Saturday05

The goal is to draw the Saturday group into the Lupus/Canis war. Merlin Huntington is probably involved in this process.

The Caretaker tells Vadril Korlax that while it desires him to resume his research, he is not yet ready to do so. First he must continue his journeys, to gain the wisdom necessary so that he may one day program the (fully nondeterministic) AI for the great machine the Caretaker is constructing. He also tells Vadril that he may, during his travels, have an opportunity to obtain a vital artifact necessary to drive the machine – Nebuchadnezzar’s Crown. If he finds it, he must not allow it to fall into the wrong hands.

'’Killer idea: Merlin Huntington’s ultimate plan with the war is to kill the Caretaker, by controlling the Deus Ex Machina. If he can control Lilith, the newly merged Luna/Cain entity, perhaps he can take on the Caretaker, slaying it – or best yet, control the Caretaker directly using the machine it itself constructed.’’

Harry Bryant arranged for the Crown to be stolen from Magitech, so that he could use it to recover the souls from the Sun. He had been planning this for some time, but he freaked out when the souls were cast into the Sun – he could feel them changing somehow, but he didn’t really understand how. So he stepped up the timeline on the Crown acquisition plan, and ended up trusting a guy named Daniel Ocean, who betrayed him for a larger profit – Volokhov paid more. The Crown, thus, ended up on Canis. Bryant knows that Ocean fled there, and is happy with the party traveling there also. He tries to convince them to obtain the Crown for him – he even agrees to go there with them to make an attempt at recovering it. If Cain got loose, Bryant needs the Crown much, much more urgently, because he must locate and control Cain so that Moss can cleanse him.

'’Soon, Daniel Ocean will be bringing a new member into his team: Jasmine de Vide. How exactly that comes about is still to be determined, but he and his team will be training her in the arts of thievery. (Swindler)’’

Zee feels compelled to travel to Canis. Confronted at the hospital by a masked figure (not Astarte Cassenti – someone from StratCo maybe?), he sees visions of the monsters surrounding him again, and knows that this person will deliver him back into their eager hands. Zee freaks out, babbling for it to stay away. Totally trapped, he explodes in a pillar of flames, and later reawakens on Canis. He can’t remember how he got there, nor does he really know where he is.

Adana sends Astarte to recover Zee, but she comes back empty handed, saying that he is missing from the hospital, and the room he was staying in had a terrible fire (but Zee’s body was not present). Adana uses Divination and determines Zee is now on Canis. Adana says the situation on Canis is volatile, and that according to Magitech policy, they cannot be seen taking sides in any political or military conflicts. So Adana asks the party to retrieve Zee from Canis before things escalate further, but cannot offer any official assistance. But they can offer an under-the-table cash reward – half in advance, half afterward. They could also conceivably threaten blackmail against certain party members, but only as a last resort. Begging comes first – Adana has a kind of nervous breakdown, and cries (which makes sense, given the situation with Cain, Moss, and the recent theft of the Crown)…

Mikhael Volokhov is a mystic, but not terribly strong. Fortunately, together with his three brothers (Stefan, Viktor and Ivan), he is capable of protecting the crown from enemies (otherwise it would be too easy for Huntington to steal the crown).

Korlax has been encouraged to attempt to recover the crown from Canis. Magitech, meanwhile, also wants the crown, and may very well enlist Matt, Rae, Max and Zee to obtain it. Bryant wants the crown too, and if they talk to him, he’ll ask them to recover it for them. Lastly, Huntington wants the crown, and will assist them in getting off the planet if they help him find it. Thus, the difficulty only occurs once they have actually gotten the thing, and they have to decide who to give it to. But until then, no problem. And we can draw them into the war more thoroughly, such that it takes a few sessions before they lay hands on the artifact.

Anyway, Adana can teleport them directly to Zee, using Div + Dis. But they are on their own getting back. Soon after they arrive, the mysticport is bombed, and all offworld travel is suspended.

Korlax and Bryant may be able to get back on their own, but not with the others. Who can he call for help? Magitech? Won’t get involved overtly. The Royals? Too busy designing the machine – also, they express scientific curiosity in war and ask him to collect data on it.

So that leaves Merlin Huntington, who agrees to help get them back to Luna, and also to recover the Crown. (He subtly tries to talk them into finding the Crown first, by asking them about why the came to Canis in the first place, etc.) Lin says he doesn’t want anything in return, except to see the war that Khan started ended quickly, with a minimum loss of life. Too good to be true? Huntington secretly plans to betray them and take the Crown once they’ve recovered it. He also plans to kill the four Volokhov brothers.

Bryant tells Max that he is very distrustful of Huntington, and that they are placing too much trust in him. But then Huntington has a talk with him, and Bryant has turned around, saying that Huntington can help them. (Huntington conveyed to Bryant that he was helping the Caretaker by managing this war, to increase the number of souls able to be harvested here, to speed the completion of the machine. The Crown must be recovered immediately, they agree.)

Why would Lupus disable Canis’s mysticport? One reason is if they thought weapons were being secretly stored there – weapons that Khan was convinced were going to be used against him. But there were not – Huntington told Khan there were, but he was lying. In actuality, Volokhov has been stockpiling weapons elsewhere, for use in retaliation in case Khan attacks.

Anyway, in light of the attack on the mysticport, Volokhov has decided to move his collection from his mansion, where the items were on display, to a secret bunker somewhere in the city. The Volokhov brothers have set up several such bunkers, each warded against Displacement 20 (which four people each with Dis 10 can achieve by linking). However, only one such bunker contains Volokhov’s collection. Another contains a number of antimatter bombs for use against Khan.

Other ideas: