed the rift in time for a train to pass by.
Sid came jumping off the train in a new female local body, and told them that the world was reasonably low tech and not under attack by the bugs... yet, anyway.
