ACT 5 The Past and Thundercats.

Welcome to the continuing story of Three Storm Knights in the game of Torg Eternity, the backgrounds of the heroes can be found HERE, and the very first post in the Series can be found HERE. More information about the game can be found HERE.

ReCap:

Last week we stopped in the middle of scene three, the storm knights had just dispatched the assassin Ebonclaw and received an invitation to visit White Tail, an edeinos leader who was allied with humanity against the Highlord Baruk. His messenger was the chameleon skinned ranger, Ghost, who upon delivering pleasantries and a fetish that represented free passage, gave them directions toward the Catskills and then promptly he departed.

The storm knights recovered a crystal rod of immense power, literally capable of powering numerous houses or objects with raw power, and also capable of fueling the reality warping abilities of the storm knights. Sasha preformed a cursory reading of the object but wished to return to the safety of the dome to go thru the papers and get a better reading on the stone.

They rapidly returned to the dome and we pick up there.

The Story of the Stone:

Kimiko and Carlisle take the notes and divide them in two and piece together the history of Sinclair’s recovery of the stone. Meanwhile, Sasha takes the stone and goes to preform a deeper and longer psychometry reading.

Sinclair’s party was traveling through the area that was once Stamford Connecticut and came across a tribe of extremely primitive edeinos. They were led by a massive edeinos who looked more like a hairless rat than a lizard, and Sinclair dubbed him Rattail. The crystal was discovered on an altar that the regressives worshipped around. After some debate it was decided that they would steal the rod and flee.

The rattails chased them well into New York and Sinclair’s notes become very sparse, apparently, he didn’t have a lot of time to write while they were on the run. His notes do note 8 separate times in which a friendly Edeinos did appear and seem to lead them. [Carlisle immediately thinks this must have been Ghost.]

Sinclair’s Group (Alpha Team) in New York:

Entering NY, the party lost their ranger guide, Paul, who was ironically eaten by a large carnivorous plant. But Ghost managed to extract them from the tendrils of the plant before he disappeared without accepting a thanks.

Alpha Team then journeyed into the Manhattan and had their first major run in with Blunt and his warriors. Blunt delights in torture and playing with the dead, his ultimate goal seems to be the creation of dead troops. He has also turned most of southern Manhattan into massive Gospog Fields. Gospog are created when seeds are planted in human corpses and planted into field, they then “grow” into undead plant hybrid creatures.

Disgusted by the torture and the fields filled with thousands of the dead Alpha Team made a vow to humble Blunt and erase him from the island. This mission would prove to be their undoing. They started out with multiple successes and quickly grew emboldened. Blunt also learned and adapted and turned the tables on them. He killed two members of the team, captured Gregor—a dwarf warrior from Aylse—and the rest of them fled toward the East River. By pure luck they managed to get their sat phone working and made a call into the Brooklyn HQ, but they couldn’t cross the river as a massive army of Tusk’s warriors where crossing into Manhattan.

Alpha Team, trapped between Tusk and Blunt fled north into Central Park where they would eventually be broken down to only two survivors and they would be captured by Tusk.

Sasha’s Deep Reading:

Sasha goes into a deep meditative trance, completely forgetting the real world as she drops into the past of the rod. [Spectacular roll of 72!] The rod is a single part of a greater whole that was shattered and sent through the universe millions of years in the past. It is not part of the Living Lands or of any world that has been conquered by the Living Lands. The event that broke the whole is shrouded in darkness and pain of such magnitude that Sasha feels she would fall into it and die in the real world if she looked too deeply.

She moves forward through time, the rod can hold more power than seven storm knights working in concert, and even if drained completely it would still regain power, it is eternal.

Warlord Rattail was a stormer (evil version of a storm knight) and as such he could feel the power in the rod. He created a ritual that would empower all of his warriors and as such the rod was the core of their culture and power. Most of its past is sitting in boxes or in dark places and being ignored or stored as treasure.

A last push back on the Darkness.

Sasha pushes her luck and peers into the darkness trying to get a vision of what the whole used to look like, she nearly falls into the void but then she feels a sympathetic pull toward something… other. She follows the pull and it takes her away from the void. Somewhere in the world is a large platinum and gold ring with an eye on it, when the eye opens it is a blue and red Yin-Yang symbol. Somewhere on Earth this ring has been found and it is calling to the Rod. All of the parts are calling to one another, they want to be whole again.

[During Sasha’s mediation she rolled a 72 allowing the other players to throw down glory cards. Meaning that Manhattan island has been hit with three glory cards in less than a week, flooding the whole Island with possibility energy and allowing all the regressed humans to remember their lives as humans of Core Earth. This is a big deal in the mechanics of the game hence this paragraph in brackets. All of the people they saved from Tusk had been in various states of regression back to cavemen. But now the 100+ refugees were wholly human and as long as they stay in the Dome they will remain so.]

With the flood of energy among the people less of them wish to leave the Dome, fearing that traveling back into the jungle will start to regress them again. Only a mere 12 people wish to take the trip back to Brooklyn.

Kimiko questions whether or not they would be able to take one of the electric cars/ trucks outside of the dome and if it would speed up their journey back to HQ. She wanders off into the main manufacturing building to see what can be built or is already available. Half of the factory is still dormant with half-built sentries. The other half is powered up and running the cloning vats that are reproducing the servitors’ original bodies.

Changing Plans:

With only a dozen people wanting to leave the Domes, and even then, they are reluctant. The party decides to put off returning to HQ for another day or two and sets their sights on the massive Cat-shaped mountain at the far northern end of Manhattan. [So, in case you haven’t guessed where this is going, another aside, I grew up in the 80’s and yes that cat-shaped mountain is a nod to Thundara and the Thunder Cats. The game gets a little silly for a while and then derails. But gaming is supposed to be fun right?]

As most of the distance between the Dome and the mountain is grasslands the trio take a 4×4 electric car from one of the many parking lots throughout the Dome and they decide to Drive across the Living Lands, thus cutting a 2 day walk to a mere hour’s trip.

Texas and Longshot will remain behind.

They blaze across the plain, enjoying the wind in their faces and after a rather uneventful hour they enter the hills and finally come to a massive gorge that separates them from the massive metal and stone structure that is Cat’s Keep. Luckily an extendable bridge is welcoming them to cross over.

Welcome to Thundara:

As they cross the bridge, they can feel the shiver of energy that once again alerts them that they have crossed from the Cosm of the Living Lands into a Lost Wonder.

They emerge from the electric truck and head toward the massive front doors of the castle. But are stopped by an invisible field of force covering the door. The place has been sealed for a long time.

Kimiko wonders if it is technology and searching around the doorway, she discovers a thin line of metal inscribed with flowing script that is inlaid in the stonework. The force field is created into this metal channel. Searching further Kimiko touches a panel and a screen and keyboard are revealed.

Sasha runs her hands over the surface using her psychometry to learn how it works. It is extremely similar to skype system in the Domes but it has some non-technological component to its function. Sasha hits the buttons to call into the castle and waits.

Carlisle points up under the overhang of the doorway, several small cameras are hidden in gargoyle like faces carved into the corners of the doorway. He waves at the gargoyles and Kimiko pushes his arms back down to his side.

K: Don’t do that.

Voice from the Door:

Jaxor: Hello. Hello. Who is at my door?

S: I am Sasha… of Earth… and this is Kimiko and Carlisle of Earth… (shrugs apologetically to the other two characters.)

J: I hope you bring peace in your hearts…

A gong sounds and the door begins to open inward; the force field drops and the Party tentatively cross over the line.

J: It will take me a while to reach the main foyer, I’m old.

The trio enter the main hall of the castle and while the walls appear stone, the lighting is still electric and there is air conditioning and tech mixed with what might be considered magical. The main hall is almost cliché in its array of armor and huge paintings on the wall a double stairway dominates the far wall.

All of the armor seems to be rather light, with most of the plating on the shoulders and upper torso and a little on the thighs. All of the paintings seem to be of anthropomorphic cat men. Fleshy cat people with tiger stripe hair and feline features.

A very old catman, with hair going to white but still showing a tiger strip pattern, emerges along the upper bannister of the great stairway. He is blind and uses a staff to tap out his path. He wears a regal but well-worn robe.

J: Welcome.

End Note

And I’m going to make you wait for the rest next week. I know these last two posts have been a little short. But as you read this, I have traveled a couple hundred miles to my graduation and I am celebrating my degree. I hope you have enjoyed this post, not much action in this one there is a bunch of extra exploration that I cut down, as it was fun role playing it but not so much fun writing it back. Details about how the machinery in the manfactorum worked, and what level of technology and over half an hour spent discussing building drones and trying to relate that radio waves are also destroyed by the living lands so a radio controlled anything can only function within about 100 meters of a character.

I promise, next week is a bunch of interesting interplay between the Heroes and Jaxor and the story of his face and the castle is pretty cool. Also, we will have a MASSIVE T-Rex fight! RAWR! So, there will be plenty of action.