Mars is newly awakened. The consciousness is called Ares.

All of this is modeled after the original Dracula legend. Nyx is Mina Harker, and Mars is England.

On Saturday, June 18th, Cain hijacks a UNF ship (that was sent after him when he left lunar orbit). The ship goes after him, sees that he is "dead," pulls him in, quarantines him, and then Cain wakes up. He disables most of the ship’s systems and kills the crew – all but the captain, who wards himself on the bridge with pyrotechnic force shields that Cain cannot breach, and wears a rosary (actually .

Monday 07

Date is Tuesday, 2299 June 20. They have just recovered the Longinus Spear, and are about to leave Xela’s realm.

We need to stall them so that they arrive on Mars at the crash site (or whatever) on or after June 25.

Some of them want to return to Canis to meet with the Volokhovs. (Griffin needs to declare immediately which characters he was computing to take with him.) But they no longer possess the lantern. The Volokhov contact that could potentially fix the lantern is Merlin Huntington, disguised. He appears as an old man, thin and sinewy, with a bald head, piercing blue eyes, and a gray goatee, wearing natural-looking clothes in earth tones.

Meanwhile, Moss heals Nyx’s affliction. But she was touched by Cain in the brief time he had her in his grasp. After a while, her fairy wings begin to transform into bat wings. She can sense Cain’s location, but has become weaker and is susceptible to his control.

At this point, Cain has already taken over the UNF ship. They won’t be able to find him with Divination or by tracking his previous trajectory in space. They will be forced to wait for a sign, or wait on Mars, or something of that nature.

(If they wait for a sign, they’ll hear about the explosion on Mars, followed by an outbreak of zombies in the Martian colony.)

Eventually, Monday discovers the crash site at the same time the Wednesday group gets there, hopefully.

Wednesday 07

Date is Saturday, 2299 June 24. They have just left Dragonstar after learning a bit about its history, hearing the echoes of the Destroyer, but without Lupus being taken.

Fey received an email from Elena stating that Cain is running amok on Mars devouring undead, and occasionally creating new undead.

They were also discussing the possibility of talking to the Caretaker again, to verify what happened with the Oversoul. They are free to do that if they wish.

If they talk to the Caretaker, it can clue them in with a prophecy: "The land of blood and tears cries out as the spear of the damned pierces its newly awakened flesh."

If they talk to the UNF, they learn that the UNF Vesta disappeared when going after Cain, and subsequently crashed into Mars outside the colony bubble.

Eventually, Wednesday discovers the crash site at the same time the Monday group gets there, hopefully.

Combined

Cain crashed on Mars on Wednesday, 2299 June 21, outside the bubble. Surveillance footage shows two bodies: one large (the ship), and one small (the captain’s log entries encoded on a data crystal and ejected).

The ship itself partially survived, since the antimatter shielding held. Thus, it is crucial that the ship be salvaged immediately, to prevent a catastrophic explosion should the shield later give out. Salvage teams were immediately dispatched to the site, but they do not seem to have completed their operation. There are signs of a bloody struggle, and the surveillance footage shows Cain massacring the crews and converting them into a new undead legion.

The log entries on the data crystal can be recovered with a Repair check DC 30. The information is a holographic feed of the events on the ship, with Cain taking over, the captain (Sheridan) barracading himself, and futilely searching for a way to defeat the monster. With ship systems totally offline, he was unable to do much. However, he does note that Cain has turned the sole mystic crew member into a lich, but the others (non-mystics) were turned into zombies or occasionally vampires (for the particularly robust ones). The three AI crew members were systemically torn apart by the undead when they attempted to harm. The two soulmech crew members were turned into undead – Cain sucks out part of their essence into himself, then regurgitates some kind of black fluid that coats their frame, darkening it visibly. Lastly, Captain Sheridan notes that the protective charm he has (a rosary) seems to ward off the creatures.

The zombie horde moves slowly, and does not reach the bubble until the 24th. The Mars government began sending police and then military (including UNF) to stop this threat, but they have met with failure.

The easiest way to track down Cain’s current location within the zombie horde is to listen to Nyx when she claims she is able to sense Cain.

Battle with Cain. Must happen on the 25th or later. MORE PLANNING NEEDED.

• Cain’s abilities
• Moss’s mystic spheres, stats, etc.
• Nyx’s abilities, and actions during the battle
• Military presence, weapons being used, etc.
• Effect of the rosary
• Effect of the Longinus Spear
• Location of the combat
• Who has been turned

Once Cain has been disabled (impaled with the weapon, which becomes a knife as it stabs him), Moss can complete the ritual. He draws out Cain’s undead essence into himself, cleansing him but tainting himself in the process.

Nyx is now a half-fiend pixie, and Moss is a lich doppelganger. SESSION END