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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wulf Ratbane" data-source="post: 806345" data-attributes="member: 94">CHAPTER ONE: LONDON TO NEW YORKCHAPTER ONE: LONDON TO NEW YORKOnce under way, Nemo seemed both eager and yet unusually at ease. Barking orders to his crew, he hustled off to his cargo area to begin tearing into boxes of technical equipment. “It’s here somewhere... You!” Nemo collared a passing sailor. “Run to the comms and tell them to scan every frequency.”Mina crashed into the room, all hustle and bluster like a rolling wake, and the rest of the group came rolling in behind her like so much flotsam and jetsam. “What are you doing?”“I’m going to contact Tesla.”“How exactly do you intend to do that, from the middle of the ocean?”“Electron pulses, modulation of amplitude, frequency... I won’t pretend you could understand my technological devices.”“And Tesla can?” Mina asked.Nemo stared blankly. “Assuredly. Now please... Follow me, or get out of the way, I have some modifications to make.”West cleared his throat. “If Tesla is on the run... and I’m not saying he is... don’t you stand the risk of scaring him into deeper hiding?”Quartermain agreed. “And if he’s met with foul play, surely they’ll be waiting for someone to contact him as well.”The group argued back and forth for some time, unable to decide whether to contact Tesla or to simply follow the leads they already had. Eventually they agreed it was worth a try, but the conversation bogged down again immediately. They couldn’t decide what they wanted to say to Tesla. What if other ears were listening, after all? Too little, or too much, either way could make matters worse. “Look, it doesn’t matter what we say,” barked Mina, “if you simply send it in a cipher that only Tesla will understand. We already know he uses encryption, so we’ll use a mathematical recursion, including three translations, pictographs over phonemes, and at least one ancient language with no known modern analog.”Griffin removed his glasses and peered closely at Mina. “What the hell... Are you a spy?”Nemo had finally made the necessary modifications to his ship’s communication array, and ultimately it was Nemo who settled on the simplest, safest message of contact. He wasn’t a man who made his decisions by committee. Not on his ship.At his command the Nautilus surfaced and he broadcast his message on the highest, rarest frequencies. He cleared his throat, pressed a button on the console, and spoke clearly into a small black grille.N E E D H E L P ? N E M O“Is he even gonna know who you are?” Griffin scoffed.Nemo stood tall. “All true men of science know Nemo.”“Now what?” asked Quartermain. “Well,” Nemo said, stroking his beard. “We’ll have to stay on the surface if we want to receive contact.”“Won’t that slow us down?”“Depends on the weather,” he said, “but the short answer is, of course it will. I recommend we return to the surface intermittently to check for a reply. In the meantime, I’m going to build a portable receiver that we can take with us overland. If we do receive contact, we can check back with the Nautilus at harbor and...”“Triangulate,” Mina said. “Clever.”---------------------Over the next few days they surfaced periodically, repeated the message, and waited for a reply. They were not far out of New York harbor when, at last, they received contact. But it was not what they expected. Nemo’s device was meant to translate incoming energy waves into sound, but all they heard was a high pitched whistling and chirping. “What is that?” asked West.The greatest scientific minds Britain had to offer were in agreement on one thing. Nemo looked at Quartermain. Quartermain looked at Jekyll. Jekyll looked nervous and twitched with every ebb and flow of the noise.“I can tell you one thing...” he stammered. “It’s intelligent speech.”---------------------Soon enough, they docked at New York. There was no fanfare or grand welcome waiting for them; their dock was nearly abandoned, save for a small messenger boy who ran straightaway to West.“Urgent telegram!” he yelled from two paces away. “Urrrrgent!”West took the scrap of paper and pressed a coin into the boy’s hand. W E S T. C O V E R  B L O W N. C O L.  M C G E E  I N  C O M M A N D. C A U T I O N. A.“Something’s up,” West said, handing the impertinent messenger boy another nickel to finally send him running.“Well,” said Nemo, trundling down the gangplank with his portable scanner. “No time like the present. Let’s see who’s out there today.”Nemo turned on his receiver. There was a moment of silence, then a loud crackle, pop, and whiff of ozone.Something appeared on the docks with them. It was vaguely man-shaped, though it seemed more a parody of mankind than any natural thing. It was hunched, mishapen, with long arms and wicked talons. Most unusual of all, it appeared to constructed entirely of crystal.As the group stood open mouthed, it took a wide swipe at Nemo and sent him sprawling away from his receiver. Griffin was the first to act as his self preservation instincts took over. He chose the better part of valor and dove behind a stack of barrels on the dock.West drew his pistol and started fanning shots into the thing’s chest, but the bullets merely glanced away from the hard carapace. Quartermain backed up and started fumbling with his own rifle, his fingers shaking, finally cracking the breach and ramming home two long, impressive looking slugs. “Oh my...” Jekyll squealed. Something was definitely not right with Henry. “Ohhhh....”Nemo regained his composure and his cutlass came whistling out and across the thing’s back—to no avail. But he had its attention. It clawed once at him, ripping through Nemo’s ornamental breastplate to the flesh beneath. Crimson blossomed on the captain’s chest.The creature’s other claw smashed down heavily on Nemo’s electronic receiver and sparks raced up its arm. It seemed to slow down visibly, but it was clearly undeterred.“It’s after the receiver!” shouted Mina. She leapt forward and pushed hard against the crystal construct. “Get off!”“Mina, no!” Quartermain lowered his rifle and grabbed at Mina, muttering under his breath. “Stupid woman!”“HI HO! WOT’S ALL THIS THEN? BIT OF A DUST UP?” Jekyll was gone—Edward Hyde stood in his place, eight or nine feet of muscle and degenerate humanity.</blockquote>

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