Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Araes 01-04-08, 06:07 PM	I was hiding this in the bottom of my long, old campaign setting thread, but I figured I'd throw it into its own thread, since the content is wildly different than discussion of rule minutia and might have a different audience. Background: After moving to the South, I started up a campaign which is run inside of my long-term campaign setting Indistinguishable from Magic (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=518823). We only play every other week, and even then we switch games every once in a while, so I can't promise a huge swath of constant updates. But there's currently 50+ pages of Word text to read, so it should last a little while. Plus, when I do update, they're generally 15-20 pages long. Personally, this has been immensely helpful in fleshing out ideas for the world, as I've been forced to figure out a lot of the background info for the campaign setting to make sure that the players have things to do. Currently, there are three players. When making their characters, I told them that they could base them off anything they wanted to in the books rulewise, and then decide their actual appearance after the fact. This was to give the variance of a galactic civilization without too much rule complexity. One decided to be a normal appearance Elven bard. One decided to use the Savage Species rules and play a Hound Archon as a class with slight accentuation of the dog characteristics. He also wanted to be a survivor of an extradimensional plane that collapsed along with the material universe. The last one decided to be a an Elan, but make the background that she was constructed (vaguely robotic) as a messenger for someone who had information to help the Sphere after it sealed. All of the current players started life by waking up inside of a hybernation chamber within a vast tower, which they have since escaped. I am expecting that I will probably end up with a couple more players who will be incorporated into the adventure later as modern day inhabitants of the Sphere, rather than sleepers. For those who haven't read the CS. The basic premise is Arthur C. Clark's Third Law, that you can make any advanced technology behave as magic. As such, I use a LOT of supertech in the game itself including computers, energy weapons, automatic projectile weapons, flying vessels, ect... Most of it gets referred to by the inhabitants of the Sphere with weird names, like panels, or magic boxes. I also tend to use a lot of foreign language names for common items like Kho = Energy Rifle, Cheff = Holographic Memory Display, or Fen = Portable Energy Shield. I tend to find these give the world greater flavor and immersion overall. Anyhow, enjoy the logs.
Araes 01-04-08, 06:07 PM	Gaming with the World of the Sphere Back again for a little while. Mostly writing this to note that I am still playing, and more importantly, playing with this setting. I just started up a new campaign recently which is using the setting of the Sphere as its basis. What follows is a summary of the first night of gaming with the Sphere. As background, most of the players who started this game were largely unfamiliar with the setting. I had given them the link, but it had been optional if they wanted to, and most had been too busy to really dive into it. As such, they were coming to the setting with very few preconceptions. I basically just let them wander and figure out where they were, what they wanted to do, and how they were going to go about it. About midway through, they attracted the attention of a fairly powerful inhabitant of the long forgotten facility, but managed to drive it away from themselves with the help of a bit of tech and some liberal "shank" use. After this point, they just kept interacting with the various bits of the Sphere and technology they found, even recognizing that they could communicate by voice, and explored several different floors of the facility. They also established that they wanted to get out of there and started querying everything they found as to whether it knew how to leave and how long it had been since anyone else had been there. They are currently still stuck within the facility and are in the process of trying to find some water and get down to the next location for which they managed to memorize a map. Characters: Lliya – A female elf with a bardic background and a renaissance era upbringing, as well as a propensity for searching out all manner of supertech items. Bruno – A large, male, and distinctly canine hound archon from an extra-dimensional plane which collapsed due to the destruction of the material universe. Among only a few who were collected and saved from his plane. Kifé – A female constructed being (based on élan) who holds some sort of message within her form (a la Prometheus) that must be delivered to those within the Sphere, as well as a bit of psionic power. Awakenings: Lliya awoke from slumber inside of some form of coffin. She emerged from the coffin into a large, mostly dark area which was arranged into a number of high metal racks with coffins arrayed in rows along their lengths. Each rack possessed 6 rows of coffins and were roughly 200 feet long and 60 ft high. Upon emerging she also noticed that her name, place of origin, and a brief description of herself were written in her native tongue on the side of her coffin. Similar markings in all manner of languages were also present on the other coffins. She progressed down the rack to its end, where she found that there was a ladder to the floor of the area. On reaching the floor, she found a large box with glowing symbols, buttons, and a screen with text, which she decided not to disturb. She then walked down to the roughly the midway point of the closest rack along the floor at which point she heard some kind of hard “clicking” or “tapping” sound coming from up ahead. Bruno awoke from slumber Upon waking, Bruno found himself in a similar condition as Lliya, and upon emerging his information and description were written in his own native tongue. However, since he is a planar creature, they listed the external dimension he was collected from. Bruno then progressed in the opposite direction down his rack that Lliya had gone. While walking, he decided to search one of the open coffins for something he could use, and found a makeshift dagger ( “Shank” ). With further searching, he also found a pair of pants made from some kind of durable material that were in much better condition than his current ones, but too small for his large frame. Instead of wearing them, he just tied them and used them as a sack for other things. Kifé awoke from “slumber” and in doing so turned on her innate glow which was seen by, and startled both of the other characters who immediately tried to hide. Emerging from her coffin, she found that her name was written on the side of the coffin, but other than that there was no location or description information – only a single name listed as “creator”. She progressed in the direction along her rack that Lliya had originally traveled, and climbed down the ladder at the end. When she encountered the box, she recognized it as some kind of interactive device within her memory banks, although not a specific type, and asked it aloud what it was. The box told her that it was a resurrection chamber monitoring system and provided her with a rough location, and guidance on where she should go from here. It also informed her that it had not been maintained in an extremely long time ~6500 years, and that she was one of the first people to awake in decades from its rack. While Kifé talked with the box, Lliya decided that she should move on, and started to progress down into a depression and ramp system that she had found at the opposite end of the chamber. The “clicking” noise had faded by this point, so she felt that it was relatively safe to progress. Kifé then began to progress down the path the box had marked for her towards the exit while at the same time, Bruno, who had reached the end of the rack system and found there was no ladder, dropped to the floor of the chamber in pursuit of the form of Lliya. By this time, Lliya had reached the bottom of the depression and found a large archway with slightly glowing script across it which said something about “travelers” and “Peresis” from what she was able to grasp. Upon reaching it, she also noted that somewhat distantly she could still hear the clicking sound coming from her right. Deciding instead to progress left she moved out into the tunnel towards a glow (similar in shape to the one emitting from her own arch) that she could see down the way. As Bruno progressed down the ramp of the depression and reached the bottom, Kifé came up behind him after having followed her lighted trail and introduced herself right away. This introduction process was slightly complicated by the fact that Bruno did not speak “common” so Kifé was forced to progress through a large number of languages to try and find something that they could both speak, which was eventually discovered to be “celestial”. Down the tunnel, Lliya also heard this exchange, but speaking a different set of languages, she understood a completely different set of greetings. At approximately this time, the sleepers heard the returning approach of the hard clicking sound echoing up the tunnel. Both groups immediately backed away into the recessed areas of the depression, although only Bruno and Kifé tried to stay out of line of sight of whatever it was. The Chi'sa: The clicking was soon revealed to be emanating from a large spider-like creature with a short stubby head, almost fly-shaped eyes, and hard scale like plates all across its body. It had a main body of roughly the same size as a pony, and supported itself on 8 dark matte legs that kept it in at a constant swaying motion about 5-8 feet off the floor depending on what it was doing. The spider creature passed by the arch of Bruno and Kifé. As it passed they saw that it was dragging some large, wrapped objects behind it. Covered in cloth, it was difficult to make out what they were, but they looked to be the right shape for humanoid bodies. The spider then progressed on to the arch of Lliya, who had decided not to outright hide, and watch it as it came up to her. Upon noticing her, the beast made some kind of muted screeching sound and then reared up as if to approach her. Seeing this, Lliya bolted away from it up the depression’s ramp and into the room above. Quick on her heels, the spider-like creature came into the depression and simply reached up the 25’ wall and pulled itself directly up, charging after the running Lliya into the chamber. Chasing her down the space between two of the racks, Lliya decided to avoid it by diving through the cables that filled the areas above the coffins and the steel supports and to the open space on the opposite side of the rack. Mostly successful, she just barely got through the cables before the spider crashed into them. Turning and running, she tried to head back down to the depression and out of the chamber, but the spider was hot on her heels and forced her to head back up one of the other rack paths. At about this point, Bruno and Kifé came into the lower depression, having seen the spider enter the room and hearing the commotion and climbed up the ramp. Seeing the spider creature chasing someone, they decided that they should kill it or drive it away and prepared to fight it. Kifé became very small and held onto Bruno while Bruno grabbed his shank and ran towards the creature. Heading up a path parallel to the creature, Bruno decided to throw Kifé over the rack and onto the top of the creature so that she could distract and maybe damage it while it chased Lliya. The throw was successful and after a quick attack she bounced off to the rear of the creature. Feeling the attack, the creature turned in place, loosing interest in Lliya, and decided to focus on Kifé. Seeing this, Kifé tried to run under the creature, but as she did so, it dropped in place on top of her, damaging her slightly. At the same time, Bruno had worked his way through the cabling on the side of the rack so that he could attack the creature, and seeing that she was no longer being pursued, Lliya decided to return and try to help these strangers. First trying a mage hand to pull one of its legs with little success, Lliya then ran at full tilt in a sort of pseudo tackle into another leg and successfully dropped it to the ground, damaging it slightly. With its head attacking level, Bruno then proceeded to shank it several times, drawing forth some kind of viscous, purplish blood or ooze from the creature, while Kifé also proceeded to deliver a couple more touch attacks. At this point though, the creature managed to regain its composure, and with all of the beings in front of it, it took one large swipe and struck them all. Bruno was simply hurt and knocked back. Similarly with Lliya. However, being so light, Kifé was sent flying right up over the top of the rack structure. Upon landing on the other side, Kifé decided that they couldn’t keep fighting this thing in the same manner, and went to ask one of the resurrection control boxes whether there was anything in the area which might aid their fight. It told her that in one of the coffins there was a living person who had been stored with something called a Kho. Opening the box for her, it told her to keep the pointy end away from herself, to flip one switch, and to then depress another switch, at which point some kind of energy would emerge from the pointy end and fly away. Doing this, she aimed the weapon and did as the box had said, and a massive kick of force sent her flying across the room. However, an energy did come out of the weapon, but nobody really saw how much it did to the creature. During this time, the creature also took another swipe at the two remaining close combatants, and this time sent Lliya flying up onto a higher level of the rack structure while pushing Bruno back. However, with all the damage the creature was taking, it seemed to decide there was easier prey within the structure, and began to pull away from combat – climbing right up the side of a rack. Seeing the creature fleeing, Bruno took one last attempt at wounding it and hurled his shank at the creature as it fled. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to do much damage and reflected off the beast down the rack’s length. Noting its landing point, Bruno headed off to reclaim it. Once it reached the top of the rack though, the spider creature turned, and spotting Bruno heading to retrieve his weapon, decided to take another tact at its assault. Hauling back, it let loose with a large glob of sticky matter which landed all over Bruno, pinning him to his spot, and just outside of reaching range of his shank. Upon landing in the upper rack, Lliya decided to search for a better way to fight the creature. Looking through the nearby coffins she found a smooth, dark, and somewhat metallic staff with inscriptions carved all across it’s surface. Luckily, several were in a language she could understand, including a note about the owner’s name – Renaldo Deschamp. In addition, there were quick instructions on how to activate the staff and warnings about use. Quickly skimming these, Lliya held the staff aloft in the general direction of the spider beast and tried to activate it. Like a shaft of liquid fire a brilliant beam of energy poured out of the end of the staff and struck the rack near the beast. Sweeping it sideways she managed to burn the creature somewhat before the beam flickered out of existence. At nearly the same time, Bruno managed to work himself free of the gooey bonds that held him by using his natural canine gifts. With strong bites he ripped the taffy mess to bits and headed once again for his shank. In addition, Kifé had managed to recover herself and the lost Kho by this point and tried once more to brace herself and use the weapon. Again though, due to her shrunken size, she was blasted off her feet as the weapon ignited spewing forth purplish energy. Although no one saw the hit, they heard the spider creature’s response – another muted shriek and then a quick scuttle as it moved completely over the top of the rack and out of sight. Revelations of the Sphere: Once the beast appeared to be driven away, everyone gathered up their things, and then moved up to the top of the chamber towards the resurrection monitoring system that had originally told Kifé about the stored Kho. On the way there, Lliya searched through a couple more coffins, and found a backpack made out of some durable material. Once they were all at the system, Kifé tried to explain the general idea of the system and how you communicated with it. Bruno immediately caught on the concept that it was a magical wish granting box, and demanded that it provide him with some kind of solid weapon like a sword. Taking this information, the system told him that there was one person a few rows over who had been stored with such an item. Prying open this coffin, Bruno found that the owner was dead, but there was a finely made greatsword still left over which had apparently resisted the effects of time. (masterwork) Concurrently, Kifé had the system reopen the box that she had taken the Kho from so that she could replace it for when its owner awoke. At the same time, Lliya also asked the box a covert question in Sylvan and was told to search out a number of different boxes to see if their owners were still around. Doing so, she found two items which were contained within boxes that had non-living or vacant owners. The first was called a “Cheff” and was a small, box shaped object with smooth sides. One side of the box was different from the others and held a slightly recessed, discolored pane of some other material. The second object was called a Fen, and was a metallic disc of material maybe a half inch thick with rounded edges and about the size of a buckler. However, it showed no physical way to equip or wear it and had a vaguely crystalline or clear circle of material on one side of the object. Finally, Bruno asked the box if there were any other beings from his dimension stored in this area, and the system pointed him to a box several rows over, which contained a pearly orb within the remains of a dead, but not horribly decayed hound archon. It also told him that there were 64 total archons stored within this facility initially, and most of them were stored in the same room as he was. While everyone else was searching for items and lost kin, Kifé asked the system about the history of the Sphere, relative matters of scale, timeframes for its existence, people in charge, and how they might get more information. It told her that the Sphere was a literal sphere about the radius of 1 AU (orbit of Earth). It told her that the Sphere had been constructed because the universe external to the Sphere had largely been destroyed. It told her that beings had been collected from all over the universe by a group of ships which traveled the void and gathered up any who were deemed worthy of preservation. It told her that it had only limited contact with external systems, so it didn’t know the situation outside the facility. It told her that if she wanted information it could point her to the educational complex, where the newly awakened were supposed to be filled in on their new place in the society of the Sphere. It then flashed up a series of maps, which composed floors 15, 14, and 12, after which point she was unable to remember any more of them. Lastly, it told her that the creature they had encountered was called a Chi’sa and was not originally intended to be part of this facility. The system did not know how it had gotten in. The Hungry Dead: Once they had all finished up their searches of the chamber, they decided to progress onward with the information Kifé had gathered and find their way out of the facility. Heading out into the hallway beneath the chamber, they turned left once again, and moved towards what Kifé remembered to be a large circular chamber that had some kind of vertical conveyance in the center of it. Approaching the chamber, they heard no further sign of the Chi’sa. They saw that the chamber itself was a roughly 200’ radius chamber with two levels and a high domed ceiling that seems like it would have originally held some kind of lighting. Dead trees littered the base of the chamber in planter sections long left unattended and most had benches laid out near them. Dust lay in a thick carpet across the floors, although here and there lighter sections could be seen where something had stepped long ago. Large pillars of material with linking bridges formed much of the second layer and created a concentric ring-like structure in the chamber. Entering the chamber they began to walk to their right around a large pillar that blocked their way to the center. However, as they started to round the corner, they heard a low flopping, shuffling sound coming from the other side. Wary from the Chi’sa, they peaked around the corner and saw what looked like a number of long decayed humanoids animated and moving around in an area just to the side of a central pillar of glass – their intended goal. All in all, amidst the humanoids moving, and those laying across some of the benches, there were roughly 8 of the creatures. In addition, the party also noticed 3 skeletons laying off to the side which weren’t making any motions. Deciding it would be prudent to try and avoid the creatures if at all possible, as they had been drained by the Chi’sa, and needed rest, they headed around the outside each of the pillar ring, and tried to approach the glass pillar from the opposite side. Standing just outside the ring, they saw that there was the faint outline of a door on the pillar, and off to the side of this outline there was some kind of panel. Deciding that Lliya was probably the sneakiest of their group, they sent her forward to the pillar to see if she could figure out how to get inside it. Figuring the panel was some kind of calling device or control, she drew on it and touched it in a variety of ways to no effect, until she hit on the simple motion of dragging her finger from top to bottom or the reverse. At these motions, a low hum started emanating from somewhere in the pillar, and then a small strip of color began to blink just above the door outline. At all this commotion though, the humanoids on the other side of the pillar caught notice of their actions and began to approach them. Figuring Kifé to be the least combative, they left her in front of the door to try and figure out how to open it. Lliya stepped out to the side of the pillar and in front of the creatures and activated Renaldo’s staff again, sending a beam of white light arcing over several of the creatures, lighting a couple on fire and destroying one right away. Bruno then charged out right into the middle of a pack of the creatures and dropped one immediately with a swipe of his greatword. However, buried amidst four of the things, they quickly began to return the favor. Several of the creatures who couldn’t get to Bruno instead split off and went after Lliya and Kifé to the rear. Those approaching Kifé had to take the long way around the pillar, so they couldn’t get to her for a full turn, but those approaching Lliya were on her quite quickly and made it difficult to use her staff without drawing attacks. Buried amidst the pack, Bruno slowly whittled them down as they did the same to him – until by the time he was nearly finished with them they had reduced them to within an inch of his life. Meanwhile, those creatures that had been approaching Kifé finally reached her and forced her to assume a different size so she could deal with them. Delivering a kick to the two she managed to knock one of them well away from her and subsequently stomped on the other one. Deciding to pull back from combat, Bruno returned to the rest of the party while Lliya covered him. As he did so, Bruno also noticed that the skeletons which had been inert up until this point had suddenly begun to stir and as they stood upright they burst into flames. When Bruno had made it back to them, Kifé lifted him up onto one of the higher pillars so that he wouldn’t be in immediate danger. However, it was right at this point that the elevator decided to arrive. In her haste to get into the pillar, Kifé shrank back to her original size, leaving Bruno stranded on top of the pillar in the middle of trying to upend a bench to throw at the creatures. Realizing he needed to act quickly to make the elevator and keep his allies from being swarmed, Bruno threw himself off the pillar and onto one of the humanoids that was still left over – using him as a landing cushion. This was largely successful and immobilized the creature long enough for Bruno to make it into the pillar and for them to activate it, heading downward. The Light and the Darkness: On reaching level 14, they saw that they were in a square chamber with four exits and a similar décor of dead trees, heavy dust, and long unused benches. The chamber was large enough that even with darkvision they couldn’t see down into the exiting tunnels, but as they sat in the tube they once again heard a clicking sound like that made by the Chi’sa. The sound approached from the tunnel they were supposed to head down and then moved away. Hoping to see the chamber fully, Lliya decided to try seeing if her staff could make any kind of general light, rather than just a beam shaped column. This activation ended up being ill fated though, as with a brilliant flash the whole world went stark white and only Kifé managed to close her eyes in time to avoid being temporarily blinded. In addition, if anything on the floor had been unaware of their presence before, they were quite aware now. Needing rest, and figuring it was probably safer to just hole up inside of the relative safety of the tube, where they could activate the elevator if they needed to, they settled down for a wary night of short watches and listening to the darkness. The first several watches were largely uneventful with a few cases of hearing noises that sounded like things they had encountered previously. During this period, Lliya interacted more with the Cheff she had obtained from the second resurrection chamber and after a lot of experimentation, eventually managed to figure out that she had to draw a particular symbol on its surface to activate it. When the Cheff was activated, it turned out to be some form of holographic memory receptacle, which could display images that had been downloaded from its prior owner’s life. When asked for the first and last memories stored it showed her images of a forest high in the mountains of a planet on a crisp spring day, and then a later series of that same location but with some massive object coming down into the sky. At they progressed through the last watch, they heard a creature which was coming down the wall of the chamber slowly and making a slurping or goopy sound. Getting Bruno to look at it with his darkvision, they identified it as some kind of blob-like creature which had crawled down the outer wall and was now coming slowly over a bench towards them. Not wanting to risk that it could come right through any gaps in the door, they activated the elevator and headed further downward into the facility. This activation sent them quite a bit farther downward than they were expecting though, and only after a long period of travel did they finally come to rest. In their immediate vicinity around them, they could see that there was a large swath of dead grass and plant matter which seemed to completely encircle the lift. Using darkvision, they also were able to see that farther out from the lift there seemed to be a number of dead trees arrayed in what looked like some kind of indoor forest. As they continued to look further, they saw that hiding behind one of these trees, there was some kind of lifeform which showed up in darkvision as a warm body. Not wanting to simply step out into a wide open, unknown, and potentially dangerous field, they fired up the lift once again, and headed upward, to see what there was above floor 15. On reaching floor 16, they saw that in their immediate vicinity there was only a long arched hallway which seemed to end at their tube. All along the length of the hallway there were a number of statues arrayed in two rows at its edges and stretching off into the unlit darkness. Deciding that this seemed like the safest of the floors they had seen so far, and spotting no immediate sight of creatures in the area, they got out of the lift and stuck Bruno’s shank in the door to try and make sure it didn’t leave without them. Since he could see in the dark, Bruno was sent forward first to see what the area was like and if there were any obvious dangers. Passing farther down the hallway, he found that after a hundred feet or so, it split into a four way intersection, with two side halls that appeared to be full of pictures and displays, and one continuation of his current hall that ended at some kind of door. Warily approaching the door, he was a little startled when it opened of its own accord as he approached and he found himself looking out into a vast, domed amphitheater area. Perfectly circular with highly smooth walls, it sloped down towards its center and seemed to possess no other exits that Bruno could see, although its walls extended past his vision. Creation and Destruction: Returning to his allies, he motioned that it appeared safe, and they began walking down the hallway. As they did so, they passed from statue to statue reading the names on them and looking at who they were of. Most of the names they didn’t recognize at all, but one, Peresis, stood out from the script they remembered above their resurrection chambers. They figured the old man displayed in the statue had to be some kind of master or controller of the Sphere and there was some talk that perhaps these were gods of the Spehre, as each statue also had listed a range of things that the displayed being was lord over. Xenobiology, matter and construction, heating and cooling, resurrection and preservation, ect…. At the same time, Lliya had the clever thought to try asking the Cheff to display any memories it contained which held the names they had seen listed on the statues. One in particular showed up, which showed Peresis and his wife, another of the statues, giving a speech informing the citizens of the universe about the dire fate that had befallen existence. They were informing them of their plans for an “ark” which would escape the coming destruction and hopefully provide a way for life to continue even though their universe would not. Passing farther down the hallway, they came to the split in the hall, and started to explore the side hallways full of pictures. Upon closer examination, they found that most of the images were actually historical in nature, describing the construction of the Sphere, its population by various creatures, the conflict that arose around it relating to those left behind, and the lives of those involved in its making. NOTE: Everyone who saw these images and worked at translating their descriptions / significance were gifted with a +2 Knowledge:Sphere and gained access to the skill. Having completed their survey of the pictures of the Sphere, the group then decided to enter the large circular chamber Bruno had seen at the end of the last hallway and find out its purpose. Upon all of their entry into the chamber, the door automatically closed behind them, and suddenly they found themselves whisked away to what appeared to be an open field looking up at a sky with a small sun hanging overhead, and a massive object filling almost the entire rest of the sky. Checking to see whether they really had been transported somewhere, Kifé tried picking one of the leaves of grass at their feet, and although it did break off in her hands, as she lifted it to her face it faded away to nothingness. As they watched overhead, time seemed to progress at a wildly accelerated rate, and the sky object rapidly took shape as a sphere-like skeleton with quickly filling sides. All across the rest of the skyscape, tiny motes of color flickered and moved like a giant locust swarm thrashing about the sphere. Once the sphere had become fully formed, the group noticed that the sky seemed to be changing around them as well. Rippling and shifting in color, the whole expanse of the cosmos seemed to be coming apart as they watched. Finally, as time slowed down near the end of the progression, they saw a final few objects dart towards the Sphere, and then in a flash the dome went blank again. Figuring this room might be like the magical wish granting boxes (resurrection systems), they asked it what they had just seen, and it responded that they had witnessed the construction of the Sphere and the end of the universe from the vantage point of a planet previously near the Sphere. They then asked the room if it could display any more accurate information regarding the facility then what they had been able to obtain from the resurrection systems, and it said that its information was limited as it was simply a display for the history of the Sphere and the greatness of its creators. Noting that they were low on food and water, they then asked the room if it might at least be able to tell them where they could find water or food in the facility, and it illuminated a number of locations on various levels which had been set in the blueprints as locations with water access. Thanking the room once more, they decided to leave at this point, and retry their luck with the large, open, grassy floor they had come to before this one, as it was listed in the blueprints as being some kind of park and having two standing bodies of water. Taking the elevator down to that floor, they decided that before they set foot out in somewhere that could be dangerous, they better try to illuminate it first and see if they could spot any hazards. Holding the Fen as a light shield in front of Renaldo’s staff, they had Lliya activate it as a light source. Once again, it was brilliantly bright, and the reflections off the sides of the tube were quite intense, but being prepared for it, they were able to successfully shield their eyes and shine it in a slowly panning arc around the perimeter of the tube. Unfortunately, what the light revealed was that as they panned it, flocks of some kind of bat-like creature of slightly smaller than human size took off from the trees on either side of the tube. They also noted that there was still a shiny surface that looked like a lake out in the distance, but they were unwilling to try and brave what looked like a large number of potential foes just to get a drink of water, and decided that it would probably be better to try floor 14, and then the further floors beyond that, which had possessed several markings for water. This was the end of session 1
Araes 01-04-08, 06:08 PM	Gaming with the World of the Sphere - Session 2 - Part 1 This is the log for the second session of gaming that happened in the world of the Sphere. At this point, the players were still stuck in the resurrection facility, but they at least had some idea about the background and history of the world, as well as the potential dangers of the facility. After exploring the quarentine area for a little while, they got into some trouble with both another one of the Chi'sas (massive spider scavengers) as well as some animate dead and a flamethrower. From there they managed to work their way through the whole processing section and finally feel if not see the light of day due to heavy fog. A bit confused, and almost stuck, they eventually hit on the idea of climbing up the side of the tower itself and managed to signal some help to maybe get them off it. Characters: Lliya – A female elf with a bardic background and a renaissance era upbringing, as well as a propensity for searching out all manner of supertech items. Bruno – A large, male, and distinctly canine hound archon from an extra-dimensional plane which collapsed due to the destruction of the material universe. Among only a few who were collected and saved from his plane. Kifé – A female constructed being (based on élan) who holds some sort of message within her form (a la Prometheus) that must be delivered to those within the Sphere, as well as a bit of psionic power. Previously: The characters all awoke from slumber within some form of chamber and after wandering a bit, Bruno and Kifé met one another while Lliya ventured out and found more of the facility. After encountering it in the hallways, the characters were assaulted by some form of spider-like collector beast that they eventually came to know as a Chi’sa. The characters found that their awakening and the awakening other was controlled by a large number of “magic boxes” strewn throughout numerous chambers like theirs, and that these boxes could communicate in most languages. From these boxes, they were able to gather a large amount of background info about where they were, where they should be going, and the overall structure of the world. They learned that they were inside a large world shaped like a hollow, multi-shelled sphere that was all that remained of the universe. After driving the Chi’sa away, they left the awakening area, and began to venture into the facility. Coming to the first of several elevator transports, they found their way blocked by numerous animated corpses apparently very interested in blocking their way. In a quick scuffle, they managed to hold them off long enough to enter the elevator. Finding the area they were supposed to travel through, they encountered both ominous clicking sounds like a Chi’sa, and some form of wall crawling blob creature, and decided it would be better to rest and explore the rest of the facility first. After resting, they briefly entered a large, dark lower area, and then traveled upward to a long hall full of statues, pictures, and attached to some kind of image projection room. They witnessed the recorded end of the universe, viewed a number of historical images relating to the Sphere, asked several more questions of the projection room’s control system (including how to find water), and learned about the creators of the Sphere. The characters attempted to once again travel down into the large lower chamber, but when they arrived, and illuminated the chamber with a bright flash, they saw a number of creatures taking flight and decided against it. The characters returned to the chamber the first “magic box” had indicated as a potential exit on level 14, and decided to brave the dangers they thought might be out there. She emerged from the coffin into a large, mostly dark area which was arranged into a number of high metal racks with coffins arrayed in rows along their lengths. Each rack possessed 6 rows of coffins and were roughly 200 feet long and 60 ft high. Alone: Rested, but needing food and water, the characters arrived at the first chamber they had seen of level 14 and decided they should try to pass through what they had been told was some kind of “cleansing” area towards the ultimate goals of an “education”, “processing”, and “law enforcement” area, as well as freedom. The blob they had previously seen was not visible, and there were no immediate noises of Chi’sa in the area. Bruno left the safety of the elevator first, and ventured forward into one of four tunnels leaving from the chamber (the one indicated as the exit by the “magic box”). Moving about 50’ into the tunnel, he found that just at the edge of his vision, the floor and ceiling appeared to have sustained some kind of damage. Moving closer, it became apparent that something had dug or carved into the structural material of the facility in this area. Looking closer, he also noticed that the ceiling appeared to be the entry point, and then whatever it was had continued right down into the floor in a long tunnel that gradually sloped away out of vision. The tunneling and destruction did not completely take up the hallway, but left about a 2’ ledge on one side around its perimeter. Examining the tunnels, he found that although the excavation appeared to be quite old by dust that had settled into grooves, there was recent activity that had disturbed the dust in many places. In addition, he also noticed that there appeared to be fresher air slowing rising up out of the lower tunnel. Moving back from the hallway, Bruno told this information to his companions, and warned them that there might have been recent movement in the area. Shifting over to the other three exits from their starting chamber, he both listened and tried to smell at those exits to see if he caught anything. Supposing their first examined tunnel as pointing East: At the northern exit, he heard something that sounded vaguely like the slurping sound which had been emitted from the blob as if at a great distance. At the western exit, he heard absolutely nothing. No wind, no movement, nothing. It also smelled quite stale. At the southern exit he smelled very little, but he could hear rustling like perhaps the flapping of bat wings or the flutter of wind blown paper. Holding a quick party conference, they decided that since there still didn’t appear to be any immediate danger in the area around the hallway they had been directed too, even with the excavated tunnel, and they had no idea what was down any of the other paths, they should probably at least to try and get around the excavation and continue on. Traveling forward as a group, all three left the elevator and moved up to the edge of the tunnel / pit. Getting down on hands and knees to be more stable, they bunched up along the wall of the lip, and then started moving forward across what looked to be about a 30’ edge. After about 20’-25’ they heard a soft clicking sound (they thought like a Chi’sa), emanating upward from deep down in the tunnel. Quickly hurrying, they crossed the last bit of the edge and rushed into the next chamber on the other side. Opening outward into a much larger room, the next chamber was partitioned into something of a maze, with clear walls and substructures filling up its area. As the characters moved into this maze, they first passed a smaller chamber on their left. Peeking into this small area almost at a jog, they saw that there was some form of table, a number of overturned shelves and a general look of disarray - like it had been rummaged through a couple times. They decided not to look any further for fear of a Chi’sa exiting the tunnel and seeing them. Turning a quick right they moved past the door of another sub-structure which had a partially opened door and they decided not to even bother investigating at the moment. Turning left, they moved down the twisting hall and had to climb over a large amount of rubble from some form of metallic arch which had previously filled up much of the hallway. The rubble was roughly 3’ wide and 3’ high, and on their first pass none of the character made much noise, even though there were numerous loose wires and metal plates sitting all over it. On the other side of the pile of metal, and at another corner turning left, there was a mostly open door which led into some kind of office or storage area. Feeling that with the more cramped confines of the metallic rubble and the enclosed hall they were a bit safer, they decided to quickly explore this room. Inside of this office, the table, chairs, and shelves showed the same kind of disarray as the first one. However, this appeared to also have been some kind of storage area for medical supplies and the like. Even though it had been rummaged through considerably before, they were still able to search and uncover a number of items which hadn’t been taken including three vials of different liquids, a number of patches (2 groups of 3 patches), and a collection of bandages. Moving out of the medical supplies chamber, they took the left corner of the hallway and began traveling down it. About 20’ down it, they came to another door on their right which was wide open, and inside they saw what looked like a very stark room (examination room) with only an overturned table, unadorned walls, and a splash of what looked to be very old blood on one wall. Moving over to the blood, Bruno quickly sniffed at it checked to see if he could verify its age, and eventually satisfied himself that it was indeed rather old. Stepping out of this chamber they continued moving down the hall and after another 20’ or so came to a third door on the right which was partially open. Inside of this chamber, they saw that something huge and metallic had fallen out of the ceiling and crushed what looked to be a small table or chair underneath it. Off to one side, there appeared to be another of the “magic boxes”, but it was inert and rather lifeless compared to the other ones they had encountered. They wonder at what could kill a magic box. On one wall, they saw that to their surprise there was some kind of window which looked into the room they had previously been in with the blood on the wall. This window hadn’t been apparent at all in the other room. Kifé said that somewhere in her memory she had records of things like this that were like windows through solid materials or to other places. In the corner near the window, there also appeared to be the remains of a wall panel which had been torn off the wall, and was now hanging from a whole collection of cables, wires, and other mechanical bits. Deciding to move on for now and possibly come back if they needed to, the characters shifted out of the room and continued moving down to what was apparently another right turn in the hallway. Taking this corner, they saw that ahead of them, the walls apparently turned to glass or something like it, and the path began to repeatedly fold back upon itself over and over. Since it was clear, they looked down to the end of this folded maze of glass and saw that just beyond a last glass wall that appeared to have shattered, the path apparently came to an end at a closed door. Walking through the glass path, they came up to what they had seen, and if it was a door, it didn’t seem to have any handles or obvious ways of opening it. Also, unlike the tubes, this door didn’t appear to have any kind of miniature panel nearby that they could move their hands over or operate. Across the surface of the door, there was written in the celestial language: Warning: Controlled area – Do Not Pass Beyond This Point Without Authorization or Supervision. This writing drew something of a pause for the group, as they wondered why there was apparently a common tongue for the Sphere, but much of the writing within the Sphere appeared to have been set out in this more specific celestial tongue. Bruno postulated that perhaps it was like a religion where certain languages were reserved for certain purposes or to designate some kind of specialization / authority? Beyond the panel, they also heard what appeared to be a quite powerful whistling and wind-like sound. Noticing that the panel appeared to be recessed slightly, and that there was a soft pliable material filing the gap between it and the main wall, Bruno grabbed a large shard of the glass-like material that had fallen and wrapping it in cloth, began to work at scraping away some of the material. After a time, he was able to get a several foot section of this soft material worked out of the groove down to about an inch in depth. After this point, it became quite difficult to wedge the glass any further into the gap because he almost would have to lay it parallel to the panel and just push on it, which didn’t provide much grip. Figuring that this probably wasn’t going to immediately net them progress without a lot of work and noise, they decided that maybe they should go back and investigate the offices they had previously passed through to see if they had noticeably weak walls or if any of the other rooms they hadn’t really looked in had a way to move beyond this area. Based upon how far they had walked in the straight hall with the three doors, and how deep the path of folded glass walls was, they figured that whatever the chamber on the other side of the closed panel was, it had to be behind perhaps the second door they had checked, with the blood on the wall, or definitely the first door with the medical supplies. While traveling down the hall to return to this first door, the characters heard what they thought to be a distant return of the clicking noise. Hoping it wasn’t coming into the hall, where they would be trapped, they continued with some haste to the medical supplies room. Tapping on the wall in a number of locations, they found that it definitely didn’t appear to be wood or any type of overly soft material. When it was hit, it didn’t ring like metal, and was perhaps closest to rock or some other dense, but non-metallic object. It didn’t appear to have any obvious locations that sounded different from other ones. Having made a bit of noise doing this, they listened in the hallway again, and definitely heard the clicking, although it still sounded to be distant and out in the excavated tunnel or entry chamber. Thinking that perhaps they could try to break off something from the large metallic object which had fallen from the ceiling in the third room, they returned and tried to pry off one of what looked to be its support bars. Unfortunately, their muscles just weren’t up to the task by themselves, and in the process they also made a slight amount of shifting noise. Listening in the tunnel once more, they heard nothing. No clicking or other audible sounds anymore besides the lowly echoing wind. Becoming a bit worried, and figuring they needed to find a way out of here soon, they decided that they would go back over the large pile of metallic debris which had blocked part of the hallway, at the first series of corners, and try investigating the rooms they had passed. Quarantine and Fire: Leading the climb back over the pile, Bruno was the first to go and made a little bit of noise doing so. Listening, he still heard nothing in out in the larger entry hall. Coming up to the half-open door they had passed before, he first sniffed and the immediate waft back was that of old blood. Sticking his head into the room slightly, he looked around, and immediately saw what looked to be a corpse that had been bodily tossed over the remains of several chairs. Across a wall behind it, and opposite the door, there was also a large spray of dark, dried blood. Not seeing the corpse show any signs of movement, and figuring it was safer than hanging out in the hall, he moved into the room and began to look around, while motioning that it appeared safe. Next over the debris pile was Kifé, and in coming down it, she made a fairly large amount of noise. Finally, came Lliya, and although she herself was quite quiet, as she was descending the side near the door, she suddenly said she heard “clicking” quite near, and almost bolted through the door. A few seconds later everyone could hear the clicking rapidly approaching, and making a split decision they decided to quickly slam the door closed if they could. Moving quickly, they all heaved into it, and with a massive shift it slid totally closed. Luckily for them as well, since right after they slammed it into place, there was a huge thud on the opposite side of it, and large imprint about the size of one of the Chi’sa’s leg tips dented significantly into the material of the door. They all quickly theorized that’s probably what happened to whoever the poor corpse was, and it just hadn’t been fast enough. Looking it the corpse, this appeared to be the case as well, since there was a large section of its flank completely removed and missing. Examining it more extensively, they noticed that although it had decayed extensively by this point, it was surrounded in clothes that appeared to be similar to the pants and backpack the characters had found before. This set on the corpse appeared to be a little bit thicker, and were a full set of clothes. They also found that the being had something that looked kind of like currency, shaped like triangles, squares, and pentagons. In addition, it had some kind of short dark rod with a clear purplish section on one end. Finally, it also had a card which showed a picture of a creature with short tufts of feathery material all across its face and a vaguely hawk-like appearance. It said the creature on the card’s name was Maria Thomas, and there was a whole bunch of official wording they didn’t really understand. Now thinking they were somewhat trapped inside the room, they looked around and found that to their surprise, there actually was another large panel (thought to be a door) inside this room that had not been marked on the overall map. It was marked with a very obvious “Security” in celestial across its surface and looked to be similar to the panel they had seen before at the end of the glass hall. In addition, within the room there was looked to be the remains of one of the “magic boxes” which had been thoroughly destroyed, as well as picked through, and underneath a counter they found a thin flat object with a semi-reflective and possibly glass-like surface on one side. Examining the large panel further, they noticed that at the bottom of the panel it appeared like someone had ground and dug at the floor extensively and had managed to wear away a patch that gave a gap beneath the panel. Seizing on this, Bruno immediately jammed his fingers into it and heaved upward on the panel. Almost surprisingly easily, it toppled sideways into a recess on one side of the panel, and came to be slightly wedged with one corner still sticking out into the now open path. Figuring he ought to both jam it in place to stop something like the Chi’sa, and make it a little bigger for his large frame to get through, he pushed on the protruding corner and managed to bend it a little further, thoroughly wedging the panel in place. At this point, the space was big enough that they figured they could all squeeze through, and so crawling, they worked their way into the chamber beyond, which Kifé remembered from the maps in her head to be some kind of quarantine or holding cells. Standing up within this chamber, they saw that they were in a long rectangular room with a low counter that ran almost its entire length, and separated their side of the room from four doors on the opposite side. Two of these doors were open or partially open, while two were firmly closed. At the opposite end of the chamber from where they had entered, there was another door that appeared to be slightly open. Even better though, inside of this room, there was yet another of the panels, and this one appeared to have moving lights on its surface. Immediately Kifé tried to talk to it like she had most of the others, and at her voice it chirped back in the draconic she had used to talk to it saying “hello”. Interrupting, Bruno asked if there was any way that the panel could open the doors on the other side of the chamber and Kifé quickly piped in to note that this had been some kind of isolation, and perhaps they didn’t want those doors open? Bruno didn’t really understand this concept, but got it a bit better after she mentioned disease. Instead deciding to just check the ones that were open, Bruno sniffed outside of the fully open one and got back a strange odor that smelled a little bit acrid and metallic with a something more like a dead flower – vaguely sickly sweet. Within this chamber, he also could see what very loosely could be described as a corpse. It appeared to have melted inward and was largely just a mess. Moving on, Bruno sniffed outside the partially open door, and got back another odd scent that was a bit of sulphur with another hint of something metallic and maybe blood. Looking in, he could see what seemed to be bones laying in several groups and he noticed that the walls looked like they had been the site of a conflagration, as there were scorch marks all up and down their length. Back at the panel, Kifé was forging ahead with her questions - having explored even more extensively since the last time they encountered a panel. She asked it what the blobs were, and it told her that its sensors had seen several different types of blobs in the area. Being more specific about what she wanted, it told her that the particular one she had seen was called a Koda, and it was an ambush predator that often falls on prey. Its touch causes paralysis, and then it slowly absorbs the creatures it touches. She asked it how the Chi’sa had entered into the facility, and this monitor said that it didn’t know, but it was able to correlate that at least in this facility, there was a pretty good correlation between when the Chi’sa were first spotted, and when problems were occurring. Its unclear whether they caused it or were just a result of other issues. She asked it if it could show her the maps of the area they were in so she could try to rememorize the ones she had missed, and it said it was. It showed her greatly zoomed out images of level 14, and filled in some details such as where water and other necessities might be found. It did warn her that all of its information was highly out of date. Roughly 5000 years. She mentioned the excavated tunnel to the panel, and asked it where that might lead if they followed it. It said that the tunnel was likely to lead down into the level below them (Level 13) which wasn’t a general access level, but intended for facility personnel and administration. She asked it what they might expect beyond the quarantine area and on the way to processing and it warned them that at least several of the transport tubes to level 12’s main floor were non-operational the last it knew. She asked it what the card with the picture of Maria Thomas on it was, and it told her that it was kind of like a key to other panels like it. If they pressed it up against certain panels it would allow them to be opened or closed, or activate facility functions. She asked it what several of their unidentified items were, and it told her as much as it could. It identified the Fen (the round disc with a clear center) as a protective device often used by security personnel. It served to absorb energy directed at the user although it would not stop physical attacks. It identified the clothes as a form of synthetic fiber that were lightly abrasion and energy resistant. It identified the flat panel Kifé had found as a Personal Information Panel, and told her that it was probably out of energy or possibly broken. It described the process of giving life back to it if she could find the right equipment. It identified the rod they had found in the security room as a stun baton that if struck against a foe would lightly stun most humanoid creatures with conductive skins. It also directed them in its operation. It described the triangles, squares, and pentagons they’d found as pre-Sphere currency, although they didn’t end up asking it how much relative worth the pieces had then or now. They asked it what the string was, and it said it was some kind of composite fiber, but it couldn’t tell material with the sensors it had. She asked it when the last time creatures came through this area was, and it said that it was several hundred years ago. The last group was actually 6 people, and they pushed three of their members into the chamber where the bones are lying now. The machine said that about 40 years later there was a fire warning in that same cell, although no one had apparently gone in or out in that time.
Araes 01-04-08, 06:09 PM	Gaming with the World of the Sphere - Session 2 - Part 2 From the Inferno to the Bonfire It was around this point that Bruno heard a scuffling coming from the cell where the bones had been lying. Figuring that the bones were some kind of undead, maybe like the burning skeletons they had seen above, they asked the panel if it could open the far door that was only partially open right now. It said it could try, and after a few seconds, the door began to slide in small jerking motions until it reached a point where it was wide enough for them to slip through. Once they were on the other side, they called to the panel and asked it to re-close the door, which it did. This ended up actually being an unfortunate choice in the long run. Upon entering the room, Lliya noticed that in two of the corners of the room, there appeared to be something like trap doors in the ceiling. She wasn’t sure what they were, but she didn’t want to mess with them for fear that they were some kind of trap. They also noticed that they were apparently in the room on the opposite side of the panel they had been trying to get through in the glass hallway. Finally, they also saw that the expected exit from this room was only partially open, and only big enough for Kifé to reasonably get through if she shrank her size. Deciding that this was probably like the other door, and could be pushed to the size, Bruno grabbed hold of the partial door and tried to pull it, which resulted in two things. First, the door didn’t budge, and they found that it was definitely fixed or wedged in place. Secondly, upon shaking the door, one of the trap doors opened and some metallic object came down from the ceiling. Out of the air, a loud voice boomed. “Tampering detected with quarantine chamber. No authorized personnel detected. Executing purification and facility protection measures.” Quickly hoping that she could stop whatever this was, Kifé grabbed the key card of Maria Thomas and held it up to the room yelling “No, I am Maria Thomas, and I am attempting to bring this people through the facility which is experiencing problems.” However, either the machine did not recognize this as a valid claim or could not verify the identity on the card any longer, and repeated. “No authorized personnel detected. Executing purification and facility protection measures.” At which point, the entire chamber was immediately bathed in fire. Apparently the object in the corner was some sort of flame projector and a concentrated gout was directed directly where the party was standing. Luckily, the Fen that Lliya was carrying actually was functional, and as the flames washed over them, they stopped just inches from the farthest person, Kifé, and split around them. Heating the air and making the room horribly uncomfortable, but not immediately killing them. Screaming out to the panel in the other room, they quickly asked it to reopen the door so they could escape, and it began to do so. At the same time, Kifé also decided that if she could become small and escape out the other door to the tube and level 12 area, then she should do so. Shrinking down in size, she popped through the gap and shot out into the hallway with minimal damage. After a few tense seconds of huddling inside a little fire cocoon, Lliya and Bruno managed to work their way through the partially open door, and throw themselves to the side in the chamber. The moment they left and the Fen deactivated, flames poured through the doorway and out into the chamber – bathing the area where animated skeletons were indeed coming to life and trying to squeeze out of their cell. Seeing this and their immediate danger, Lliya and Bruno both picked themselves up quickly off the floor and pulled out what weapons they had to try and fight off the skeletons, which seemed to be almost impervious to the effects of the flames rolling into the room. As the first of the skeletons made it out of the room and began to come over the long counter, Bruno laid into it with his greatsword, and managed to chop off several of its ribs, but none of its major appendages. At the same time, Lliya also activated her staff, and sent a beam of light arcing into another skeleton that was trying to work its way through the door. It was difficult to tell how much it actually did to the skeleton simply because of all the fire in the area. Now that the first of the skeletons was over the counter, it tried to leap at Bruno to wrap him with its arms, but he fended it off, and for his troubles was slightly burned by a heat that seemed to be radiating from its bones. Taking another swing at it, he lopped off nearly all of the skeleton’s right side including the rest of its ribs and its arm. Firing up her staff again, Lliya took another shot at the second skeleton which had managed to get out of the door and was trying to get up over the counter, and although she did some visible damage to it, the beam seemed to be much less effective against these creatures than it had been against the more fleshy corpses. She also noted that the writing on her staff had blinked in a yellow color when she fired this last blast. While Lliya and Bruno were fighting for their lives in the other chamber, Kifé, who had managed to get into the hall beyond could see that she had reached the transport to level 12, and looking around a bit more she saw that near the door she had just escaped through, there was a small panel which had been obscured by fire. Thinking that she might be able to open the door from this side for her companions, she tried a number of different motions like they had made with the tube, until she finally hit upon the concept of pressing the key card up against it. Upon doing this, the door closed with the first contact of the card, and on second contact reopened fully. Back in the chamber with the skeletons, Bruno took one last swing at the skeleton trying to grab him, and carved off all of its body above the waist. For a few seconds the legs continued to move and try to approach him, but then they seemed to lose whatever force had been driving them. Unfortunately, at the same moment, the other skeleton had managed to get over the counter, and in doing so decided to approach Lliya. Enfolding her with its arms, it suddenly burst into flames like the ones they had seen on level 15. Luckily for Lliya, her Fen still possessed energy, and even though she was wrapped up, the flames of the skeleton just parted around her. Somewhat harried at this point by all the things happening too them, Bruno decided that he was going to try and attack the skeleton directly with his greatsword while it was holding Lliya. This proved to be something of a bad move, as while she moved and shifted to try and throw the corpse off of her, she moved herself directly into the path of his attack. Eliciting a loud cry, Bruno’s sword clove a huge gash into her side, and Lliya began to bleed profusely onto the floor. Perhaps finding her strength in panic, Lliya managed to with a heave at this point to push the skeleton back from her and instantly fled as far back into the chamber as she could, leaving Bruno to fight it alone. Taking another swing at it, he managed to take one of its legs off, and bring it to the ground, but not immobilize it, as even with one leg it simply pushed along madly with its arms towards him. Not expecting this, he was slow in reacting and it grabbed ahold of him in a similar manner as it had Lliya. Without her shield he was also badly burned as it ignited once again. Being as strong as he was, it didn’t take long for Bruno to unentangle himself from the thing’s grasp, but just as he had moved away, it reached out yet again and latched onto his leg, burning him yet even more. Having managed to quickly heal herself to a marginal level, and get her bleeding under control, Lliya came rushing back at this point so that she could interpose the effect of her Fen on the skeleton’s burning form. This was fairly successful, and with her help Bruno was able to finally keep away from the thing long enough to deliver a smashing blow to it on the floor. At about this time, the two also heard the voice of Kifé call through the opening that he had been successful in getting the door open. She wasn’t really sure whether they were alive, but felt quite guilty that she had simply dived to safety while they may have been burned to death. Although the flame projector was still pouring fire through the door, Lliya and Bruno decided that it was probably worth the risk of trying to quickly run through and hoping the Fen saved them, as it hadn’t failed yet, and there was no telling how long this machine would stay active. Prepping themselves near the edge of the door, just beyond the Fen’s activation range, Bruno gathered up Lliya and quickly carried her and the Fen through the chamber and into the hall beyond – nearly crashing into Kifé who had been standing right in the way trying to see whether they were still alive. Relieved that they were both alive, they all exchanged quick congratulations / amazements / ect… and then had a quick discussion on what they should do next. The Doors to Freedom From her time alone, Kifé was able to tell them that none of the tubes down to level 12 appeared to be working any longer. The two that the panel in the quarantine room had noted as having issues were fully off-line, and in addition, one of the central tubes was unresponsive as well. Finally, the fourth tube had actually been destroyed almost completely, and now rested in a huge pile of shards several stories down on the floor. Out of the hole where the tube had been, there had been a great stream of wind and vapor blowing, depositing a thick layer of dew on the floor all around. However, when the door to the quarantine room had been closed by the panel the wind and vapor had slowed to a stop. Being completely parched, the party quickly took advantage of the fact that there was semi-drinkable water in the area and using their bandages soaked up enough of it off the floor to give each of them several significant drinks. Behind the tubes, the room ended in a wide sheet of windows which stretched its entire length, and offered a clear vista down into the processing area below. What they saw was a symbol of order which looked as if it had been abandoned to chaos long ago. The portion of the room they could see stretched for perhaps 200’ in front of them and was a bit wider than their current room. It had a high arched ceiling that was easily three stories high and vaulted up above even their vantage point. The chamber came to an end at an opposite wall of high, almost cathedral-like windows, which had a series of four arched halls carved into its base. It seemed like these windows must be looking out on the outside world, as they had a light like daylight streaming through them. The wind and vapor they were seeing appeared to be streaming in through two of the halls in the base of the wall and was covering the entire floor of the chamber in a low thick mist. The floor of the room was partitioned off into visible segments, with high clear walls between them and a number of sub-structures set throughout the floor. In one area near a large piece of clear separation, it appeared that something had removed a perfectly spherical section of material from everything around it. The floor possessed a shallow bowl shape, and a circular section had been completely removed from the clear material. Looking out over this scene, the party decided that since they had water right now, and could go a bit longer without food, they ought to rest for a while and reclaim some of their strength, as Bruno and Lliya had both been badly hurt in the exchange with the animate corpses. Before they settled to rest, Lliya examined all of their supplies with “detect magic” and told them that each of the medical vials were different, that there were two types of patches which did different things, and that a number of their other possessions were also shining weakly as magic. She then identified one of the vials as being an Anti-Poison medicine which granted an immediate save retry for person infected with poison with a +4 bonus, and continued that same bonus of +4 for another whole day. The party then slept after Lliya healed Bruno and herself as best she could. During their rest, some of those on watch were able to verify that they did appear to be very near the outside, or at least somewhere with natural day-night cycles, as the light streaming through the windows had gotten dark as they rested. In addition, almost right as darkness had settled over the chamber, the watchers had begun to see movement amongst the buildings below. Small creatures seemed to be flitting and running back and forth between the various structures. They seemed human size or smaller and some people caught what they thought were sights of shininess and green. They also seemed to be intermittently fighting with one another, as Kifé thought that on her watch she saw a couple of the creatures attack one another in the shadows of a structure. Upon waking, the party was still pretty badly hurt, so they decided they would rest for a bit more. Plus, since they had just seen the creatures roaming the streets, and it was still dark outside, they figured it would probably be safer to wait for the light to come back. Bruno also decided that he would try out one of the patches which had given off strong indications of beneficial healing to “detect magic”. Over the next 4 hours he found that he felt much better and those on watch said that his wounds healed visibly. Lliya also decided to identify Bruno’s pearly orb that he had been carrying with him as it also showed some form of healing or beneficial magic. The orb was actually a dual purpose item and specifically for use by extra-dimensional beings. Acting as a container, if an outsider died in the vicinity of the orb, it could capture their “essence” and store it so that in the event that an effect like resurrection or raise dead were attempted, their life force could be easily found. In addition, if an outsider who possessed the orb were to reach death’s door while it contained a life force, that life force would give themselves up to bolster the owner’s (effectively providing a quickened, maximized Heal, but only once per life). It currently held one life. After the second period of rest, the party felt that they were in sufficiently good shape that they could try progressing into the processing and educational area and hopefully to the world beyond. Bruno suggested that if they used the fiber cord that Lliya had found, and tied it through some of the tough fabric clothes, they might be able to make something like a sling for lowering people. They could then loop it around one of the tubes, and working in tandem lower each of the party down through the broken tube section. Kifé was somewhat opposed to this idea, as she wanted to just use her mental abilities to enlarge herself and then lower each of the party through the hole. However, everyone wanted her to preserve her power, so she eventually relented. Unfortunately, on the first attempt of lowering someone, which happened to be Kifé, Bruno accidentally let the cord slide through his hands, and Kifé was forced to use some of her power anyhow to absorb the damage from a two story fall. The next lift with Lliya went much more smoothly, and she was lowered to the ground safely. Finally, in the case of Bruno, the two who were already on the ground held one end of the cord and then Bruno simply lowered himself down on their weight. Once they were successfully down on the ground of the chamber, they had a tough choice to make. They had seen the creatures last night, so were they going to run at breakneck speed through the area and just try to reach the outside as fast as they could? Or were they going to go in a more measured manner, and fully explore what the educational and processing area had to offer. Eventually they decided that they would try to run for it. For the first 75 feet or so, everything went quite well, and the creatures seemed to be absent or asleep. However, as they reached this point, something shot out of one of the buildings off to their side and narrowly missed them to their rear as they ran. Knowing this could easily turn into a whole range of trouble if they were able to be mobbed, they put on speed and quickly made for the sectional exit they had seen from above. Unfortunately, as they were rounding the last corner towards this section exit, another shape hurtled out of a low building near the clear divider and slammed into Bruno. Lliya didn’t even notice until she had already passed through the exit, at which point it became clear that neither of the other two were with her and she headed back. Meanwhile, Kifé had been knocked down in the first attack, and Bruno was pinned underneath some massive green shape with gnashing teeth. Righting herself, Kifé quickly waded in to help Bruno and slammed the creature with a quick hammer touch. Getting a closer look at it, it appeared to be some form of large dog-sized lizard with shiny, scaly skin, and a long protruding maw. Running back to the fight, Lliya tried her best to get close to Bruno, and figuring this was as good a time as any took out the stunning rod they had found to club the creature with. Either it was powerful, or the stars aligned for just a second, because with a purple flash she almost instantly clubbed the beast into unconciousness. Struggling out from under the creature, Bruno was quick with his shank and in a deft motion slashed the creature’s throat as he rose. Then, worried about remaining in any one location for long, they hightailed their way out of the section and hurried for the leftmost of the exit halls they had seen. The Long Foggy Climb Out of Hell Entering the hall, the party could see that it went on for about 30’ or so before exiting into what unfortunately looked like yet another chamber. Still moving at a full run they quickly progressed down the hall. However, when they reached about the midway point Kifé suddenly started to realize something was happening to the world around them. To the others, perception seemed to just be slightly off for just a few seconds, and in some ways their memory of the last few seconds just seemed “longer”. To Kifé, with her artificial background and mental training though, the perception seemed somehow more sinister. As if something were moving around inside her mind and ever so slightly adjusting it. Disliking the effect, and wanting to warn whatever presence was there that it was unwanted, she gave the mental equivalent of a stiffening of her posture, and was rewarded with a dive into unconciousness. Exiting out the other side of the hall, they did indeed find themselves in another chamber, and one which showed even more evident signs of chaos and destruction than any before it. Throughout the chamber there were numerous perfectly spherical depressions like the one they had seen in the prior chamber. In addition, one of these effects went right through what appeared to be the remains of a Chi’sa, severing its body off cleanly at an invisible spherical boundary. Within one of the side walls to the chamber there appeared to be a massive hole which had been carved outward and deposited a massive amount of debris onto the floor. All around, there was yet more of the thick fog from the prior room, and it seemed to be pouring in through a single tunnel in the far wall which was bright with the fuzzy light of a dawn. Quickly stepping into the chamber carrying the unconscious form of Kifé, Bruno and Lliya moved over to the shape of the dissected Chi’sa to see if it really had been carved up like it looked. On closer examination, they found that the shape was only the rear section of the creature, and all of its forward legs, as well as head were missing. In addition, it appeared to have been here for a long time, as all of its internals had long rotted away, and all that remained was a chitinous shell, which ended perfectly at the spherical edge on the floor. Curious, but ultimately much more driven to escape from this facility, they reflected on what kind of energy or weapons could have done such a thing to one of the creatures and then started moving down the foggy hall toward what they hoped would be their freedom. Upon entering the tunnel, their vision was almost instantly subsumed in a pea-soup fog that was so dense they could barely see for more than 5’ in any direction. However, after a short period of walking, they all came to a similar sensation that their surroundings had suddenly expanded far outward. A soft wind was blowing, and even though they couldn’t see it, there was the slight warmth of a radiant heat on their bodies. Taking a sniff of the area, Bruno told them that the air was crisp and fresh, and that he thought that somewhere he smelled a light scent like burning wood – perhaps a fire of civilization? From what they remembered of the video shown in the 16th floor chamber, the exit from the facility was supposed to start with a wide, hemi-circular promenade, which then moved out onto a Long bridge that connected to the surrounding buildings and the rest of the world. Not wanting to fall off the bridge, or into any holes that had formed over time in the construction, Bruno began tapping out their progress with the point of his sword while they slowly moved forward. 40, 80, 100 feet, until suddenly he felt the blade of his sword dive downward without resistance. Quickly checking to the sides, he found that it did appear to be a gap in the bridge structure. Moving off to the side, he began moving forward very carefully again, and after 5’ or so more, came to yet another gap. Checking all around and moving from one side of the path to another, they found that their worst fears appeared to be true. The bridge had apparently collapsed at some point in the past, and they were standing out at the tip of its ragged edge. Moving back along the bridge, and circling the edge of the promenade, through methodical tapping they managed to work out in their minds what the shape of the area was, where there were breaks, and what the walls around them were like. The bridge in front of them appeared to be completely broken with no partial paths. The walls of the outside of the building appeared to have been constructed from some kind of wide block masonry with large gaps between the blocks. The promenade itself appeared to be about a 40’ radius hemi-circle with a low safety retaining wall that was broken in several places. Looking at their available choices, the party came up with a list of options of how they might proceed. They could try going back all the way into level 14 and see about reaching one of the other exit areas for facility personnel, or at least the restricted level of 13. They could enter into one of the excavated tunnels that they believed had been dug by the Chi’sa and see where those went. If they had invaded the facility, there was a chance that they might lead to an alternative exit. They could try scaling the building either up or down, and see if they could get around the fog. Looking over the first and second choices, they decided that neither of those really offered much hope of success, and both would also require them going back into dangerous territory with limited supplies. Settling on the third choice, they decided that they would try climbing up in the corner of the promenade where two walls came together with Bruno leading the climb and then lowering the cord down to the others. Starting off, Bruno made it up about 25’ when he noticed that there did seem to be a slight change occurring in the density of the fog. In addition, at this point he came to rest on what appeared to be a small landing with a statue of some figure. Moving his hands over the figure, he eventually decided that it must be the shape of Exido, the multi-armed creature they had seen in level 16, and which they had decided must be one of the gods of the Sphere. Calling down to the others, he told them of this and that they should come up, and then started climbing higher himself. After another 20-30’ he began to notice a definite change, and thought that he could see a bright bit of something that might be a sun above him. At nearly 60’ he came to yet another long flat landing, and saw that he had nearly completely escaped from the fog. Spreading out around him in all directions, it formed a soft while layer that lapped at the building’s edge near him. On the landing with him, there were several more of the statues, now quite visibly images of humanoid creatures, standing like welcoming gargoyles with their arms held upward. Looking out away from the building he saw that the images they had been shown in the projection room were true. Arrayed in what seemed to be an endless progression of construction were spires that stretched far upwards to the heavens out of the swirling clouds. Linked between were a vast array of bridges and sub-spires that interweaved outward into a web of terrible complexity. Between the gaps of the buildings, he could see that the horizon of this world seemed to be inverted, as if they stood on the inside of a cloudy globe, and far away in the sky he could still see what looked to be spires of the city. Above him in the sky, there burned something that had the brightness of a sun, but was rather a long band of fire that stretched around the perimeter of a brilliantly lit globe. The top of the tower above him was almost impossible to perceive, as it seemed to just disappear into a point in the sky, but roughly 100’ upward, he noticed that there appeared to be another bridge, and this one seemed much more solid. Finally, far out in the sky, floating above the tops of several spires, he saw a tiny speck that appeared to be flying, and might be some kind of creature or vessel. http://araesmojo.googlepages.com/CA_Megacity_Fog_Wide.jpg Yelling down to the others about what he had found, and what he had seen, he began to climb upwards once more while they moved to reach the landing he had been on. When Lliya and Kifé reached the landing he had just been on, and saw the ship in the sky, they figured that perhaps they should signal it and see if whatever it was could provide a means of transport away from this place. Holding a quick yelling conference while hanging on the side of a building, they discussed this possibility with Bruno, and he wasn’t particularly pleased with it, as he was, well, hanging from the side of a building. However, they decided that if they used Lliya’s staff to make a very bright light when they were half way up the 100’ climb or so, that should give them easily enough time to reach the bridge before whatever it was could move towards them. Figuring it wasn’t worth arguing, Bruno kept climbing, and when they were at the point they had decided on, Lliya brought out the staff emitted a massive burst like she had in the park area when they found the bat creatures. She again noted that the staff was blinking the same yellow color amidst the words on its haft. The first to reach the bridge above, Bruno was also the first to notice that the flying speck had indeed changed directions after their signal, and appeared to be approaching their position. He still couldn’t see it particularly well, but it appeared to be moving relatively quickly. By the time Lliya and Kifé had reached the bridge, the object had gotten quite a bit closer, and they were able to note that it kind of looked like a round fish with little fins off to the sides and something attached to its lower surface. Where the bridge exited from the building, there was another, slightly smaller, hallway and promenade like the one they had left below, and they decided that when the object arrived, they would hide inside the tunnel in case it turned out to be dangerous. After several more minutes, the object closed within a distance that they were able to see most of its features. The fish-like shape appeared to have just been manufactured that way, and the entire object actually seemed to be some kind of flying vessel. The object on the bottom looked like a container or ship for people and had a number of windows along its front and side through which they could see humanoid forms moving around. As the ship pulled up to the side of the bridge, a little door on its side opened up, and the party saw a number of ropes and hooks being tossed out of it and over the edges of the bridge, pulling the ship tight to the rail. As it came closer, a number of arms also moved about in the area and seemed to expertly pull it snug to rest. Then, out of the door hopped a creature which looked vaguely human with squatter features, puffy clothes, and a feathered tri-corner hat. For a few moments he just stood there, and so the party, thinking perhaps they should say something told Lliya to go forward and say hello in whatever languages she knew. She tried a couple of versions until she noticed that along the side of the ship was written the word “Traveller” in sylvan, and so that was the next one she attempt. To the sylvan “hello” she got an almost immediate response from the person and after a few more seconds of greetings, including telling him that the others were best spoken to in draconic, he began to walk forward to apparently introduce himself. Opening with a rather broken draconic version of “hello”, he said that his name was Jameson, and that he didn’t speak this language well. There was someone better though, to which he moved back for a second and motioned to the still open ship door. Out of the door came another creature that seemed kind of like an enlarged salamander, with smooth green skin and a smoothly fitting leather clothes. Upon reaching them, he extended his hand and said in quite decent draconic that his name was Donovan and that he was Jameson’s shipmate, although not the captain of the vessel. He told them that they were traders who were traveling over this section when they saw their signal. He said that they generally didn’t stop here as this area was mostly abandoned except for outcasts and the unwanted. When they told him about the facility, and waking up, and the panels, and the technology they had encountered, he seemed largely confused, although he did mention that he had heard of other people waking up at times, although not many did so any longer. They then asked him if he thought their captain would be willing to take them on and provide them transport off this spire, as well as food. They said that they could pay with items they had found and showed him the currency that the panel had identified for them earlier. At the sight of this, Donovan’s eyes lit up, and his whole demeanor became quite a bit more cheerful. He said he was sure that the captain would be willing to take them on for a section of that currency, and scooped up a section ( a fairly healthy one ) that he said would be perfectly suitable for the trip and as much food as they could desire. This was the end of session 2 for the Sphere campaign.
Araes 01-04-08, 06:10 PM	Gaming with the World of the Sphere - Session 3 - Part 1 This is the third log for my ongoing campaign in the world of the Sphere. This game was actually a massive session that took place on New Years Eve from about 10 PM to 6 AM. Still playing with three characters, they had just managed to signal some help and potential transport at the end of the last session and were looking to get away from the tower. After a quick bit of negotiation, they did catch a ride, and took off into the skies. Unfortunately, at that point, they found that they had caught the notice of both a messenger from the heavens above and a crewman who was more than he appeared. When the crewman went wild in fright at the sight of the messenger, they were forced to try and stop him from endangering the ship. Unfortunately, their efforts probably ended up doing more than he ever would have. A bit miffed at this, the captain of the ship kicked them off the first chance he got, which luckily happened to be at a fairly sizable "port". Heading through the various towers of the city, they eventually made their way to a temple for their chosen patron, where they decided to get back in contact with the messenger. Unfortunately, this attracted yet more attention and they were sent fleeing once more. Characters: Llira – A female elf with a bardic background and a renaissance era upbringing, as well as a propensity for searching out all manner of supertech items. Bruno – A large, male, and distinctly canine hound archon from an extra-dimensional plane which collapsed due to the destruction of the material universe. Among only a few who were collected and saved from his plane. Kifé – A female constructed being (based on élan) who holds some sort of message within her form (a la Prometheus) that must be delivered to those within the Sphere, as well as a bit of psionic power. Previously: The characters decided that they should press on through the level 14 tunnel, as it was the only path they were sure of and had information on. They explored the other directions slightly, but were paranoid of what lay down them. Passing down the tunnel, they found that something had excavated away a large portion of it, and they were forced to travel along a thin edge to make it to the other side. While crossing they also heard what sounded like Chi’sa noises emitting from the excavation. On the other side, they passed into the quarantine and processing zone. Inside, they passed over a large barrier that appeared to be some form of collapsed metallic arch, and moved past several open doors to make sure they were safe from the Chi’sa. After the arch, they explored three rooms arrayed in a long hallway. The first room had been severely ransacked, but still held some medical supplies they were able to scavenge. The second room appeared to be some sort of examination or interrogation room, and there was a large, old bloodstain on one wall. The third room contained a large collapsed object which had fallen from the ceiling onto a table below. In addition, there was a destroyed wall panel, a secret window looking into the prior examination room, and another of the “magic boxes”. Passing beyond the hall, they moved into a folded corridor of glass-like material, that ended in a sealed panel (possibly a door). They tried to open it, but to no avail. Moving back along their path, they eventually returned to the collapsed metal arch area, and decided to climb over it and see what was in the open doors they had passed. Bruno went first and found a dead body inside of the first room. Soon after this, as Kifé and Llira were climbing, a Chi’sa was heard and all of the characters dived to hide in the room with Bruno. Inside they found that there was actually an unlisted door, a small personal information panel, a destroyed magic box, and some other items (including a key card) they found on the body. Bruno forced open the unlisted door, and they emerged into a holding cell area, with an active panel who gave them a bunch of information, as well as some suspicious cells with potential blob creatures or animate dead. The panel opened the other door into this room for them, and they passed into a security station, where an automated turret reacted badly to them and directed a flame thrower at them. Kifé dived through a partially open door to the hall beyond, while Bruno and Llira were forced to retreat. Back in the holding cell area, they were forced to fight animate dead who had arisen at their presence, while Kifé tried to get the partial door all the way open. With Kifé finally succeeding, Bruno and Llira used the newly discovered energy shielding power of Llira’s fen to survive the flames and rejoin Kifé. On the other side, they found that all the elevators down to the main processing, education, and sorting area for the reawakened were non-functional. Noting water condensing off of a mist flowing out of the elevator remains, they decided to stop and rest there for a day or more, so that they could heal. After healing, they lowered themselves to the processing area through an elevator shaft using Llira’s cable, and moved through the small city of buildings quickly, as they had seen dog-like lizard creatures among them. Near the end of the buildings, they were caught by a lizard creature, and had to fight it off before it could kill Bruno. Successfully doing so, they then progressed through one of several tunnels at the end of the chamber, where they were apparently touched by some outside presence. Kifé tried to indicate she didn’t like its presence, and emerged from the tunnel unconscious. From the tunnel, they appeared in a large antechamber, where what looked like a small battle had taken place. Perfect spherical divots were removed from the floor, and what looked to be a partially disintegrated Chi’sa husk lay amidst the rubble. Moving quickly past this, and into a tunnel completely filled with the flowing mist, they walked out into an area they could tell was bigger and felt like outside. Assuming it was the bridge to civilization, they progressed forward, tapping with Bruno’s sword, and so avoided falling when they reached an area where the bridge had crumbled. Checking it, they found it was totally gone after a point, and there appeared to be no other exits from the landing outside. Noting the walls had large grooves, they then decided it might be possible to climb up out of the fog and so they began to climb the walls. 60’ up, they emerged totally from the fog, and saw that they clung to one of many huge towers above a great mass of fog below. 100’ or so above them, there was another bridge that looked to be intact, so they resumed their climb towards this. Partway up, they then saw a small speck in the distance, and thinking it might be some type of transport, signaled it using Llira’s staff. Reaching the bridge above, they noted that the object appeared to have seen them and was coming their way. As it approached, they noted it was some kind of fish-like flying ship with a box section extending below it. In the front of this box section, they could see several people moving about due to a large window. The ship pulled up along side their bridge, and after several forms through grapples to secure it, men jumped out and talked with them named Tobias and Jameson. The first didn’t speak much of their language, but Jameson spoke draconic and was able to talk with them. He told them that for a good chunk of their money, they could catch a ride on the ship and he’d even share his area if there wasn’t space. They agreed to this. Introductions to Society After the characters had finished up talking with Jameson outside the ship, he told them to wait a moment while he went inside and discussed travel arrangements with the captain, Donovan. After a few more minutes, he came back outside and said that the captain had agreed to allow them on board and was ready to meet them. Stepping on board the ship, they saw that the lower area which extended below the more fish-like shape appeared to actually be something like a cargo area rather than the bridge, as they had originally assumed. It was full of crates of various sizes stacked in columns all along its length, and in the back, a light wooden ladder ran up to the next level above. Several people were gathered amongst the boxes to examine the new-comers to the ship, and with them was a large, almost bull-like fellow with a large black beard who identified himself as Donovan. Donovan mentioned that the pay they had offered seemed more than enough to take them away from this area and to whatever stop they wanted to get off at. He said their next port was going to be a town called Talest, where they were offloading a lot of their cargo and spending a few days. He said that they generally didn’t even fly this low in a part of the world that was rumored to be quite dangerous, but had been trying to avoid a nasty windstorm amongst the blockage effects of the towers. Bruno quickly agreed that it was indeed dangerous and more than rumors. He described their encounters with the Chi’sa monsters and their ability to carve through solid stone. He voiced his opinion that it had been they who had caused the downfall of at least this area. Some of the other men mentioned that they had heard of such creatures, but they had never actually seen one. After this, Kifé told the rest of their story to Donovan. She mentioned how they had woken up in the building, how they had encountered the various panels and “magic boxes”, how they had visited the hall of the Gods’ statues, and how they had watched the destruction of the universe. At all of this, Donovan was quite skeptical, in particular over the information regarding the universe and the shape of the world they lived in as a multi-shelled Sphere. From this it appeared that people outside might not have a good concept of where they were or why they were here. On mention of the panels though, he said that many similar things existed outside the resurrection tower, that there was even an inert one on this very ship, but that most (if not all) of them had been silent and non-functional for a long time (before his memory). With introductions and descriptions of how they got to this point out of the way, Kifé asked if there was any way that once she had rested, she might learn a bit more about how this flying ship worked and its mechanics in general? Donovan said that he saw no problem with that, and she could talk to his chief engineer Robin in the tail of the ship once she felt ready to do so. Bruno also wanted to have something to do, as the captain had said their trip would probably take two or more days, so he offered his skills for anything that required hard physical labor. Donovan pondered for a few moments, and then said that he should talk to Jeremy on the upper decks, as some of the aeronautical controls were not fully mechanized, or had broken, and required a strong arm to position correctly. Llira basically just wanted some food, a bath, and a good place to rest, and wasn’t interested in finding even more work for herself on the trip. Heading upstairs first into the main part of the fish-like section, Bruno found that the second floor of the ship was mostly composed of a long hallway, with the ladder from below at one end, a fixed stairwell heading further upwards at the other end, and a number of doors along both sides of the hall. At the opposite end of the hall, near the base of the stairwell, there also appeared to be something flat recessed into a cavity in the wall and surrounded by smaller objects. Feeling hungry, Bruno decided he would first head into the galley of the ship, which was located midway down the right side reading towards the stairwell. Inside, he found a 15’ x 20’ room with a number of small tables, a series of large portholes along one wall, and a pair of men who were playing cards at a table. In addition, there was a long open area along a side wall that looked into another room that appeared to be the kitchen. Within the kitchen, a somewhat hawkish creature with long feathery arms was preparing food for an upcoming meal. Approaching the cook, Bruno asked if it had any half cooked meat that he might be able to gnaw on. This appeared to slightly annoy the cook, as he asked whether Bruno couldn’t instead settle for either totally raw or totally cooked food. Unfortunately for him, Bruno held fast, so he set about quickly grilling something up for him. About midway through this cooking, Llira also came upstairs and feeling hungry as well, headed into the galley to get something to eat. She was oddly less picky than Bruno and simply settled for whatever the cook had to offer. Once Bruno’s food was done, he settled down at one of the tables with Llira and looked over the two men who were playing cards to see what he could figure out about both them and the game they were playing. They both were talking rather avidly back in forth in what Bruno had come to realize was sylvan, so he couldn’t really make out what they were saying to one another, but it didn’t appear violent, just animated. The game they were playing could best be described as something like Bridge or maybe Magic, where each player arranged a mock army out of their cards and then pitted those armies against one another in combat. One of the creatures playing cards basically looked humanoid, but just with rougher, almost chiseled features, while the other looked distinctly non-human and vaguely fake. His skin and features seemed almost sculpted and his skin had a smooth and slightly metallic look. Voice of the Heavens Not feeling hungry when she emerged upstairs, Kifé instead decided she would just head for her room when she got upstairs and walked to the end of the hall. When she reached the opposite end and the recession located there, she noted that it actually appeared to be the panel that captain Donovan had mentioned earlier. All around the panel, small objects had been placed in a way that almost seemed to sanctify the panel as some kind of holy object, and among these objects she found a small representation of the symbol for Exido, which was like a symmetrical four pronged claw of quartz enclosing empty space. Upon seeing this, she thanked Exido for apparently saving them when they were lost in the fog before, and said a slight prayer in his name. At the end of this, she felt what some might almost call the presence of the otherworldly in the room. Encouraged, she checked the panel to see if perhaps the key card she had would somehow activate it, tried talking to the panel, and checked around its edges for any kinds of gaps or buttons – all to no avail. Deciding there was little she could do, she turned and began to head off towards her room. As she turned to the door though, and began to open it, out of the corner of her eye she caught what seemed to be a slight flash of color coming from the direction of the panel, and felt something like a light touch alight on her mind. Turning back to the panel, there appeared to be nothing there, and trying all of the things she had before still seemed to have no effect. At about this time, Bruno and Llira had finished their food and were getting ready to leave. In addition, the two crew members who had been playing the game had also finished their last set and were getting up just before them. As such, they all headed out into the hall at roughly the same time in a big group with the two crew members in front. Simultaneously, Kifé, heading a dead end with the panel decided that she would head back to the galley and see if either of the others had any ideas. Because of this, they all saw the lone figure standing in the hallway at about the same time. One of the crew they had seen before below was standing rigid as a board in the middle of the hall just across from the galley door. He was looking straight at the panel at the other end with something like dead eyes that didn’t even twitch. Taking this all in, Bruno and Lliya barely had time to take this all in before they suddenly felt light touches upon their minds (much like Kifé had) and then nearly ran into the two crew members in front of them, who had suddenly also developed paralysis. Both had turned to head upstairs and were now standing stock still looking at the panel. Turning towards the panel, all three saw that the colors Kifé had seen were back and seemed to be flowing out of the very panel itself and into the room in a multi-hued splash of red, purple, and brown. Suddenly, the somewhat fake and metallic looking crew member started twitching and vibrating his body in motions that looked like the onset of epilepsy. However, he didn’t fall over or collapse, even as the vibrations became ever more violent. Midway into these vibrations, they all noticed that his features seemed to be shifting and changing form, becoming craggy and almost rock-like, as if his skin was made of only recently cooled magma. Large protuberances also began to project out of his body giving him an almost spiky appearance. As quickly as they had happened, the vibrations stopped, and before them stood a totally changed figure. Turning so it could have them all in its view, it opened its mouth, and simply said an almost sly “Hello”. Kifé was the first to respond to this, and after saying hello asked “Who are you? Are you one of the Gods come here to help us?” At this the creature kind of laughed, and said that “No, I am not one of the ‘Gods’, although I am not sure you even know what it is you are asking.” Seeming a bit confused, she then asked if the creature had come because of her prayers to Exido or perhaps it was a messenger of Peresis? Again it responded, “No, I am not a messenger of Peresis, although in a way that is perhaps too complicated to explain, I am related to Exido. My name is Farshad. I came because I have been watching your awakening through the panels of the resurrection facility and wished to speak with you.” At this, Bruno asked why Farshad didn’t talk with them earlier or help them when they were escaping, as they could have desperately used its help. In response, Farshad said “I am a different type of creature than you may know, from a different realm, and to interact with you, I need one of these…creatures.” At this, it kind of put a hand on itself like it was surprised where it was. At about the same time, they all heard a slight yelp from the area of the ladder below, and turning they saw the form of Jameson head sticking up – almost oddly not paralyzed, but frozen for a moment with a strange look on his face like a kid who had just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Seeing this, Bruno turned and asked him if he knew who it was and why he was looking at the creature the way he was? At that exchange, Farshad turned to look towards Jameson and said “He has a right to be scared…” This comment sent Jameson shooting down the ladder and out of sight immediately. Bruno seemed to want to ask more about Jameson, but here Kifé jumped back in and asked, “If you have been watching us then were you the one who also awakened us from our sleep?”. This brought about something of an odd expression on Farshad and it said “No…although I am interested in your awakening, I am not the one who actually initiated it. I do not know who did so.” From down below in the cargo hold, they all heard something that sounded vaguely like arguing or yelling. Llira noted that it appeared to be Sylvan and that they were saying something about “Hey, what are you doing, get away from there Jameson!” Kifé responded to the earlier comment, “But if you were not the one who awakened us, then why are you interested in us, and why do you want to talk with us?” “Finally, the core of the matter” replied Farshad, “I wished to talk with you because I have a task that I wish you to perform. However, I have unfortunately already stayed in this creature too long, and it appears that it is…weak, and not sufficient for me. For now, I ask that you meet with me again in a place where I can remain more easily.” Bruno was quick to ask “But how are we supposed to get ahold of you again?” Somewhat fadingly, Farshad replied “If you wish to contact me, simply stand in front of one of the panels where there is also one of these creatures and call out my name. I will be listening…” At this, Farshad, or the metallic crewman, slumped sideways to the floor and as it did so the light from the panel on the far wall went away. Dangerous Revelations Simultaneously, several things happened. The furry crew member who had been playing cards, and the long paralyzed other crew member both seemed to stagger out of their stuns and into a groggy state. They all heard an intensification of the arguments from below, followed by loud crashes and then a cry of pain. Farshad’s puppet crew member lost Farshad’s features and returned to its prior metallic state – although it seemed to be locked and rigid on the floor. Worried by the cries from below, Bruno and Llira headed down to the cargo area to see what was going on. Meanwhile, Kifé tried to tend to the rigid metallic man and the two groggy crew members who were left. Unfortunately, although she found a panel in the small of the metallic man’s back, she was unwilling to mess with it, as it seemed rather complicated and potentially dangerous to him. The other two seemed so out of it that it was almost impossible to carry on a coherent conversation with them. They didn’t realize any time had passed, and could barely even follow simply trains of thought. She hoped it wasn’t permanent. Arriving below first, Bruno saw that the cargo area was a mess of chaos. Many of the boxes had been smashed and there was debris strewn all around. One of the crew members was laying off to the side of the chamber opposite the door where he seemed to have fallen due to a large gash in his abdomen. Near the door, a figure that they could only assume was Jameson was fighting with two of the crewman in an apparent attempt to get to the door and open it. It was confusing, as he seemed to have changed in form, becoming more scaly or lizard-like, and more muscular. Deciding that he needed to stop this quickly, Bruno charged Jameson right through the other two fighting him (knocking them both to the side) and immediately grappled him. From here they began to tussle and wrestle for several seconds with neither one being able to gain the advantage and throw or push the other down. At the same time, Llira had moved forward into the cargo hold. Not wanting to hit Bruno, she was hesitant to use the light from her staff, but thought that perhaps the stunning rod would be a good choice instead. Taking it out, she moved into position over near the corner of the window and got ready to move in to hit Jameson. Simultaneously, Kifé had also come down the ladder feeling there was little she could do above, and seeing the wounded man, she moved over to him and started trying to administer first aid with decent results. As they continued to fight, Bruno noted that Jameson had once again grown in size, and was now easily a Large creature. His scales had become even more pronounced in this change, and his jaw had also elongated slightly. Feeling that this was quickly getting out of hand, Bruno made a brash choice and decided to line tackle the creature right through the front window of the ship. With nearly a perfect solar-plexus hit, he lifted it right up off of its feet and sent it sailing through the clear material. Unfortunately, this had a profound effect on the structure of the window, and as it rippled outward with a blasting tear of metal and shards, they all suddenly realized that the outside air was at a much lower pressure than that within the ship. With an intense pulse of air, Bruno and Llira were both ripped right off of their feet, and Bruno was sent hurtling towards open space right after his foe. Llira had luckily been near the corner of the hold and was able to almost immediately collapse there before shooting outward. Thanks to a quick snag, Bruno grasped what little he could of the window’s metallic strands while he flew through their path, and while they immediately saved his life, the force of his impact sent the whole remainder sheeting outward so that the entire structure was only held by a thin band on the wall near where Llira crouched. This left Bruno flailing wildly nearly 5’ out from the hold and well into open air. Fearing for her own life if the whole window went, Llira began to tie the fiber strand around herself, and then tossed it out to Kifé so that she could tie it onto something. Kifé chose to do so on the ladder, which seemed semi-sturdy. Trying to make some ground and pull himself into the hold before the whole window fell away, Bruno started attempting to arm-over-arm his way into the ship. However, as he did so, his hand slipped on the thin little strands, and he slid backward nearly 5’ more before he could stop himself. Seeing his worsening predicament, and knowing someone was going to have to do something soon to avoid losing Bruno to the skies, Llira decided to act. Rechecking the fiber she had tied around herself, she gave a look to Kifé to check the strand on her end as well, and after Kifé had done so, Llira turned around and dove right out into open sky after Bruno. Never one to quit while ahead, Bruno had been trying once more to climb up the wire strands, but with even worse results. Missing a grab completely due to his thrashing motion, he started sliding backwards towards what he was pretty sure was the figurative (and literal) end of the line. It was right at this point that Llira’s dive caught him mid-fall in the chest. DM Note OOC: At this I was damn near stunned that it worked. I had been pretty sure that Bruno was on his way out due to some unfortunately awful rolls. However, Llira literally banged out 20, 19, 18 (no mod) on the checks, it was unreal. With a quick grab, she wrapped him up in her arms as they both fell outward into open air, and as the line snapped taught, she just barely managed to hold his immense weight aloft while he quickly struggled to get a firm hold on her as well. As their full weight hit the end of the strand, Kifé had noted, to her horror, that the ladder didn’t seem to be nearly strong enough to hold them for very long, and so rushing to the back of the hold she leapt on top of the line to give it friction with the floor, and pushed back against the ladder as strongly as she could while screaming up into the ship for them to take it lower, and for them to get help. Llira and Bruno were still having problems as well, since the gale of the ship, and harsh vibrations were shaking boxes within the hold, and gradually dropping them or their debris over the front edge. Luckily, their wild motion and some well timed movements helped them avoid most of the major impacts. In addition, during one of their rotations, Bruno caught a shape moving far below them that he thought must be the form of Jameson. Yet, as it strobed in and out of his line of sight, it seemed to change and grow suddenly in size. Sprouting what looked to be massive wings far off to the sides and a long body. The immediate response from Bruno was “Oh lords, I threw a dragon off of the ship. I hope it doesn’t come back.” The immediate response of Llira, was “Shut up, shut up, shut up, or I swear I’ll drop you!” While they watched, and Kifé tried to keep them in place, men began to quickly slide down the ladder with ropes tied around their waists. Two of them helped Kifé to hold the ladder in place, while four others moved about half way forward in the hold and did their best to grab hold of the strand. With regular heaves, they began to haul it backward into the hold, and the kite-like party members finally found themselves inching back towards the ship. Within a few moments, they were near enough to the deck that Bruno was able to pass within reach of the grasping arms of Kifé, who had moved forward to help them. Fearful to let go, Bruno still clung onto Llira long after they were onto the deck, and crew members didn’t stop pulling until they were nearly in the center. At the same time, Kifé had seen that several of the boxes were still trying to fall out of the ship, so she moved forward with some loose lengths of the strand, and threw them over the boxes to try and hold them in. At best she was just able to stall their progress, but couldn’t actually move them backwards into the ship. Instead, she latched her arm onto the door and just waited for others to help her. Llira was quick to do so, once she had gotten up, and given a light healing spell to the still injured man, she moved over with the rest of the strand to aid her. Together they caught all of the remaining boxes and pulled them well within the hold. Bruno, on the other hand, had other things on his mind – namely dragons. On reaching safety, and recovering himself, he immediately rushed to the door-side wall of the ship and looked out to see if he could spot the dragon below again. At first he missed it, but with more scanning he eventually caught sight of it peeling off slowly into the clouds and towers below. Anger and Expulsion As the mess and pandemonium of the hold was finally coming to a close, Donovan himself arrived on the scene to survey the damage. By this point, he had moved the ship to a much lower altitude so that the pressure and wind problems weren’t nearly so severe. Unfortunately, the ship hadn’t been meant to be designed like a sub, so it wasn’t easily compartmentalized, but he did have them do the best they could to get everything salvageable out of the hold and then seal up the ladder hole. Speaking to the party, he asked them what in the world had happened and why he shouldn’t just finish the job of throwing them into space that they had started. In response, the party told him about the encounter that they had with the creature in the hall of the panel. They told him that the creature had been a messenger of the Gods who had come and possessed the form of their metallic crewman. They said that the other two crewmen had been stunned by this encounter. They said that all of the commotion had actually been caused by Jameson when he saw the creature and tried to apparently flee its presence. They asked the two stunned people to corroborate this, but they still possessed no memory of the events and the metallic man had been deemed unrepairable by the crew in their current state. They did however get the two men who had been fighting with Jameson near the door of the ship to back their story of the fight and Jameson’s crazy behavior, as well as received the good word of the man who had been injured by Jameson and potentially saved by Kifé and Llira’s aid. They gave the captain all the rest of their remaining triangular money (lying that it was all they had), as well as the key card and personal information panel of Kifé. Unfortunately, while this did seem to lessen the captains anger somewhat (to the point of not throwing them off the ship mid-flight), it didn’t completely placate him, and he decreed that they should simply spend the remainder of the flight hiding in their bunks if possible and hope he didn’t reconsider killing them. This they mostly did for the next two days except for a couple forays to the galley to quickly scavenge food and trips to the lavatory. During this period, they also finally managed to get the rest they had been so desperately needing and recover their stamina. Near the end of the second day, the captain once again knocked on their door, and told them that they were rapidly approaching the city of Talest. He expected them to arrive in roughly 20 minutes and he expected the party to be down in the cargo hold when that happened and the first ones off the ship – never looking back. They were more than happy to oblige, and gathering their gear, headed down to wait for the jump to dry land. Ahead of them, out the broken window, they could see the towers of Talest looming before them. Impossibly tall like those they had originally escaped from, the towers here were more dense than those near the resurrection site, and densely laced with walkways. Protruding outward from the towers in their direction, long, flat spikes of material, like half made bridges, seemed to be their ultimate destination. All along their length, were docked a vast array of ships of all shapes and sizes. The sky around this area was also almost chokingly full of even more ships as well as smaller objects like gliders and people with wings. This mess of motion seemed to extend well down into the clouds at the lower sections of the towers, which appeared a bit lighter than those at their start point.
Araes 01-04-08, 06:10 PM	Gaming with the World of the Sphere - Session 3 - Part 2 Civilization at Last, For Better or Worse As the ship came to rest with a thump against the pier, the party hopped through the door and onto land almost faster than the crew could throw out the grapples. Not wanting to take the captain up on his threats, they kept moving until they were well into the swarming crowd. From there, they began to look around to try and get an idea of the type of people they were going to be interacting with, as well as the general dress, equipment, customs, ect.. of the area. Their first impression was just that there was a boggling array of creatures of all shapes and sizes. Stick-like to near-walking boulders. Furry and feathered to smooth or scaled. Tall as a house to nearly a mouse. Creatures were all over the board and just seemed to take it in stride. Secondly, among nearly all of the people they examined, they found that most seemed to be using clothing, weaponry, and other equipment that wouldn’t have been out of place in the medieval era. Whatever supertech they had seen must be somewhat out of use or maybe even unknown to these people. There also didn’t seem to be much issue with the carrying of weapons in the streets, as many people had them. Finally, they noted that there did seem to be some kind of law enforcement and order to the place, as there were a number of what looked to be city guards watching the crowd and formally dressed in smooth, leather looking clothes, and armed with polearm looking weapons – although they didn’t appear to have any kind of blade. Kifé suggested at this point that they ought to ask somebody the way to a church as the panel in the hall of the ship had seemed like a religious symbol to those people, and there were probably more of them near such places. Moving over to one of the guards, they inquired where they might find such a place, and he told them that if they headed inward along the pier for about 400 m until the reached the nearest tower, they would find a path downward. From there, they should progress two levels down in the tower until the came to a large intersection and a bridge. They should then take this bridge across to the next tower, where they would then progress three further levels downward until they came to what was actually a fairly expansive religious district with numerous different temples. At this wealth of info, they thanked the man, and Bruno and Kifé began to work their way towards the tower. However, not particularly interested in finding her way to yet more trouble just yet, Llira peeled off from them and began to wander about the city by herself. She first looked into figuring out what the general rate of money was relative to her own perception of prices and what she had on her. What she found was that the Triangles appeared to be roughly 1 GP, the Squares appeared to be 5 times that, and the Pentagons appeared to be a much larger amount – perhaps between 15-25. She also noted that there were a number of smaller currencies that seemed to be made from more local materials rather than supertech items, as well as a few much higher denominations that she saw too few transactions with to accurately gauge the value of. She next went to work looking for buyers of the objects she had but didn’t want, and after some work found someone to take the cheff (information storage device) off her hands for what she took to be a below market price. She then proceeded to engage in a light bit of pick-pocketing amongst the townspeople, and although not wildly successful, did come away with some extra money and several baubles. Two of these she immediately sold, but the third she was told was actually another type of information device, and if she could find a way to read it she might be able to sell whatever was inside of it for more than the pittance of the object itself. After all of this was done, she eventually decided to catch up with the other two and see what they were up to. Meanwhile, Bruno and Kifé had moved first into the city proper of the first tower. Here they found that the towers were arranged somewhat like the Guggenheim museum, with an outer spiraling walkway that progressed around a central hub of integrated buildings. All over the outer surfaces of the towers, even further buildings and additions had also been tacked on to the sides of the walls, so that as they moved closer, the towers almost looked like growing, organic things shooting up out of the clouds. The first level they came to appeared to just be a business district which existed mainly to support the dock area immediately adjacent. There were some light residential developments, but mostly commerce and businesses. The next level down held slightly more residential than the first, and more interesting, also played home to what seemed to be a long track with rails and a station. Nothing seemed to be happening at this station, and the people largely seemed to ignore it, but the rails did extend out of the tower and off into the distance Upon reaching the second level down, they found it to be a large intersection as their guide had said it would be. Paths from below, above, and to the side came together in a three way crossing with a comparatively low ceiling to the high chambers before. (Somewhat like a metro station) Heading out along the path towards the bridge, they found that like the chambers above, the bridge had also been built on extensively. Dwellings and constructions hung off its sides and clung to its bottom. Its length was a steady flow of activity, with travelers passing down the center between makeshift markets and street venders. Arriving on the opposite side, they once again found it to be a crowded three way intersection, with the majority of the people heading in the same direction as them – downward. Arriving at the second tower, they saw that its basic construction was at least similar to the one before. However, the first area they came to seemed to be much more of a residential zone, as it looked like something of a mid-range housing area. Not overly ornate homes sprang from the walls of the chamber and what looked like had been large tenements – long overgrown with the less organized construction of this society. Traveling further down, they saw that the next area they arrived at was a much nicer development, with clean streets and a visible patrol presence both in the main avenues and at the entrances to the central chamber. Within this chamber, they could also see that there appeared to be at least some functional tubes like they had seen in the resurrection facility, as people were traveling directly up to the mid-range zone above using them. Moving downward, the next zone they saw was yet another mid-range set of housing, although this area seemed to be slightly more populous. In addition, it had many more streetside storefronts which seemed to be doing a thriving business. Finally, after descending through three chambers, they at last came to what appeared to be the temple district they had been told of. Looking out over it as they spiraled down to the streets, they caught glimpses of several different temples between the walls of the packed tenements. The streets of this area were once again a return to the chaos of activity from the relative calm of the zones above, and in all the main roads, people pushed and shoved their way through great throngs. Wishing to get out of this mess as quickly as they could, they decided that they would look for a temple of Exido, as in a way, they had kind of chosen him as their patron God, and even though the creature Farshad had said he was not a messenger of Exido directly, he had mentioned he was tied to him in some way. Within the crowd, they saw several people who looked like clerics or holy men by the way they were dressed, and some of them had familiar symbols marked into their clothes or on objects they carried. In addition, although not on any holy people, they did see several normal folk who had small pendants or clasps bearing the quartz claw of Exido. However, none of them appeared to be going in any organized direction that they could see. At this point, Bruno hit on the idea of trying to see if there was a smell that people of Exido had in common. Circumspectly moving near several of them, what he found was that they did appear to have at least one smell in common. Most carried an almost earthy note, kind of like wet farmland or a dusty cavern. Noting that, he then moved away and started smelling to see if he could catch whiff of a larger source in the air, and from somewhere deeper into the district he did. Telling Kifé of his findings, they both began to move off into the temple district towards the source of his smell. After a bit of walking, they arrived at what was obviously one of the temples they had seen from above. However, on closer inspection they noted that this one just didn’t seem to have the right combination of imagery and symbols to match their perception of Exido. Rather, it was mostly covered with pictures of growth and life. The clerics wandering outside of it greeting petitioners also seemed to carry a similar theme, with pictures of plants being quite common. More importantly though, the smell they were following was drifting from somewhere else. Moving further into the district, the next temple they came to also appeared wrong to their perception. This temple seemed to have much more to do with energy and motion. Pictures of waves, fire, and activity covered its surfaces and the smell was much more of a sharp, biting scent than the earthy tones they needed. Continuing on, they also passed by a large and well kept temple that seemed to have a lot to do with order, building, and construction. However, it was a different kind of construction than that they had seen exemplified by Exido. This type focused on the places of society and the building of high walls rather than the more base shaping of mountains, fields, and valleys. The type of place that an architect might build. Finally, after much walking and searching around, they finally came to a fourth temple that seemed to match up perfectly. Like a gigantic mound of stone shaped up right out of the tiles around, the temple of Exido looked more like a mountain in miniature, or a looming cave, than an actual temple. This initial impression did, however, belie the quality of its construction, as on inspection, its walls seemed meticulously shaped and crafted. At the front of the temple, two massive plates of what appeared to be stone stood slightly ajar and served as doors inward. A steady stream of people were moving in and out as Bruno and Kifé watched. Moving inside the temple, they noted that the cave-like atmosphere was continued over into the interior as well. The main chamber of the temple looked like one large cave with a long platform set against the back wall, where a figure seemed to be leading people in prayer. From the ceiling of the cave, large stalactites hung down, and within their forms sprang a soft blue light that illuminated the area. Most importantly however, along the back wall behind the cleric, and facing the door they had just entered, hung a massive, smooth panel with at least a 50’ diagonal dimension if not more. Heading into the temple, they noted that the service didn’t seem to be cyclical event, but rather a steady progression of people coming in, offering gifts, participating in the ongoing prayer, and then leaving after a time. The priest stood over some form of depression in the floor, and as gifts were brought up by an aid off to the side, he would say rites over them and then deposit them into a deep pit in the center of the altar. The petitioners themselves all knelt in a large flat area in front of the priest and chanted a long litany of prayers. They also noted that the priest and only a few of the petitioners seemed to be speaking celestial while the rest just said the words in common. Arriving near the front, Bruno decided that since he spoke celestial, he would kneel with the others and start off in celestial to see if the priest noticed the difference. Sitting down and beginning, the priest did seem to give him an odd look at the celestial he spoke, but after a slight pause, resumed with his duties as before. At the same time, Kifé headed over to the priest’s aid and see if she could help them. Getting closer to the aid, Kifé noticed that to their good fortune, the aid herself appeared to be one of the metallic looking people, and when Kifé approached she greeted her and asked her if she could help Kifé. At this, Kifé said that she thought she had something important do here, as she believed she might be a messenger of the Gods. She said that she had been commanded to contact one of their servants, but that she didn’t want to do it when so many people were around, as it might cause a disturbance. Kifé asked if there were a time when there would be less people attending the service or no one at all. At such a forward statement of her intentions and apparent holiness, the aid was a little taken aback at first. Getting her wits together though, she said that if what Kifé said was true, then it was a wonderful thing, as few if any had been blessed with visitations from the heavens in recent years. She said that this should be something that should be shared with the people of the city, but that if she was set on attempting it with a lesser crowd, then the best time to return would be in 9 or 10 hours, as that would be in the deep of night, and they generally had their smallest attendance then. Motioning Bruno over to her, Kifé and he discussed matters, and they decided that they would simply stay near the temple while they waited out the time, so that they could leap at any opportune time that might show itself. At the same time they were doing this, Llira was finishing up with her prior activities and heading down into the city to look for them. Having overheard their plan of travels, she didn’t have too difficult of a time tracing their path, and only ran into one spot of trouble when she tried picking the pocket of a person near the end of the long bridge and nearly got caught. Elves in the Shadows With her newfound money, Llira began asking around to see if she could find a place where they could find good lodgings in the city, and after checking with several people, she was told that within the upper class district that Bruno and Kifé had seen, there were a couple of places that would probably take her, or if she wanted to walk a bit further, there were numerous places in the next tower over, which was apparently largely devoted to the administration of the area and had many areas flush with cash. Deciding that a place in the upper class district would probably be better, as it was right along the path to the religious area, Llira moved downward in the second tower and began searching through the upper class district to see if she could find a decent place to rest. The first location she found was clean, well kept, but almost overly ritzy, and charged a bit too much for her to think it was reasonable for the service. The next place she found however was quite decent, and more of a bed and breakfast style. It offered free food with the rooms and would work out to a couple squares for all of them to stay each night. Figuring this was decent, she reserved them a spot, and then headed down to continue looking for the others. Arriving in the temple district, she simply asked around to the various patrol members and citizens until she found a few who were able to point her in the direction of a temple of Exido, which she rightly figured was where they would go. Arriving at the temple, she met up with them, but after a quick discussion found that they were simply going to be sitting for the next several hours and felt that her time could be better spent. Moving off, she decided that she would start looking through the district to see if maybe she could find some signs of her people. For quite a while she came up empty handed. However, several hours in, she came across a small, recessed and lowered door in one of the back streets of the city. There wasn’t anything blaringly elvish about it, but it did seem to catch her eye. On close examination she noted that in the windows of the shop there seemed to be several flowers and plants which her people had often associated with long life and security. In addition, the door itself was also inlaid with very light carvings that showed an art style similar to many famous works by her people. Not quite sure what to make of this, she checked the door and then headed inside to see what it was. Indoors, the location did appear to be a shop, selling all manner of little nicknacks, charms, and traveling accessories. As she entered, she jiggled a small bell on the door, and after a few moments what appeared to be a young woman in a deep hood came out from a door behind the counter. Still picking through the items on the shelves, at first she didn’t notice it, but as she approached the counter with a couple of objects she saw that the woman appeared to be staring at her quite vigorously, and with almost a bit of trepidation. Forging ahead, she asked her what the two objects she had chosen were for, and with a bit of a stutter the woman told her that the first was a charm to protect from the rigors of travel that would ward off most of the minor annoyances of the outdoors. The second she said was something of an all purpose dowsing rod. Given a clear picture of where a person wanted to go (particularly places they longed to return to), it could guide them and help them find the way. At finishing up this second one, the woman made a kind of odd “eep” mixed with a gulp sound and then asked Llira a kind of out of place question – “Have you ever seen the shores of Selest?” Quickly thinking through her memory, Llira remembered that Selest was a continent on the old homeworld / stronghold of the elves, one of the oldest inhabited places in the lost universe, so with that in mind she said “Yes, I have”. This then prompted another question “Have you ever walked through the streets of Selena?” Again, Llira remembered that Selena was the main city and capital of the homeworld and that even though her memories were hazy, it was probably likely she had been there, as most elves had at least once in their lives. So, once again she replied with a “yes”. Which finally led to a last question of “If so, then can you tell me what once stood over the doors to the great hall of Selena?” This took several moments of pondering on Llira’s part, as she wracked her brain, but she eventually remembered that it was an image carved into the walls of the hall called the “Never Setting Sun of Selena”. A sun just crossing the horizon of Selena that spoke to the ever changing but never fading society of the elves. At this answer, the woman’s demeanor changed to even more worried if possible, and she briskly said, “You can’t stay here. I can’t deal with you now. Come back in three days. We are closing up now. Please leave.” And proceeded to shoo her out the door. Suddenly finding herself standing back out on the street, and not quite sure what had just happened, she figured she had no choice but to wander off. After stopping by a closing bakery to buy a long roll of bread, she began to meander her way back to the temple to see if anything had happened. The Troubles of Heaven After about 8 hours of waiting, Bruno and Kifé saw that the temple where they were waiting was beginning to clear out. Not completely by any means, but the number of people had significantly lessened, and lead priest had even given over his duties to his aid so that he could head off to sleep. Figuring this was probably as good a time as any to commence their task, they signaled to the aid and then started praying. At first they only started with Exido, as they still hoped to contact him directly. After a little while with no effect, they instead switched over to the creature Farshad and said its name aloud. For a few moments, nothing seemed to be happening, and then like a breeze, they felt the soft touch flow over them that signaled the creature’s arrival. With a rush, bright colors, much more powerful and crisp than those shown by the prior panel rushed out into the room and enveloped the congregation. These colors swarmed and twisted in the same hues of red, purple, and brown that had enveloped them before. Looking around, they also saw that once again, everyone who had been in the room appeared to be stunned – staring blankly off into space as if transfixed at the panel. Upon the stage, the feminine metallic aid was developing the wracking and seizures that they recognized as the sign’s of Farshad’s possession. This time though, as the fits took their toll, in addition to changing, her form also seemed to grow or expand, filling the whole of the room before the congregation to at least a size of Huge. Towering at the front of the temple, the now recognizable Farshad boomed out “You have called me once again.” To this Kifé responded “Yes, you said that once we found one of the functioning panels we should call our your name and you would come, as you said you wanted to meet with us.” Farshad smiled slightly and then said, “Yes, I did. I might have preferred somewhere slightly more private, but this will do, as I have enraptured them all once again.” Bruno jumped in at this point and asked “Why did you even want to meet with us in the first place? Why have you been following us since we awoke?” Somewhat more seriously, Farshad responded “I wanted to meet with you because I have a task that I wish you to complete.” They both seemed a little confused by this and said “A task? Why do you need our help with a task? You can take possession of people, and those like Jameson are obviously terrified of you.” This sparked a glimmer of Farshad, “Ah, but see that is exactly where I need your help. I am not a being like you think of, I exist in a different state.” At this Kifé said, “What do you mean a different state?” “Well, you might do best to think of me as immaterial,” responded Farshad. I exist in the heavens alone, and can Only directly interact with this world of the material by taking control of these creatures. That is where my problem lies.” Here Bruno asked, “Does this have to do with Jameson? Is that why he was so scared of you?” “Yes, indeed it does,” said Farshad. “Jameson and his kind have been an annoyance to the world of the material for quite some time, and they need to be dealt with.” Again confusion on the parts of Bruno and Kifé, so Kifé asked, “But how can his kind be a threat to the heavens or the immaterial?” “Well,” said Farshad, “The problem is that the material and the immaterial are inherently linked, and the immaterial depends on parts of the material for its existence.” “How is it then that they are damaging the immaterial and why can’t you just stop them yourself?” asked Kifé. Thinking for a second, Farshad said, “You might think of it like a waterway or channel. The immaterial depends on the water to live and thrive. Yet, Jameson’s kind are harming it. They are poisoning the water, restricting the channels, and in some cases even completely blocking them. I can’t directly intervene because they have learned of my methods. They restrict the presence of panels and these creatures near their locations, or at least in combination. And although powerful, I am not invulnerable in this form.” Pondering this for a second, Bruno then said, “Ok, if not you, then why can’t the real Gods like Exido deal with this? In fact, why are you even bothering with this at all? If this is such a large problem, wouldn’t they have gotten together and solved it by now?” “Unfortunately no,” said Farshad. “Although their power is great, their ways are inscrutable and flighty. They bicker and argue among one another to the point that they have lost sight of the realities of the immaterial.” At this, Bruno then asked “Alright, if this is such a big problem then what do you want us to do about it? It seems like a lot for us to simply solve?” “True,” replied Farshad, “Rather, I would have you gather information for me on the activities of this organization. What they are doing, and where they are planning it.” “Where should we even look for this information and this organization though?” asked Kifé. “This world seems vast.” “To start,” said Farshad, “Although I have difficultly tracking them, I know that at least a small group operates out of this city, and an even larger set are located in its neighbor, Boruna. There used to be a transport which took people to and from these cities, but it is not functioning any longer. However, I believe the track is still sound.” “But if we do this,” started Bruno, “then will you aid us or provide us with information, or at least something to help us?” “I do have access to a large amount of information unknown to the material world,” said Farshad, “and I will try to find the answers to any questions you might have for me in return.” At this, Kifé perked up, and she asked “Do you have any knowledge of an idea called the Golden Mind? I was created with a message and I believe that it is my purpose to deliver it to or attain this Golden Mind.” Farshad thought for a moment and said, “I know of this concept, but not in a current sense. Rather, only as a concept from before this world. If it exists inside, then it may or may not be the same thing.” “Alright,” said Kifé, “then do you have any knowledge of my creator, a man by the name of Renard Paliste?” At this Farshad responded only with an ominous “Searching…” and then went quiet for a few moments. After the span of several breaths, he seemed to regain animation and said, “I believe I have found a person who matches your question, although there are two problems. One, he is or was an organic, and one of the original inhabitants. If he awoke at the correct time, then it is very likely he is dead. Two, as of last record, he was located on another shell than this one, which may make finding him even more difficult of a task.” “On another shell…” said Kifé, a little wide eyed. “Oh…” Discovery During this interlude, Llira had worked her way back to the outside of the temple, but when she arrived she found that there was a strange, but recognizable light streaming out of the stone slabs and onto the street. Knowing what that probably meant, she decided it would probably be better if she just stayed outside for the moment and waited for them to finish. However, about the time that they were discussing the trading of information, she saw that several petitioners were approaching the door and moving to go inside. The first of these passed inside and from what Llira could see, immediately became frozen like the others. However, the other two stopped a bit father back when they saw this, and began exclaiming to one another about “divinity” and “Gods”. Then, turning, they both took off in the opposite direction, away from the temple. Inside the temple, Farshad had also taken note of the newcomers, and noted “We have been discovered. I must depart from this place before even further attention is drawn and our association is discovered.” “Wait!” yelled Bruno, “How and when are we supposed to contact you again, and how are we going to explain this to these people?” At this, Farshad said, “When you describe what has happened here, I ask that you not you my name or describe what we have discussed. To help you in this, I will permanently modify this creature I control to make her more receptive to your ideas and explanations. She is in far better condition than the prior host I claimed. Contact me when you believe you have found something worth my attention. I leave this decision to you. As before, simply find one of these creatures and a panel in proximity and call out to me. I…will watch over you.” With this, the form of Farshad began to shrink back in on itself to the vastly smaller starting point of the clerical aid. Thankfully, when this process finished, she seemed in much better shape than the prior mechanical man, and was even standing upright. “Oh my,” she said, “what just happened? Why do all of these people look so strange?” Sure enough, the rest of the congregation seemed to be awakening as well, and they were all looking heavily groggy and dazed like the last time. However, out of the corner of his eye, Bruno caught some movement over near a side door to the chamber, and saw that it looked to be head priest, who also appeared not to have been stunned. Moving over to him, Bruno approached him with a growl and said, “What did you see? What did you hear?” “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” said the priest, “Almost everything. Please don’t hurt me. I heard the voice of the visitor from the heavens and I came to see what it was.” “You heard what he had to say then?” said Bruno, slightly shaking him. “That this conversation and his identity have to remain secret?” “Yes, yes, I swear I will tell no one,” cried the priest. “Good,” huffed Bruno. “Tell them whatever you want to explain this, just avoid what he said not to say.” With that he let the priest go, and giving him one last look, moved back to join Kifé. Meanwhile, Kifé had been talking to the aid saying that she had been used as a vehicle for a messenger from the heavens to talk to them and that it had been wonderful. When Bruno rejoined her, they had a quick discussion, and started wondering how they were ever going to find these panels and creatures in the same place if Jameson’s people were actively avoiding it? In response, Bruno had a quick idea. What if they just took this one here with them? She was already responsive to their ideas wasn’t she? Perhaps she’d be willing to go? Turning to her, Kifé said, “Miss, um, I’m sorry I haven’t asked your name.” “Oh, its alright,” said the metallic creature. “My name is Sage. Some call me Mother Sage.” “Ok, Mother Sage, the being who visited you has asked us to complete a great task, but to do so we need a person of your type who can help him communicate with us. Do you think that you would be willing to help us do that by traveling with us?” “Well, I’ll need to check with the Father to see if its alright,” said Sage, “but if the heavens need me, then that sounds like it would be fine. Let me just go talk with him for a moment.” Heading off, she wandered over to the still crouching Father and they had a quick talk. After a few moments she came back and said that he was alright with it, and she could come with them right away, as she really didn’t have many things. Agreeing this was better; they all quickly gathered up their stuff and headed out the main slab doors of the temple. There they met up with Llira who told them of the two men who had run off into the crowds around the temple, and that they should probably be getting away from here soon. No sooner had they done so, and were moving off into the streets at their left, then they saw that out of the crowds there was pressing a great throng who were approaching the temple from the opposite direction. Not even wanting to draw attention, they stopped looking back and just kept walking with their heads down until they were well away from the temple. At this point, they stopped for a moment, and started to discuss what they should do now. Llira told them about the sleeping arrangements she had found in the levels above. Surprisingly, Sage also chimed in at this point and suggested that maybe they should be a bit more covert too if they wanted to remain unseen. One suggestion she had was to buy cloaks as they were all rather distinct. She gave particular attention in this to the elf, who she oddly noted “really shouldn’t be walking around like that.” She suggested that if they wanted, she could go inside a nearby shop and buy some cloaks for them. At first, Bruno was rather reluctant to give her any money to do this, but eventually he caved and gave her three of the Squares. After a little while she returned, dropped two of the Squares into his hand, and then pulled out four plain cloaks in blue, grey, green, and brown. Putting them all on, Llira also mentioned that while they had been distracted, she was part of a strange encounter with another person that she thought might have been an elf, who had asked her to come back to the same place in three days. She said she would like to do this, and they all agreed that it might be important for figuring out what was going on in the world. They then all headed up to their reserved lodging in the upper class ward. This was the end of session 3 for the Sphere campaign.
Araes 01-04-08, 06:42 PM	As a final note, I expect that the next time we play will probably be roughly a week and a half from now, with an update to the log going up after that.