Act 9 The Monoliths

The Monoliths

Getting the story back on track, this is reminder that the notes for the first half of this story have disappeared into the ether. As such, we’re going to gloss over a LOT of detail.

To get the story started, the scouts of the White Tail tribe came back and had news of a growing city of people surrounding a strange set of three stones standing on a low hill. The story goes that the people built a wall around the monoliths and that various pilgrims were beginning to draw into the area.

Our heroes decided to investigate and headed north in the truck again.

Upstate Travel

The travel through the jungle is slow going and numerous times our heroes have to get out of the truck and walk ahead hacking their way through vines and such. Clearing a path wide enough for the vehicle. Somewhere in the middle of New York State they finally come across a valley that is more sweeping grass and less dense foliage.

They have survived more than a day’s travel and several dino attacks to reach this point but they are unphased by such things. Becoming inured to the dangers of the Living Lands. Carlisle uses his scope and Kimiko uses a pair of binoculars to scan the field below them. IN the distance there is a low hill and a conglomeration of tents, cars, and odd structures.

The center of the mass of travelers is a high wall made of various materials: tin sheets rusting away, car parts, sheets of bark and stretched dino hides form the bulk of it. Outside of these walls are hundreds of tents, wagons, and cars.

Watchdogs

The knights spy a high flat rock formation halfway to the “city” and they decide that it would be the perfect place to camp. They can hide their fire from the city behind the rocks and any one of them should be able to climb to the top and get a better view.

Our heroes make the camp, moving across the field and hiding behind the rocks. As they set their camp there is an odd coughing bark sound. Kind of like a mountain lion, but worse. The sound made Carlisle’s hackles rise and he knew a predator when he heard it. He managed to get the other knights situated, away from the beasts and instead of starting a fight, they instead observed several large creatures that looked like white furred apes. These creatures hoot toward each other and start to look around.

Their eyes glow slightly in the light of the moon and they sniff the air and cock their heads like they’re hearing something. Carlisle silently works the bolt of his rifle and tries to use his eyes to communicate with the others. But before he makes a rash movement, a dino breaks from cover and the three great apes leap upon it and smash it to the ground.

Uneasy Camp

The White Apes begin to tear chunks of the flesh off the downed dino and eat it raw. Coughing and barking at each other as they do. A piercing whistle sounds and the three apes turn their heads back toward the city and then they rush off leaving the carcass behind.

The savage fury of the animals was nothing new or special in the living lands, even if the beast itself was new. The fact that they appeared to be trained and that they fled toward the city did make the knights a little hesitant. The knights dragged the carcass of the dino further away from the rocks, so that other predators would be drawn further away.

The night was uneasy but they made it through and in the morning, they climbed to the top of the rocks and got a better view of the city.

Again, the wall blocked the view of what was happening in the core of the city but outside of the wall it was a mass conglomerate of peoples. They observe a bunch of people lining up and prostrating themselves before gates in the wall. After an hour of observation their patience it rewarded.

The Tunic is an Evil Garment

The gates open and four men in long tunics step out, they are flanked by muscular cavemen, well over 6 feet tall, some even reaching 7 feet who all look like they should be oiled and on the stage of a Mister Universe competition.

The men in tunics stride forward and start to say things, clearly intoning either a prayer or a proclamation. As no one is trained to read lips, it’s a moot point. They say their speech and while they do the cavemen go around and collect bags, plates, and other offerings from the people on the ground.

By the end of this whole event, ten of the prostrate people are selected by the tunic wearing men and are led into the gates. The rest of the prostrate then walk away back into the make shift city of tents and vans.

Carlisle: “It looks like they are giving offerings to the monoliths, including themselves.”

Easy, Barely an Inconvenience.

As they debate how they will get into the city, and this does go for a while, several other new arrivals move past their camp and simply roll up on the city of squatters and find a place to take up.

Our heroes quickly cover up their truck, they’d rather leave it in hiding and have it as a fall back than take it into the city and risk it getting looted. They then walk across the field and within a few minutes they are mingling with the people.

The tent city is an amalgam of all sorts of tech levels as the ratio of core earthers to cavemen is about even. Some of the people seem to be rather brainwashed and dumb, but that might be part of the whole “cavemen” social axiom, or from people who have disconnected and then somehow reconnected and now they’re just tired of surviving in the jungles.

OUT of Story Aside:

So, at this point in the narrative is about 3 hours of Role Playing where a LOT of the NPCs and events were ad-libbed and created to answer questions. This was played back in the beginning of Sept 2019, so I can not get all of it from memory. As such we will have to go with the very short version where I hit the salient points and we move on to the actual part of the game I have notes for.

Moving through the crowds of people they discover that there is a weird low-level hum on the air that is bothering both women knights. It has something to do with the fact that both of them have psionic powers and this hum is affecting their minds on telepathic field. The people living closest to the wall and the cave-people seem the most susceptible to this vibration.

They are being brainwashed to want to get closer to the monoliths. Moving around the camp they come across an old veteran, who is still a core earther and living out of a van. He is with it enough to provide them with some good food and even better knowledge.

The Veteran:

So, first off, he feeds them and while he is doing so, he fills them in on the fact that the priests have an army of no-neck cavemen as guards, but also a bunch of white apes. Worse, there is a caveman king who rules the whole city. The people on the outside of the wall are expected to gather food and other offerings for the inner circle. And occasionally outer people are selected to join the inner circle. The fact that many of these people are women and that many are never seen again… well that’s ignored as everyone wants to get inside.

Kimiko climbs to the top of his van and using her binoculars gets a view over the wall. She can just make out several large tents and outbuilding all arrayed around a bare circle in which three thirty-foot-tall dull black stones stand in a line. They are only a little wider than a telephone pole and about a meter apart. They are oddly angled and cut, possibly three sided with a twist.

Talking with the old vet they get more of his story of being in New York City when the bridges dropped and the invasion started and how he kept walking north until he found the van and then managed to stay alive. Despite the fact that the stones seem to have more effect on the cavemen than on the core earther’s he admits that the stones are starting to call to him and he’s been having trouble trying to remember how to work the van and get out of there.

Walk the Line:

Our heroes decide that they have to do something now. That the longer they wait the more enemies they’ll have. They have leapt to the conclusion that the stones are making the vibrations and that everyone will eventually be brainwashed into whatever. As both girls are psychic and feeling strange, they begin to question about whether it will have an accelerated affect on them. They are not comforted by the fact that it seems to affect the stupid faster, but instead think their gift makes it easier for them to succumb.

The decide to make a full 360 degree walk around of the walls. To try and hide what they are doing they talk to various people along their path as they observe the walls.

The walls are very makeshift, with car parts, scrap wood, vines woven into mats, and all held together with powerlines ripped down from the poles. On the northside of the wall they find a nasty pit and hole at the bottom of the wall, but this proves to be the latrine. This pauses our heroes for a second. As an outhouse latrine is actually a little advanced for the cavemen and for the Living Lands in general. Someone has even gone to the trouble to put thorny vines and wires in a fence around the pit to keep people away. Though the smell alone was already doing that.

Other Details

They keep their observations about 50 meters back from the wall and they discover two spots that are easily climbable and also a few holes. Most of the holes are only large enough to stick your head in and look around the inner circle, and as a matter of fact, they observe several people doing just that. They also spy one hole that looks large enough to crawl through, but might be too small for Carlisle.

They find a natural rock up thrust and Carlisle clambers to the top and uses his scope to look over the wall again. This time he gets a better angle on some of the tents and he spots the so-called “king.” The man is a massive caveman, standing near 12’ tall with obvious signs of acromegaly misshaping his limbs and head. The king sits on a throne talking to a council of tunic wearing men, whose faces also show signs of mutation.

Carlisle is just starting to note cover and defensible spots when Sasha reaches up and tugs on his pants leg. Looking down at her she points over her shoulder and a trio of white apes are leading a massive caveman toward them.

Just Walk Casual

Carlisle hops down and the trio retreat into the crowd of supplicants. The caveman drops the leads on the apes and the white apes move through after the knights.  The knights keep walking through the crowds and work their way further and further from the wall, by the time they hit the edge of the camp and walk off toward the tree line the white apes stop following at the edge of the camp.

They take a long circle back around to where the truck is hidden and start to really work out a plan. They agree that time is of the essence and that they should attack hard and fast. Their first plan revolves around rigging the truck up as a bomb and driving it through the week part of the wall and aiming for the monoliths.

They actually do take the time to create the bomb before it dawns on them that hitting the wall is going to change the steering and none of them want to be a suicide bomber. Even with Sasha using telekinesis to try and remote the truck is not a guarantee. They keep the bomb and then decide that they can roll the truck into the camp and pretend to be new arrivals. Might be able to set the bomb against one wall while they attack from a second wall.

The Knights keep disagreeing on the delivery of the bomb and to just keep moving forward they decide to go in tonight, right now. They drive the truck down to the city and no one seems to mind them as they angle toward the open area by the latrine. The new plan seems to be; ram the truck into that part of the wall while they attack from one of the easier to climb sections.

Night Attack.

They park the truck within 20 meters of the wall and step out. At this point even Carlisle can feel the weird vibrations on his eardrums and now both women are hearing it as a much clearer sound. This makes all three of them uneasy.

Carlisle decides he’s going to run up to one of the holes in the wall and take a look inside. The pressure and the sound get worse as he gets closer. He sticks his head into the hole and notices that the guards and the apes are all sleeping, they haven’t a care in the world. Heading back to the girls the only people he notices are a few of the campers, who pretty much ignore him or just wave, lost in their own simple-minded pleasures.

Carlisle: “This might be super easy. The apes and guards are all sleeping and it looks like everything is quiet.”

Sasha: “Did you see the king and the priests?”

Carlisle: “I didn’t have an angle on the front of his tent from here. We’d have to go over to the larger hole.”

Sasha: “I have a new plan. Instead of losing our jeep, why not carry the bomb over to the larger hole, get a better view of the camp and I’ll use my telekinesis to throw the bomb right into the monoliths and BAM! We’re done.”

New Plan:

They pull the bomb out of the back of the truck and then walk around the camp and head to the other hole in the wall. As they approach the wall the girls both grit their teeth against the pressure in their skulls and right before they reach the hole in the wall, Sasha and Kimiko both stop.

There is a psionic shield pushing out against the inside of the wall. It is almost a solid physical barrier to them. Carlisle continues on and pokes his head into the wall.

He can see the king, nodding off on his throne a bucket of moonshine half empty on his chest. The tunic wearing priests are still awake, and seem to be talking amongst themselves. A couple of cave-people serve them food and drink and wait on them as needed. But not a single person is wearing a weapon.

Carlisle looks back to the girls and gives them the thumbs up. Sasha shakes off the psionic sound and pushes the bomb through the wall. The sound in the air resists her, and Kimiko steps up behind her, placing hands on her shoulders. Despite this being a wholly mental battle, the physical help seems to have an affect and Sasha struggles, pushing the bomb through semi-solid air to push the bomb into the monoliths.

The bomb explodes, the air shrieks, pain spikes all of their heads… and the monoliths still stand as a sonic field deflects most of the energy of the explosion.

BEDLAM!

And the shit hits the fan! I was going to try and do this all as one post but I think I like torturing the dozen or so of you who keep reading. So next week is the fight scene and then the wrap up of the adventure. After that we have only a little bit of material and then the game was called on account of the quarantine. So, we’ll see where we go over the next couple months.