ZEITGEIST [ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.

Session 213, Part Three - Who Is That Masked Man?

By now they were in hot pursuit of the arresting officers and their captives. Despite a sanguine response from Agent Doran (who Korrigan could not help referring to as ‘Saladoor’) they decided not to leave him to his own devices, but to provide a distraction to better enable his escape. Hasty telepathic conversations ensued, as they worked to keep up and eventually overtake the troop on its way to the Cadagyr Estate. Lots of ideas were thrown around, but in the end they fell back on Korrigan’s first, with Brakken spooking some draft animals, in a market square halfway up the rise to the walled upper-class Northern District. (Salome knew the best spot to lay their ‘ambush’; Quratulain calculated the best moment; Korrigan kept ‘Saladoor’ telepathically informed.) When the oxen bolted, and the orcs were doing their best to avoid being trampled, ‘Torado’ sipped a hidden potion of invisibility and slipped away. It was some time before the orcs even noticed.

But something else did notice, and as it lowered from its hidden vantage, the ‘paranoid’ Salome recognised its tell-tale hiss-groan. “There’s something up there!” she warned. “It can see you!” She ran after him, as he vanished round a bend in the sloping road, and the others followed.

Warned in the nick of time, Doran was able to duck and dodge as invisible tendrils sought to coil around him. Guessing as to its location, somewhere in the air above Doran, Glaucia summoned a punishing pillar of fire, striking the creature and marking it out, until it moved out of the way. In that instant, Quratulain was able shoot it with her lantern blaster, set to ‘cold’. (Later she realised it would have been better left on ‘force’…) Glaucia then sprinted to cover the distance and help Doran fight the thing off.

The others were stymied: huge, steaming rifts opened up in the pavement between them and Doran. From behind they heard shuffling sounds and turned to see three flesh-warped dire bears emerge from an alleyway close by. Salome struck one a heavy blow and it roared in anguish.

Korrigan hoped the thing in the air was a thoughtform, and concentrated on thinking it solid. It worked! Sadly, it landed on Glaucia, pinning her and slowly squeezing the life out of her. It was still invisible, so her mushed-up face could be seen from the other side. Doran stabbed at it with his insightful blade, learning that it was immune to radiant energy. (Korrigan sheathed his holy avenger.) The creature thrashed at Doran again, but missed. Glaucia then brought down a second pillar of fire on both the creature and herself! Quratulain continued to shoot at it, creating layer after layer of ice.

Back up the hill, Brakken urged Feroz to strike at one of the other bears. When he did so, he realised that all three were illusory! Salome broke away from them and fought her way athletically across the broken terrain (which would later be revealed as illusory too).

Doran’s luck ran out. The thoughtform grabbed him, its tentacle pressed into his face and slurped out his sinus fluid and then his eye! Doran cried out in agony. Waves of pure thought rolled across the creature, which revealed itself in that instant: a bloated sac of gas from which hung a multitude of pulsing eyes. Brakken realised it was ‘reading’ everything that the stolen eye had recently seen! Though visible, the thing was now insubstantial again, and tried to lift off, but could not do so thanks to Quratulain’s layers of ice. Korrigan thought it solid again, and once more Glaucia was heavily pinned, while her summoned pillar blazed away.

By now the orcish troops had become aware of what was happening and a small contingent started heading down the hill, firing poorly aimed shots as they ran. At the same moment, another figure appeared on a rooftop close by: a short, hooded orc wielding a rapier in one hand and some strange arcanoscientific device that crackled with electricity in the other. He fired this at the thoughtform and it swerved unerringly through the air, struck the creature and caused it to judder and coruscate. This delighted newcomer, who gave a cry of triumph, as a spool mechanism on the device began to rewind itself, and pulled back a chunk of matter, being constantly zapped and kept solid.

Quratulain finished the thoughtform off with another shot from her lantern blaster. Glaucia crawled out from under it; Salome helped Doran to his feet; the illusory terrain disappeared.

“This way! Quickly!” shouted the newcomer, before dashing off across the rooftops. They followed him at street level. Once out of sight of the main road, he leapt down into the alley and guided them further into the backstreets of the Troughs. Having thrown off pursuit, he turned and pulled off the mask he had made from the police officer’s face.

It was none other than Wolfgang Von Recklinghausen!

End of Session

Session 214, Part One - The Good Doctor

Wolfgang greeted Korrigan and looked around for other unit members. He could see none, which clearly disappointed him: He had heard talk of ‘capable foreigners’ and guessed they would be involved somehow. “I knew our paths would cross again.” Wolfgang told them he had heard reports of problems in Ursalina and came to see if he could help. Once here, he set about trying to find a way to defeat the invaders. He was very pleased to have finally managed to secure a sample from an oculus. Doran introduced himself and said that Wolfgang would have known him as Saladoor Saan, who had once helped rescue him from Reed Macbannin’s lab. The good doctor thanked him, and offered to take a look at his eye. So they found a place to hide, and he patched Doran up while they talked.

They exchanged information, telling him everything they had learned, including the mystery of their missing team members. (Korrigan noticed a flush of concern when Gupta’s name was mentioned, although the doctor tried to disguise this.) In return, Wolfgang said that the creatures in control of the city were clearly psionic in nature and showed them the oculus prism that he had taken from an orcish police officer, and imbedded in the back of his own neck! This device rendered him invisible to the thoughtforms. (They showed him the prism they had retrieved from the vesicle, and he confirmed that it would work in the same way.)

Glaucia objected to his murder and dismemberment of the orcs. Wolfgang said that he had acted in self-defence: The officers he killed had been victimising a one-legged half-orc girl and attacked him when he intervened. The autopsies he carried out were intended to establish the nature of their domination, and yielded the prism (and his very handy mask). As for the grave-robbing rumours, to help the poor girl out he needed a fresh leg. “It’s a little big for her now, but she’ll grow into it.”

Quratulain examined the oculus prism, wondering if it could be replicated, but it had been grown, not made. Brakken double-checked that it was not dominating Wolfgang in any way, but it was not. Still, no one was brave enough to try using theirs, though Doran considered it. He didn’t fancy losing another eye! (He wondered aloud if the oculus might have been able to transmit the information it gleaned from him, and if so, what that might mean.)

Korrigan asked if Wolfgang would like to join forces. He declined. “I do not wish to take undue risks, as my principal concern is to learn how to defeat these creatures and leave Ursalina to share that knowledge.” Von Recklinghausen may have been a deft swordsman, but he did not regard himself as a frontline fighter – his skills had been honed for the purposes of self-preservation only. Craftily, Korrigan mentioned Gupta again (inter alia) and reiterated his concern for her safety. He did not need Brakken to tell him that Wolfgang was struggling with competing exigencies (all from within, not without). In the end, the doctor gave an exasperated sigh and agreed to help them find her (“I mean ‘them’”…). But where should they look? Wolfgang said that gidim activity was focused on the Cadagyr Estate, the Jaula and the Triunfo Vida bardic college.

After lengthy discussions they decided to explore the only place they hadn’t been to yet: the Triunfo Vida. They headed for the eastern district, where the college could be found, huddling up some distance away from the gate through the district wall, wondering how best to pass through it. (Without Leon, it would not be so easy.) While they exchanged ideas, they noticed a kobold approaching them. It was dressed in the garb of a Red Peacock staffer. The kobold did not appear to be thrown by their disguises, heading straight for them. Without preamble, it told them that police officers had come to arrest Dieter Cadagyr and a few of his closest hangers-on. They were charged with sedition – aiding ‘known enemies of the State of Ber’ – and frog-marched off to the Cadagyr Estate. So the gidim knew where they had been after all!

Session 214, Part Two - Bleak House

Again, after much convoluted discussion, the group changed their plans and worked their way back to the Northern District to affect a rescue of the prisoners. Doran and Von Recklingausen posed as guards bringing Glaucia and Salome under arrest to the estate and in this manner they passed through the district gate, with Brakken and Feroz doing so invisibly, while Korrigan and Quratulain leaped straight over the wall.

When they reached the estate itself Doran stole onto the grounds, keeping to the bushes, as he could hear a loud voice in the garden as soon as he cleared the wall: Lord Cadagyr stood on the steps of the estate, loudly admonishing a motley bunch of captives who squatted and slumped dejectedly on the lawn, surrounded by a squad of elite police and lawmages. One of them protested that Cadagyr had already repeated himself several times, at which Cadagyr screamed for silence, before resuming his lecture. From this distance, Doran could make out Dieter, three of his hangers-on, Flida, Sergio Flores, Trevio Addaz, and several sailors who they had talked to earlier that day.

Concerned that this could be a trap, the others nevertheless scrambled over the wall too and headed for the main house. As they made their way through the garden, Salome registered the tell-tale hiss-groan of an oculus hovering above Lord Cadagyr and his captives. Invisible, Brakken crept close enough to read Cadagyr’s mind: His surface thoughts were non-existent. The only explanation is that he was being mind-controlled. Frustrated by his strange behaviour, Dieter shouted abuse at his father and was pistol-whipped by an officer for his pains. The captives became even more subdued. Brakken withdrew, joining the others as they gained access to the mansion via a window, through which they could see a disused library.

The library gave on to the large, tiled entrance hall, where Trugido the butler stood in the doorway to the garden, apparently listening to Cadagyr’s cyclical speech. Staircases swept upwards, and behind them, doors and corridors led to other ground floor rooms. Leaving the less stealthy group members in the library, Doran went off to explore, with Brakken following behind him, trying to maintain a telepathic link with Korrigan. The main house had not been properly maintained. Dust had settled everywhere and the silverware was tarnished. Doran set about trying to find a cellar, or some underground area where prisoners might be kept. He found himself in an interconnected suite of rooms, just out of range of telepathy. Unbeknownst to him, he had reached the same lounge area where Leon had gone to meet Cadagyr. Brakken was just one room away. Doran paused. The room was empty, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been occupied just moments earlier.

Out of nowhere, a very reasonable voice began talking to him, asking him questions about what he was doing here, and what he was up to. Alarmed, Doran tried to resist the charm that accompanied this voice – encouraging him to remain calm and answer the questions – only for a second voice to join in and redouble the power of the effect. If he had been alone he might have succumbed at this point; fortunately, Brakken was close enough to sense what was going on and shared with Doran his ability to shrug off domination. Then he gave a yell of alarm to the others.

With that a pair of gidim emerged from the walls and ceiling and lashed at Doran with spiked chains that whirled around their bodies – formed from that strange greenish metal the group had discovered earlier. Doran ducked and dodged wildly, whereupon a third gidim grabbed him telekinetically and threw him around bodily. A fourth gidim appeared from the ceiling near Brakken and caught him with a spiked chain. He was pinned and the spikes began to bore painfully into his flesh.

Quratulain responded to Brakken’s cry by dashing towards them as fast as she could. When they realised there were reinforcements nearby, the gidim caused walls of cerebral mesh to appear – one cutting Doran, Brakken and Quratulain off from the rest of the group; another isolating Doran.

Now that he was pinned, Doran was hit by a chain too. The spikes bit deep. In desperation, Doran threw down a smoke bomb and disappeared within the cloud, struggling to free himself.

An even more menacing gidim appeared close to Quratulain. The mental powers possessed by this creature were palpable and seemed almost to distort the air around it. It reached out with claw and touched Quratulain gently. Nothing happened, to the gidim’s evident bemusement. She looked quizzically at him and then opened fire…

Session 214, Part Three - Gidim Ambush (the Unfair Version)

Meanwhile, Korrigan strode through the entrance hall, brushed the butler aside and appeared on the steps alongside Lord Cadagyr. He put his arm around the orcish noble and announced that the estate was now under new management. Lord Cadagyr had retired, he said, and would be stepping down forthwith. The cops all stood blinking in foolish confusion. Then one of the law mages snapped out of it and made a counter-threat: They had prisoners, and would shoot them if Korrigan did not surrender.

Back in the mansion, when Quratulain stopped firing, there was a terrible mess where the lead gidim’s head had once been. Those attuned to such things (such as Brakken and Korrigan) could sense a mental yell of alarm from the remaining gidim. Overseer Lilore was dead! The other gidim swarmed Quratulain to avenge their leader.

Salome had joined Korrigan outside and blocked the doorway in case it was charged. The mental alarm caused all the officers to open fire. Bullets bounced off Korrigan, who shoved Cadagyr behind a pillar and stepped in Salome’s way. She was, however, pinned in place by the lawmages. One or two of the officers shot at the hostages, killing Sergio Flores and one of the sailors. Two huge gidim-like monstrosities appeared on either side of Korrigan. They were twice his size, and had immense sharp, shovel-like blades for hands. Korrigan did not believe they were real, and pierced the oculus’ illusion. Then invisible tentacles descended from above. Korrigan might have fought them off, but he was concerned to protect the paralysed Salome and so he was grabbed.

Glaucia burned through the wall of mesh with a pillar of fire, and she and Wolfgang joined the fight against the chain-wielding gidim. Glaucia protected everyone from the gidim’s mental powers; Wolfgang ‘tazed’ one of them. Feroz brought up the rear, and attacked the gidim vengefully. Doran struggled free of the chain that had pinned him and fell to his knees, exhausted, before he picked himself up, drew his insightful blade and fought on. Quratulain used the gidim’s own attacks against them, and responded to each opening with a bullet or a blade. The scrap became increasingly frenzied – another gidim fell, then another, and the remaining two vanished.

Even as he struggled in the grasp of the oculus, Korrigan declaimed, “This tyranny is ending now! We who retain free will are above the thoughtforms of the gidim!” In so doing, he issued a proud challenge to the orcish police. They surged towards him, and he used his earthquake stomp to send them reeling. Then he shouted an order to the captives: “Run!” They did as they were told. Many dashed straight out of the estate. Dieter ran towards his father, huddled behind a pillar. Flida was too frightened to move.

Though physically restrained, Salome used a mental technique the others had taught her, and thought herself invisible to the oculus. Then the two gidim appeared beside her and attacked. She could not defend herself, and found herself wrapped in two vicious living chains. Quratulain came to her aid, with the others close behind. Together they dispatched the gidim, and Doran pulled the chains off Salome. She was in a bad way – even worse than him!

Movement in the air above the garden presaged the arrival of more invisible thoughtforms – seemingly even larger than the oculus. These newcomers bore strange reinforcements: humanoid creatures covered in writhing, bright-blue fur that crackled with aelectricity. They leapt off their invisible mounts and charged forward.

Realising that things had become desperate, Korrigan won free of the oculus, called on the Coaltongue to provide air support and ordered the others to withdraw into the mansion. At his command, Flida was able to get to her feet and run inside too. Dieter followed, dragging his father. Just moments after Korrigan’s message to Admiral Smith, Leon appeared - not yet fully recovered, but well enough to rescue his friends. He had brought Amielle along for back-up, and she provided covering fire for Korrigan’s retreat. In an instant – just as the shock troopers crashed against the mansion door – Leon had spirited them all away from the Estate.

So as not to tip their hand, Korrigan called off the Coaltongue.

End of Session

Session 214, Part One - Inside Lord Cadagyr's Head

Unable to return to the Coaltongue, Leon took them all to the junkyard. They could not linger there as Doran had been here before he lost his eye, but they spared a few moments for Wolfgang to remove Lord Cadagyr’s oculus prism. This did not ‘cure’ him, though. Glaucia tried to suppress his domination, but all that revealed was a state of near catatonia. Brakken said that a remove affliction ritual would be needed, but they could not perform that here. Did Dieter know anywhere they could run to? Dieter shook his head. He didn’t know who he could trust.

Salome suggested the alchemical market, and they went there without further ado, hidden under Leon’s illusions. They needed a large, secluded space, and asked around for any empty properties, but only those belonging to arrested merchants (who had defied the ordnances) stood vacant, and most were mere shop fronts. So they took over a warehouse, subdued the workers and foreman, and placed a sign, 'Closed by order of Lord Cadagyr' on the door. Glaucia was not happy about all of this, and nor was Korrigan – but they could not afford to be squeamish. Amielle flew up the roof and stood watch while the others healed one another and took a much needed rest. (Doran and Salome in particular were flagging.) They were undisturbed (although Amielle detected the occasional pass by an oculus).

Korrigan performed a remove affliction ritual on Lord Cadagyr. When he recovered, he began to sob uncontrollably. Dieter consoled him and his anguish turned to fear. Still, they were able to coax everything he knew out of him. Most of it they knew themselves, but the most important part was that the gidim base of operations was the Triunfo Vida. Did he know where their kidnapped friends were? Yes – the Triunfo. Could he persuade the Commodore to support an assault? She answered to the Bruse and Cadagyr had no firm relationship with her. At the thought he began to panic: what use would common soldiers be against these mind-controlling aliens? Glaucia reassured him that Ber had a long history of overthrowing unwanted tyrants. Still, he had a point. They decided to head straight to the Triunfo. Could he tell them anything about its layout? Cadagyr squinted. It was unclear. What he did know was that there was a large natural cavern beneath the college that had been discovered as part of an ongoing archaeological dig.

They left Dieter, Flida and Lord Cadagyr to hide out in the warehouse and look after the captive staff.

Session 215, Part Two - Employees Only

With Leon’s help they passed easily through the gate to the eastern district.

The Triunfo sat at the highest tier of its hill, and a path weaved through broad gardens around the campus walls. The flowers were all withered, but the cloying scent of the cerebral mesh, which covered the area in profusion, created an oddly floral tone. Several archways led through this wall to the inner garden, though wooden barricades blocked off all of them.

Amielle passed invisibly though the wall. Beyond, a simple farming garden took up a large swath of the campus, with limestone walkways and the occasional tasteful topiary. The college hall sat in the centre of the campus, a two-story building with a pair of single-story wings. There were no lights on in the building. The whisper of silken banners fluttering lightly in the breeze disturbed the stillness.

Leon opened a dimension door next to the main entrance and they all stepped through. Orchestral string music was faintly audible coming from the second story window. Doors entered from multiple directions, but the most obvious approach was the front door, flanked by statues of bears playing a cello and a tuba. Strange sights beset them while they stood in the grounds: creaking trees coming from thin air, angry figures with bloody blades just barely visible at the edge of their vision, and false archways in the wall that shuddered with morbid moans if anyone came close, then faded away. Like the barricades, these were clearly intended to deter casual intrusion.

Korrigan flew up to look in through a window, but could see no sign of occupancy – only the upper foyer and tiered seating of a performance area . They entered through the main door. Inside, doors led to the north and south wings, and back to the headmaster’s salon. Stairs led up to the second floor foyer outside the theatre. The music was louder, and affected some of the party with a creeping sense of dread. Korrigan used his crown to relieve Quratulain.

In the foyer, a section of wooden floor has been and was now covered with a tarp. Korrigan used his clairvoyant eye to look beneath this and saw that it was the entrance to the Ancient archaeological site they had been told about. Beneath the tarp (which Wolfgang tried to remove with his sampler before they resorted to using their hands) a thirty-foot wide stone shaft descended, painted with ornate orcish figures. Forty feet down they could see a metallic floor. Korrigan flew down there. Leon opened a wormhole and he and Quratulain stepped through. The floor undulated like a muscle - formed from the same living steel as the tools the gidim used. It was centred on a sphincter-like aperture. Quratulain analysed it from a distance and declared it to be a sort of door.

From up top, Wolfgang wondered if they could think it open. Sceptically, Korrigan tried, extending his thoughts out as he had recently learned to do, and found to his surprise that he formed some sort of connection – albeit an alien, incomprehensible one. He focused and realised that the sphincter demanded a specific thought in order to open it: a mental image of some kind. Brakken scanned it from above but could not tell exactly what image was needed. So he focused a moment, before he unleashed an overwhelming barrage of mental images, in a stream of subconsciousness.

After a moment’s pause, the sphincter opened!

At once, Korrigan flew through it. The chamber beneath was organic and repulsive, as if formed from some behemoth’s innards. An overwhelming floral scent failed to obscure the lingering odor of rot and blood within this circular chamber. Spherical niches along the floors, walls, and ceiling held ragged bits of flesh. Grotesque remnants of humanoid bodies were fused to the walls, and an inch-deep layer of unknown effluvia swirled in slow eddies along the floor. Directly beneath Korrigan lay a deep acid bath that stung his eyes with acrid fumes. Then he saw movement: crouched in the recesses and responding to his presence were more than a dozen blue-furred shock troopers.

Session 215, Part Three - Unhappy Reunion

Up top, Leon caught sight of movement too, but too late to react: up on the ceiling of the college foyer, a figure emerged from the darkness and fired a shuriken at Salome and then vanished again. Unfortunately for Salome, this was Uru. His shot killed her stone dead, the mechanised shuriken overcoming the Blood of Ostea as it burrowed deep into her.

Too late for Salome, Leon unveiled the wayfarer lantern using the oil of the Panarchist faction (granting regeneration and the ability to teleport), but at least his other allies would be protected to some degree. Then he followed Korrigan by levitating through the open sphincter, with Amielle at his side. Quratulain stepped through Leon’s portal, arrived back up top and readied a shot for whenever Uru showed his face again – hoping to take him out quickly and, ironically, rely on the Blood of Ostea to preserve him.

Almost immediately, Uru appeared again and got a shot off before Quratulain could do so – this time aiming for Brakken. The minotaur cried out in pain, but his cry was cut short as a paralysing poison did its work. Now, though, Quratulain got her shot off and froze Uru in place with her lantern blaster. Uru couldn’t move to hide. Without thinking, Uru fired back at her, which – had he been in full control of himself – he ought to have known was a mistake. The shuriken ricocheted off her armour and she fired again. Uru lost consciousness and slumped, upside down, still frozen in place on the ceiling.

The shock troopers could not reach the interlopers, who hovered above the acid pool. Several of them drew breath, the crackling of their blue pelts ceased, and they unleashed balls of lightning at their foes. All three were stunned, but Leon reactively teleported out.

Doran stood ready to catch Uru; Wolfgang stepped up to the lip of the sphincter, then hesitated; Glaucia shielded her friends against missile fire, thinking of poor Salome. Down in the flesh fens, a noxious gas was released and both Brakken and Korrigan could sense a telepathic alarm. The sphincter quivered and began to close.

Doran threw two riveting knives to shatter the ice around Uru, then caught him as he fell, light as a shadow; Wolfgang used an electric shock to deftly ‘unstun’ Leon; Leon made a second dimension door inside the craft.

Amielle shook off the effect of the lightning orbs and, unwilling to reveal herself and risk further harm, drifted invisibly through the organic complex until she came to a second chamber:

Clustering together like enormous grapes, a sac of fleshy nodules rippled with purple electricity that coursed and flowed across the fine mesh that blanketed this chamber in thick ropes and webs. The walls displayed vague images of areas of the ship. Growing from a pillar in the floor, a circle of glistening metal, diamonds, and flickering energy projected a three-dimensional model of Ursaliña into the air. Something moved in the same space, representing the psychic idea of the feeding tentacle being grown within the leviathan. Amielle also sensed – though she could not see – that the chamber was occupied. She froze, fearing discovery, and studied the screens:

She could see other defenders, triangulating on her friends. Gidim wielding spiked chains rushed to defend their lair; in a chamber much like a large intestine, several transparent vesicles opened and disgorged their occupants: a deva, a dwarf and a tiger. They rose in unison and made their way to the flesh fens.

By now, everyone except Wolfgang and Doran had stepped through Leon’s portal into the organic chamber. Feroz had dragged Brakken through at his insistence (surely this paralysis would wear off soon), and now joined the fight against the shock troopers. Quratulain lashed about her, felling several. Leon kicked one into the acid pool, and a thick skin closed over it. Korrigan gave a rousing speech that filled his newfound allies with vigour and pride: they had finally found the threat, not just to Ber, but to the whole world, and now they would end it!

Just then, the whole area began to shudder and the sphincter closed completely, and the living metal upon which they stood began to glow with bioluminescent intensity. Wolfgang and Doran found themselves cut off. Leon’s portal winked out of existence. But the shuddering continued and increased in intensity, causing debris to crumble off the walls of the stone shaft. Fearing interment, Wolfgang rappelled straight up and out, using his sampler. Then he turned and hesitated, before offering Doran help with his burden (for he was still carrying Uru). Together, they ran from the shuddering building and through the gardens, with terrible tremors causing them to stumble as they went.

The vibrations intensified, then a sudden explosion from behind caused them to turn as the Triunfo Vida was completely obliterated from within. From the wreckage, a horrible leviathan, something like a great squid, radiating bioluminescence, rose into the night sky.

Far above, the Coaltongue saw this bizarre glowing and levitating squid monster, and came to investigate…

End of Session

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-3D8VitOkA

Adventure 11, Act One, DM Notes

This section of adventure 11 will go down in my personal ‘Annals of Misunderestimation’, second only to our seven-month run at Diaspora. I thought it would take three weeks! Uru would benefit from the sidebar that recognises Urban Empaths can sidestep most of the initial hurdles in Ursalina, the group would make a beeline for the Triunfo, have a showdown with Sijhen, and that would be that.

Just before Christmas, it emerged that Uru, Rumdoom and Quratulain would be away for a few weeks. That gave me the wicked idea of sending them on ahead and subverting the sidebar: the Urban Empath’s powers would now see Uru dominated by the gidim, and used to bring down his allies. I would then replace them in the line-up with cool NPCs who I wanted to bring along anyway.

Still, I didn’t think the section would take that much longer. Especially when the PCs demonstrated their high-level abilities, tracked Hildegaard down in the very first session, and then headed straight for the Cadagyr Estate. They sent Leon in on his own (disguised as Glaucia) only for him to get spooked and flee. Then they teleported away – trying to leave the city and go back to the Coaltongue, which triggered the gidim teleportation contingency. As two more players were suddenly absent, I decided to abduct them as well! (Rationale to come later…)

After their auspicious start, we then had a few weeks where they buzzed around the city investigating every area and location, even a few I added along the way. It got to the point where one player said, “It feels like we’re not getting anywhere”. (I think they expected to find the answer in the Ob lighthouse and were nonplussed when the Ob turned out to be horrified bystanders.) I reminded them that they had found one centre of gidim activity in week one (the estate), ran away, and never went back there!

So they went back there. Cue big fight. Then, having grilled poor Lord Cadagyr, they finally headed for the Triunfo where – much to my astonishment – instead of thoroughly investigating the college before trying (and probably failing, painfully) to access the living metal sphincter, they went straight for the thoughtlocked door and – through a combination of player smarts, high skills, and XP rerolls – opened the darned thing.

I wasn’t expecting that at all – to the point that I hadn’t even prepped the fight on the leviathan! (Bad DM! Naughty DM!) Still not sure if I misread the text, and if the thoughtlocked sphincter leads directly to the flesh fens, but whatever – they were now on board the alien ship without first going through the caves (and split their already ragtag bunch in two when the sphincter closed).

This threw me somewhat – not because I hadn’t prepped; I can usually roll with the punches in Cypher System – but because unbeknownst to the party, they were now up against the augmented defences of the alien ship (i.e. their missing friends) who I had expected them to encounter separately in the cave. Oops! They had lulled me into a false sense of security with all their wandering around, and suddenly we were facing a possible TPK!

We broke early (just half an hour early) so I could decide what to do. In the end I went with, ‘Screw it, let’s see what happens’…

Session 216, Part One - In the Belly of the Beast

Even before the gidim leviathan erupted from the Triunfo, Korrigan and his remaining allies were fighting to fend off reactive defences (such as mucus clouds, bioelectricity and mind control), mutated shock troopers, and other defenders Amielle had spotted advancing through the craft – not the least of which were the three missing unit member, Rumdoom, Uriel and Gupta. Fortunately, Leon still had the Wayfarer Lamp granting them regeneration and the ability to teleport within its radius.

Quratulain concerned herself with the shock troopers for now, as their very presence was electrifying (quite literally). She fired shot after shot, injuring several more. Korrigan was so impressed he told her to do it again and she did, felling a few. Glaucia felled another with her staff, and teleported adjacent to another. Suddenly the executores found herself beset by enticing whispers, seeking to befriend her. But her mind was too strong for gidim domination.

Four infiltrators moved invisibly into the chamber. Leon could see them. Amielle could too – on the screens; three more were on their way from deeper in the vessel. She moved to where she could see the flesh fens and still keep an eye on the screens, then pulled off a trick shot that would have impressed even Matunaaga: shooting one of the invisible gidim through the head with a ghost bullet, by using the image on the screen behind her.

Rumdoom stomped into the chamber, dominated, and filled the chamber with swirling ice. Gupta swept past him in tiger form, also coming to attack her friends. Uriel was still further away: standing in a kind of large intestine full of prison pods, where they had all been kept. He shook his head to clear it and then Korrigan heard the following, communicated telepathically:

“I hope you can hear me, King Baldrey. I have been freed from gidim domination by Xambria Meredith, and am now yours to command.” (It transpired that the gidim had sensed another mind within Uriel, but had been satisfied when Xambria shoved out Shuman Larkins, who had also taken up residence in Uriel’s brain.) “I do have a strange idea that may help free at least one of our fellows…”

Korrigan mentally welcomed him back, and gave him leave to try. Meanwhile, one of the shock troopers had freed itself from gidim control and, seeing the changes that had been wrought upon its form, began to scream in horror. Quratulain was just about to fire on it but – inspired by Korrigan’s much earlier words – decided to give it a second chance, and killed some of the others instead.

Korrigan telepathically mocked the infiltrators, to draw their attacks upon him; Glaucia summoned a fiery pillar; Brakken rendered himself imperceptible, and sent Feroz to rip into the gidim; Amielle, having revealed herself to the presence in the navigation chamber, found herself pinned to the floor by telekinesis, despite her intangible form. More infiltrators arrived and tried to take out Quratulain. They failed, but left her exhausted by the desperate effort to defend herself.

Leon made good use of his truesight and illusion powers, combining them to create active illusions of the invisible gidim, placed exactly where they stood and mimicking their movements. This meant they could be targeted and, better still, could not make damaging sneak attacks on their foes. Quratulain and Amielle felled more of them.

Session 216, Part Two - Fighting in the Flesh Fens

The fight raged on. Rumdoom went toe-to-toe with Quratulain. Glaucia was chained by the gidim, and thrown telekinetically into the acid bath. She teleported out, but straight into a newly formed mucus cloud. The freed shock trooper launched himself at the gidim, but they kept moving out of its reach. Gupta pounced on Leon, knocking him to the floor and causing his illusions to freeze in place. Despite his silksteel mantel, Leon was badly hurt by her claws, and now she had him pinned, worse was sure to follow. That is, until Brakken brought her to heel. She was still long enough for Uriel to teleport close. In his hands he had a tinfoil hat, specially designed by Krazy Krauss to prevent mind control – a hat Malthusius had studied and which Uriel could therefore summon into his possession. He magically reshaped it and placed it on the weretiger. It worked! Gupta was freed from domination, and Brakken protected her from it happening again.

Rumdoom grew to giant size. “Come back to your senses,” Quratulain chided, trying to drop him before he did some serious damage, but unlike other foes, he did not seem to be bothered by her attacks. Unsure if dropping him was the goal she asked her king, “You want this guy down?” Korrigan stepped up alongside her, healed her and said, “We’ll take him down together.” Glaucia helped with a pillar of fire. Rumdoom stood firm, and if anything seemed to be getting stronger. Quratulain redoubled her efforts.

The last gidim threw Leon into the acid pit. He too teleported straight out and rewarded the gidim with tiefling fire, killing it. The poor shock trooper fell sobbing to the deck, denied vengeance.

Now the tremors throughout the ship grew steadily more intense. Brakken sought to commune with the ship itself and at first sensed nothing more than a bestial, albeit alien intelligence. Then he found himself suddenly confronted with a far greater mind that was in control of the leviathan – a mind he recognised from Cherage: Sijhen! Before it could react, he read its surface thoughts: a sense of urgency, to complete its mission. He understood that the leviathan and Sijhen itself were empowered by emotions, drawn from Ursalina itself and from throughout Lanjyr. The plan had been to remain here until sufficient amounts had been absorbed; but since they had been discovered, Sijhen was falling back on Plan B…

Brakken was suddenly spotted and swatted. He shrugged off the psychic blast, but a physical rumble threw almost everyone, including him, to their knees. “It looks like we’ve run out of time,” shouted Korrigan. Just then, as the leviathan began to tear through solid rock, and heave itself upwards, Quratulain lashed out with a final blow that knocked Rumdoom unconscious.

Outside

When the leviathan had departed, Doran and Wolfgang waited while an oculus roved close by. Both were protected by oculus prisms, however, (as was the unconscious Uru) so the thoughtform left them alone.

Doran took out a magical ‘distress flare’ that took the form of a tin whistle. He blew on it. As a trusted agent of the crown, he had been given this device by Lauryn Cyneburg herself, in case of emergencies. It immediately alerted all other high-ranking Risuri agents of his presence, location and need of help. One such agent was Admiral Rutger Smith. Minutes after he blew the whistle, fliers from the Coaltongue arrived and bore them back to the airship, which was now in hot pursuit of the gidim leviathan as it swept down towards the harbour. Doran was immediately able to brief Admiral Smith and confirm that the king and his allies were aboard the alien vessel.

“That complicates matters,” said Smith, who had already charged the brand. “As does the shape we spotted in the North – ranging down from the Anthras at some speed. It won’t be long before it gets here, and I don’t want to fight two enemy vessels at once.”

End of Session

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