Saturday02

Goals:

The creature is in the cargo bay, and they will probably flush it into space. Bryant objects, but hopefully DEE does not listen to him. Or if he does, the creature begins to tear shit up. Bryant refuses to leave the cargo bay when DEE suggests evacuation.

Regardless, Bryant will have to show his true form to fight the creature (in the cargo bay or in space). That is, he will call on his piece of the Occultem Lapidem to consume the creature, except for the Hand. Max feels his piece of the O.L. flair up in response (Will save DC 20 to avoid losing control of it). Afterwards, McLean consumes a large quantity of the metals he brought along.

When questioned, Bryant is very candid:

Each of the PCs was brought along for a reason:

At any rate, McLean believes that by bringing together these people, something crucial is going to occur.

Anyway, they have 30 more hours to kill. Something interferes with DEE’s return jump computation: the Hand, if it is on board – it corrupts reality (Emmanuel is not of this universe). So the calculations are off. The party ends up slammed to an unknown location: the Fearful’s planet! Zee is with them, but DEE’s ship is not, nor is Bryant.

Assuming they don’t kill McLean, the jump leaves them on the Fearful’s world, with Zee instead of DEE and Bryant. Josef is still with them, but he still doesn’t remember anything. (Josef will definitely get infected right away, even if no one else does, so he can communicate the Fearfuls’ thoughts.)

Unfortunately, Zee is unconscious, so they have to carry him around for a while, or just leave him there. Who knows.

Anyway, the Fearful’s planet is extremely Earth-like – they may think they are on Earth, actually. However, none of them are familiar with the terrain. The sky looks different, and there are two suns. So on second thought, it’s probably not Earth.

They wake up on a jungle beach. If they start cutting up the jungle and killing animals, that Fearful individual will be upset, and the ecosystem will react accordingly (like an immuno-defense system). Large jungle creatures will attack them, plants will wrap around them, etc.

However, if they proceed cautiously, they will spend enough time in the jungle to notice things. Upon closer inspection, all the creatures here have a milky white fluid over their eyes (it’s subtle – DC 15 visual Senses to notice it). DC 20 notices that the plants have it, too – Anyone immune to disease is unaffected by this fluid, and the virus refuses to touch those with mystic abilities – but the others must start making Fortitude saves (DC 15) every hour to avoid being infected (but they won’t know what’s going on right away, since their eyes won’t turn milky white for at least a day).

Once people are infected, they can begin hearing this Fearful individual’s private thoughts. It is Jungel (Norwegian for "jungle"), a jungle. The thoughts are extremely slow (complex metabolism) but over a minute or so they can make out the thought of realization that something foreign has arrived.

'’Men,’’ it thinks, glacially slowly. ‘‘Are you lost?’’

If they manage to communicate with Jungel, and tell him they are not from this world, he thinks, ‘‘I will guide you to Fjell the elder (Norwegian for "mountain"). He knows more.’’

Those who are infected somehow ‘‘know’’ the way through the jungle that they must travel (Will save DC 10 to resist). After traveling for four hours, the trees abruptly become stunted and the ground becomes a quagmire. Those who are infected know they are crossing some sort of threshold. They have entered the domain of the swamp Fearful, Myr (Norwegian for "bog"). ‘‘Myr will lead you now. He knows the way.’’

Traveling through the swamp is slow going, and another five hours pass. Finally, they reach a point where the ground firms up as the path steepens. ‘‘Fjell,’’ thinks Myr simply. Up and up they travel along a bleak, rocky path. They pass hardy-looking vegetation, and in the distance they see some kind of mountain-goat-like creatures, which watch them until a very large, muscular cat pounces on them, catches one and begins ripping it apart (the others scatter).

After another 20 minutes of hiking, and they are met by a woman wearing skins, and carrying a spear, with a sling around her waist. Her eyes are milky white.

POSSIBLE STOPPING POINT

She does not speak English of course, but can communicate to anyone infected mentally. However, use of mystic magic completely freaks her out (Fjell can feel mystic energies, since the Fearful are capable of feeding on them).

Anyway, if they make friends with her, she explains that she speaks for Fjell, and leads them over a rise in the mountain. From this vantage point, they see a village (Nephilim), with buildings made of stones and straw roofs. More humanoids can be seen going about daily tasks like skinning animals and planting gardens.