Present:
- Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
- Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
- "Riley" O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
- Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
- Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
- MARMALADING: Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
- Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
- Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
- Split "Penny" Ende. Sword-Worlder Minstrel from Winston - Jason
- NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
- NPC: Finn Cyborg from Querion
by Jeff
Stasi lay unconscious on the concrete floor of the tunnel, Belle's propofol injection having knocked her out almost immediately, and twitched.
"What happened to her?" wondered Riley aloud.
"And what was that about mosquitoes?" asked Gnostic.
"Perhaps the air here is poisoned" suggested Emerse, "She was at the front after all"
 |
| The concrete lined tunnel stretched ahead |
Anton shone his Institute supplied lantern down the tunnel. The wider and brighter beam of light swamped all our small headlamp beams, but still nothing unexpected could be seen, the tunnel stretching ahead into the darkness, the air clear and fresh.
"Why is the air so fresh down here?" asked Penny.
"Hold on" commanded Emerse.
He pulled out his radiation monitor and his portable gas chromatograph and waved them about.
"Nothing unusual" Emerse reported, "Just crisp and clean fresh spring air"
"Perhaps Stasi's condition is temporary?" suggested Gnostic, "Let's bring her round"
After lashing Stasi's arms and legs together, and removing her weapons to a safe distance, Belle administered a stimulant. Stasi's eyes fluttered open, quickly focussing on Belle.
"Arrggghhhh" Stasi yelled, "Giant mosquitoes"
As Stasi began to thrash about on the floor, Belle administered another dose of propofol.
"Nope" muttered Riley, "Something definitely wrong here"
"Back to the previous side passage?" suggested Emerse hopefully.
"CLANG ... Clang ... clang"
A loud sound echoed up the tunnel from somewhere ahead.
All the torch beams leapt forward down the tunnel again.
"A door?" suggested Anton, "Let's go"
"I'll stay here with Stasi" declared Emerse.
With Riley and Gnostic in the lead and Anton and Penny taking the rear, the rest of the party set off down the tunnel, cautiously stepping past the location where Stasi suffered her strange hallucinations. Riley opened his trauma kit and stuffed the earplugs into his ears.
"What?" he grumbled, looking at Gnostic.
"And I still have five propofol doses" noted Belle, "... just in case ..."
A short distance down the tunnel, the smooth concrete surface slowly transitioned into a rough surfaced stone lava-tube which continued to twist and turn, angling downward and descending more steeply.
"Emerse" reported Riley, "Tunnel beginning to descend"
"Buzzz, hummmm, crackle" went the communicator.
"Damn, comms. are down now!" noted Riley
This tunnel looked old, powdered stone rubble littered the floor and small clouds of dust puffed up at every footfall. Odd scuff marks scratched their way along the tunnel, as though something had clawed its way along here, ... ages ago. A sweet putrid odour could now be faintly detected in the air.
"Ewww, can you test the air again please Spanner" requested Riley.
"Ah. sorry. Emerse still has the gas chromatograph" replied Spanner.
"Ah. sorry. Emerse still has the gas chromatograph" replied Spanner.
"Humph, that's not super helpful is it" grumbled Riley sarcastically.
"It's not fungal" noted Gnostic, sniffing delicately, "Most likely decaying animal matter"
"Decaying is good" stated Anton, "Um, that means dead, right?"
 |
| Two dead mercenaries lay on the tunnel floor |
Two dead mercenaries. They weren't the source of the putrid smell though, which was slowly getting stronger and more pungent. Riley gave the bodies a once over.
"Handguns, ammunition, torches, and flat batteries" noted Riley.
"Dead about a year" reported Belle, "But no obvious cause of death"
Stepping past the bodies, Riley lead us onward.
Anton glanced suspiciously around the tunnel walls as he passed the bodies.
"Hmmm, no obvious cause of death" he muttered to himself with a shiver.
"CLANG ... Clang ... clang"
The odd sound echoed up the tunnel, closer now, as we made their way forward.
The tunnel mouth yawned into a vast natural chamber carved from living rock eons ago, and the stench hit us like a physical blow. A crimson lake of viscous liquid stretched wall to wall, its surface undulating with a slow, hypnotic rhythm that seemed almost... breathing. Chunks of unidentifiable organic matter bobbed lazily on the surface like grotesque lilies, while near the centre, clusters of bubbles rose from the depths with wet, obscene pops that echoed off the stone walls.
The liquid wasn't still - it pulsed and shifted with deliberate motion, as if something vast stirred beneath its opaque surface. Where it lapped against the chamber walls, it left dark stains that glistened wetly in the torchlight, and the air above shimmered with noxious vapours that made our eyes water and throats burn.
"Ewww" exclaimed Penny, "That really stinks"
Stasi
As the rest of the party were exploring down the tunnel towards the strange pool of liquid, Emerse was sitting on the tunnel floor and keeping a close watch on Stasi. He kept well back in case she awakened suddenly and was violent, but regularly made sure her airways were clear, she was breathing properly, and her weapons were well out of reach.
After maybe fifteen minutes Stasi began to stir. Emerse leapt to his feet and retreated back out of her line of sight, worried that she would break out of her bonds and attack him.
But his fears were ungrounded.
But his fears were ungrounded.
"Where am I?" Stasi slurred as she regained consciousness.
"Why am I tied up?" she wondered, "Hello .... HELP"
"Why am I tied up?" she wondered, "Hello .... HELP"
Straining against her restraints, Stasi rolled over, and spotted Emerse hovering nervously nearby.
"Emerse you blood bag, give me a hand will you. Where is everyone?"
They have gone on down the tunnel" replied Emerse,
"Um, you had a bit of a turn, so we are waiting here" Emerse continued.
"Um, you had a bit of a turn, so we are waiting here" Emerse continued.
"Why am I tied up then?" Stasi grumbled.
"Well, ... do I look like a mosquito to you?" asked Emerse.
"What? Don't be stupid, you look like a nerd. Now, release me!"
Emerse got Stasi out of her bonds, coiled up the ropes tidily, and stowed them in his pack. After a brief update on the situation, Stasi and Emerse retreated up the tunnel to the previous large chamber to wait.
"The last thing I remember was a high-pitched buzzing" noted Stasi.
Pulling two pairs of earplugs from her kit, Stasi passed one to Emerse and then plugged up her own ears.
The blood pool
Belle extracted a sample tube from her pouch and carefully dipped it into the pool, extracting a sample of the liquid for analysis. Gnostic stared at the bubbles and watched the liquid lap at the floor of the chamber. Riley tossed a coin into the pool, which plopped down with a small splash, and then slowly suck below the surface.
"Looks like alien matter" declared Belle, "Not from our known universe!"
"That floating chunk is a generative apthera" stated Gnostic, "You know, from the volatile canker thing"
"And there is a tidal cycle here" he continued, "See, the pool rises up to there and then back down"
"Looks like about a four-hour cycle I'd say." he estimated, "Low tide in about two hours!"
"Looks like about a four-hour cycle I'd say." he estimated, "Low tide in about two hours!"
Belle and Spanner went back up the tunnel to see how Stasi and Emerse were doing. Their comms kicked in where the natural lave-tube straighten out and became the straighter concrete lined tunnel. They travelled all the way up the tunnel, not hearing any buzzing noises or spotting any mosquitoes, and meet up with Stasi and Emerse in the junction chamber.
After briefing them what had transpired down the tunnel, and hearing Stasi's story, they all returned down the tunnel to the pool of red liquid, Emerse gleefully tuning in his liquid chromatography testing unit, and Stasi glancing nervously around the tunnel where she last had her hallucinations.
"It did feel odd just there for a bit" she stated, "But the feeling quickly faded"
Arriving at the pool where the others were still waiting patiently, Emerse took one look at the pool and burst out with his initial impressions.
"It's a pool of goop" he stated, "And we could easily rig a swing to cross to the other side"
"You climb up there and drive in an eye-spike Penny" he instructed.
"You want a spike; you climb up there yourself" responded Penny contemptuously.
"Humph" Emerse complained indignantly, "I can't climb"
"Well, I can't either" declared Penny.
In a snit, Emerse took some samples for his tests, and retreated to a corner.
Everyone else waited patiently for the "tide" to go out.
"It's a biological based goop" declared Emerse eventually, "And consistent with the alien spider and other weird Ancient power source creature genome!"
"I'm not walking through it then!" stated Riley.
"Well, at least there are no spider spores in the goop" reported Belle.
"About an hour till the low tide" noted Gnostic.
"CLANG ... Clang ... clang" boomed from across the tunnel over the pool.
And eventually the goop got to its lowest level, but the chamber perimeter was still submerged, there was no clear path across to the ingoing tunnel. Only two metres of goop to get past though!
 |
| An old metal door closed the tunnel between chambers |
[A successful Dex roll was required to jump across the pool of goop]
Riley took a look into the next section of tunnel, while the others waited.
"An old circular door" called Riley, "Slightly ajar"
Throwing across a rope, Riley rigged up a line to help get everyone else across.
[Two Dex roll's, using the lowest against each person's stat.]
"Not me" declared Emerse stubbornly, "I couldn't possible jump that, even with the rope"
[Emerse's Dex stat. is 5!]
A rope was tied around Emerse's chest, and he was jerked across with a sharp yank.
"Ow" he cried, "You guys are so mean!"
Everyone gathered in front of old metal door and listened. No noise from the other side. Although there was a light breeze that seemed to blow through the opening.
"Look" pointed out Gnostic, "It's this door swinging closed that creates the clangs"
We pushed the door open, and Riley peered through.
"More goop" he reported, "In another pool, in another chamber"
"But" he continued, "There is a strange circle thing just floating on the far side of the chamber"
 |
| Goop dripped slowly from the disk |
"This chamber must link through to that other one" decided Gnostic, "See, this pool has a tide mark too, and its currently high. Some form of barometric siphon effect I assume"
Emerse whipped out his chromatograph and excitedly started testing. Anton peered at the old door and fiddled with the circular handle. Gnostic gathered up a couple of things to poke into the disk, a digital camera and some flesh from the goop pool.
"The air coming thorough the disk is super fresh" reported Emerse, "Earth normal mix"
"Closing up the hatch stops the air flow" noted Anton.
"I hope that opens up again!" called Penny apprehensively.
"Hey, the camera won't come back!" said Gnostic.
Gnostic had pushed the camera probe through the shiny surface of the disk, carefully watching the attached monitor. The camera slid easily into the light, but the monitor immediately went dark, no signal. When Gnostic went to pull the camera back, it wouldn't move. Forward and deeper into the disk, no problem, back towards him, no way. Gnostic quickly dropped the handle and stepped back, the handle dropped straight to the bottom of the circle but didn't come out.
"One way?" questioned Emerse excitedly, "Cool. What about that fleshy thing?"
Penny poked a small spike into the dripping flesh Gnostic had found in the goop pool, careful not to tough it with her bare hands, and poked it into the disk. And pulled it back out and poked it in again. And pulled it out.
Various measurements and experiments were conducted within, and with, this odd chamber.
The pool of goop was about 2 metres deep, but had a deeper section in the middle, about 3-4 meters deep. The deep section connected down through to the cavern on the other side of the door, where we had jumped across. (It was about 0.5m deep, at low tide level, where we jumped across)
"That's not light" declared Emerse, "There is no electromagnetic radiation there at all"
Although our eyes saw the disk glowing with light, and that light actually illuminating the chambers, there was no actual light, and even the cameras only showed a solid black disk.
There were no tracks present in the chamber or around the ledges between the door and disk. Apparently, nothing had moved through here, apart from us, in quite some time.
Experiments with Anton's Hallpass device [shuts down all advanced hall-effect technology in a 3m radius for a 5-minute duration] showed no effect on the disk, the goop pool, or the purely mechanical door.
Securing the door closed stopped the airflow, and securing the door open stopped the tidal effect.
Gnostic measured the goop drip rate and estimated the volume of the two pools, deciding that the disk had been dripping goop for about five years. "Assuming a constant drip rate over that period of course" he clarified.
Belle retrieved an arm from one of the mercenary's bodies and poked that into the disk. It slid in no problem, and with a bit of a tug, also slid back out. The wristwatch that had been on the wrist never returned though! Assorted fabrics and other items only went in and wouldn't come out.
"Haha" declared Anton, "You could go through naked"
No one tested that theory!
Sometime later, when no one could think of anything else to test, we pulled back. Securing the door open, we jumped back across the internal goop pool and retreated back towards the junction chamber. There was still the side passage to explore.
As the party passed the location of Stasi's hallucinations, Belle spotted a discrepancy in the tunnel ceiling. Close inspection revealed a small, concealed space housing a hidden speaker. A concrete-coloured mesh fabric had been secured over the space, and the speaker was secured inside.
[When touched, everyone in the party had to make a roll against their Psyche stat. This was the same procedure when we had first passed, which only Stasi had failed. This time no one failed]
Emerse quickly engineered a noise-cancelling device and pulled the speaker to pieces. It appeared to be a standard battery-operated speaker with wireless receiver, able to generate only a low buzzing mosquito noise.
"See" declared Stasi, "Mosquitos"
"Battery life only 1 year at best" declared Emerse, "Definitely placed here recently"
"The lovely Janette!" postulated Anton.
"But why would they put in something that would cause grief to their own merceries?"
"Perhaps there are more players here than we realize" suggested Penny.
"Yeah, the Zhodani sisters will still be interested." said Stasi.
"Particularly if the missing troops from fifty years ago were never explained" Stasi continued.
"We always play the long game" she stated proudly.
The Side Passage
It was only twenty meters down the side passage before we found the first large collection of Zhodani bodies. A small chamber on the side of the main tunnel held six bodies, all laid out in traditional Zhodani burial poses, on their backs with arms crossed over their chests. These women had all been shot by projectile weapons, and apart from the bullet holes, looked to be in pristine condition.
"Let's check for bullets" suggested Spanner, "Maybe they have also shot themselves"
"No time for that" countered Stasi, "Onward, and don't disturb the sisters"
"No time for that" countered Stasi, "Onward, and don't disturb the sisters"
After another length of about fifty meters the tunnel was partially barricaded off by a series of low rock walls. They looked hurriedly constructed to defend against something coming from the tunnel ahead. Beyond the barricades the tunnel opened into a small chamber with two exits. The far walls were covered with pock marks, as though a hail of projectile gunfire had swept repeatedly across the chamber. The bodies, fortifications, and bullet damage looked to be about fifty years old.
"I guess the Zhodani lost" suggested Riley.
"Unlikely" hissed back Stasi.
We choose the right-hand tunnel exit and moved forward. Slightly narrower, we proceeded two abreast, Stasi and Riley in the front of course. We soon came across the body of one of the more recent mercenaries, shot through the back of the head and discarded haphazardly on the tunnel floor. The tunnel narrowed down even further beyond the body, single file. Stasi led, Riley second, with the rest of us behind.
"I'm not going at the back" squealed Emerse.
Pretty soon the tunnel opened up into a larger chamber, the floor littered with Zhodani bodies. No formal burial here. Each of the ten bodies was on its back but not carefully arranged at all. Each body had its chest cavity burst open, ribs splayed outwards, limbs akimbo. We knew what this was!
"Bloody spiders" grumbled Riley.
 |
| Webs covered the walls and ceiling |
"Back up" Stasi called, "That's as far as we go"
We reversed back to the barricaded chamber and took the left-hand tunnel, only to find similar scenes. Twelve dead Zhodani warriors, burst open chest cavities, with a web lined tunnel beyond.
We pull right back to the access lift and call for Janette.
When she arrived, with her two trusty robotic armoured "droids" in tow, we gave her our report.
She retrieved the lamp from Anton and plugged it into a portable screen. Seems the lamp was a GPS and recording device, mapping the tunnel system we had explored, and taking a low-light video recording.
"What is that black disk?" she asked.
"Why didn't you go down those tunnels with the webs?" she asked.
Emerse filled her in and provided her with a copy of his detailed historical documentary of our encounters with Ancient technology and the spiders.
"Did you know about that mosquito buzzing speaker?" asked Stasi.
"Don't know about that" Janette replied.
"Can you explore that disk for me?" Janette asked.
.....
