To refresh everyone’s memories, Ariona Cassyon, Nikolai, Vitorrio Garibaldi, Bryce Murphy, Meechum, and Ian Thorpe are currently aboard DEE en route to Earth to find an enclave of Gaia’s Ancient Order. Their intended destination is the Taiga Forest in Siberia, near Xanadu.
Bryce engages in some research to try to find a contact person for the order, and comes up with a professor at the University of Xanadu named Nexus Almorad. He seems to be extremely old, which is unusual for a pixie, but his reply is quite prompt when he suggests that Bryce meet him during office hours on Friday afternoon. Bryce, however, has other ideas.
Meanwhile, Ariona receives an email purporting to be from Rudolph Bernstein. In it, he states that he is resigning his position at their lab in order to take a full-time job with StratCo on Earth, in Glacialis. He offers to write any letter of reference she might like, and regrets that this was so sudden. She sends a rather neutral reply, which is again responded to, and they agree that “perhaps they can meet sometime.” While her bullshit sense was strongly activated by this note, there really wasn’t a lot she could do about it, so she doesn’t mention it to anyone else.
When the party arrives on Earth, they head to the campus to lie in wait for poor Professor Almorad. Bryce spearheads the advance party, and apologizes for the unexpected visit. He and the ghost attempt to hesitantly explain that they hope to get verification from the Caretaker, through Gaia’s Order, of Moss’ instructions for them. Nexus offers to send back an escort for them, and disappears.
10 minutes later, another male pixie appears. This one looks quite a bit more fit than Nexus, and introduces himself as Radley. He leads the party to the grove . . . the long way. After several hours of walking, they feel themselves passing through some sort of threshold, and the forest feels a great deal more pristine and untouched.
Shortly they begin to notice dwellings and such formed into the trees and vegetation. It seems to be a somewhat low-tech village that they are passing through. Radley says, “Oh, well, yeah, we’re here. See ya!” and promptly zips off.
The party is approached by several halflings. One in particular, with brown hair and brown eyes, begins to chat with them, as Ariona tries to explain their business here. Finally, Ariona tries to make introductions, and the halfling says her name is Liza. She says she’ll convene the Council to make a decision, and leaves them in the middle of the ring of homes.
Nearby, the party sees a large grove and an enormous tree in the middle of it. There appear to be a bunch of halflings chanting around the tree, too. Some of the party wanders about, looking around the village, and some stay where Liza left them.
Eventually, Liza and two more figures return. One appears to be a 9-ft tall, greenish, well-muscled man, and the other is a willowy, thin, and very beautiful woman. Liza introduces them as Sledge Greenhorn and Elana Connendeol, who with Liza form the Council that rules this place. They are responsible for deciding whether the party will be allowed to speak to Gaia.
Sledge suggests that they all sit down and tell the Council everything that they know, if they want to speak to the Caretaker. Ariona and Vito explain what Moss has asked them to do, and why they feel speaking to the Caretaker for clarification is important. Sledge notes that the Caretaker has been pretty busy lately, and he’s not sure He should be bothered right now, but Elana holds up her hand and says she’s inclined to allow this. She thinks it’s important enough.
Liza agrees, so long as they are watched. Elana says she’ll take care of it. She leads them to the tree, and instructs them to hold hands and touch the tree. They do so, and feel a profound presence in their minds. Bryce tries to fight to send the words on to DEE, but is overwhelmed by the experience and fails. The worries, concerns, and foremost thoughts of Ariona, Nikolai, Bryce, Vito, Ian, and Meechum are collected and sensed by the Caretaker. S/He returns a series of images and concepts to respond to the party’s thoughts.
First, Percepi. They see the world, and then feel a flood of anger, hatred, and powerful negative emotions, until the flood overwhelms the planet and it is sucked away, gone forever. Then, the rest of the planets flow by, tinged with a concern from the Caretaker that what happened to Percepi could happen to the rest of the planets, and a resolve that the Caretaker WILL NOT let that happen.
Next, Moss. They sense that he is tirelessly working toward the Caretaker’s goals, to the point of self-destruction, trying to aid in the protection of all the races. The Caretaker regrets this, but it is necessary. They see the halflings singing; the royals researching, mystically and technologically; and they know these to be other ways in which the Caretaker’s people are aiding Him/Her.
They sense a machine that could stop this destruction from happening, but Cain is necessary for it. Without him, there is no point to the machine; it cannot perform its function without Cain.
They sense that there are those on Luna who do not share the Caretaker’s vision; the impression they get is that those individuals are misguided, and they have forsaken the Caretaker. They are not willing to make the necessary sacrifices.
Yes, there will be sacrifices, and changes. There is danger in recovering Cain, but Moss’ job is to make sure that that danger is minimized. There will be great changes on the moon if Cain is moved, but those changes will be buffered somehow.
Finally, the whole plot begins to unfold. The Caretaker is not powerful enough to oppose this threat to the galaxy on its own; S/He intends to create another Caretaker. S/He intends to do so from the newly-born Luna and the seed of Cain.
Now they understand the opposition. Those who wish to oppose the Caretaker’s plan believe that Luna should not be put through this process – perhaps even that the Caretaker should never have been created.
Why are these people involved? Because Moss involved them. There is not necessarily any greater purpose to these seven individuals being drawn into this plot.
Cain’s body cannot be moved completely without risk. That is why it is so important that it be brought to Moss immediately, so Moss can begin scouring the undead taint from him at once. Moss is ready for this; the party sees an image of a young man, shaved bald and with scars on his head, whom they recognize as Zee, who represents a breakthrough in Moss’ research. Moss has communicated to the Caretaker that he feels he is ready to cleanse Cain.
Now they turn their attention to Mercury. This, too, was destiny, but one much darker than Luna’s fate. The Caretaker and the royals are aware of the mechanics behind the process; the creator of the Gray Goo had also created a mystic artifact which would empower the nanites to be more powerful. This artifact was the beginning of the cascade effect which resulted in the destruction of the planet.
As for Mercury breaking out of orbit, “It was Divine Will.” The sense here is not that it was the Caretaker’s will, but God’s will. Obviously, this is somewhat confusing, but the Caretaker is not inclined to elaborate on this.
With all of their important questions answered, the party falls from communion with the Caretaker. Once again, they are touching the tree, and Sledge is eyeing them.
After a bit of discussion, Elana says she can’t help the party, because she’s trying to retain some neutrality. She doesn’t want to make her relationship with her family any worse. Sledge, however, offers to come along. He could help! Elana and Liza gracefully give the party an out here, and Sledge reluctantly agrees that he is indeed needed here to protect the singing halflings, even though they wouldn’t let him sing, too.
The party leaves the grove, and spends several hours walking back through the forest.
While walking, Bryce fills DEE in and then describes the security on the five known basement floors of Magitech’s headquarters. The seven of them trade ideas on how to get everyone inside, but Vito insists that Meechum would just be too conspicuous. Meechum thinks he could pose as a Gaian just fine.
Ian sends a message to Moss, forwarding the video of Cain’s hand’s behavior, and asks some questions. Moss’ response is simply that he’d rather discuss this in person.
DEE says he is likely capable of translating the party from where they are to where they want to be, but it requires a great deal of processing time. If they want DEE to get them out, they would need to take an incredibly powerful transceiver inside, to get past the barriers Magitech has up, and then activate it and let DEE process for an hour or a bit more. Then, provided that Cain doesn’t muck things up, he could get them out, but there’s still the concern that the properties of Cain’s body would prevent DEE’s translocation.
The security on the basement floors of Magitech is run by three droids, each far beyond what’s currently available anywhere else, each unique. While Bryce works on finding out more about the droids, DEE concentrates on researching new developments in hacking that might not have been incorporated into Magitech’s security yet.
They head off to Moss’, and he’s got 4 other people with him. One is the woman we met before, Angelique du Coudray (a beautiful but arrogant woman), Kimi (Algonquin for "secret") Eagle Talon (slightly hunched with slit-pupilled eyes and pointy teeth), Petrov Zarkovsky (a man in a dark cloak who is attempting to conceal his deformed face), and Hunter Savage (a good-looking man with a horizontally striped shirt and khaki pants). These are the four vampires who will be accompanying the party to Magitech.
There is quite a lot of debate about how to get in, how to move Cain, and how to get out, but most of the suggestions are later discarded. The party has NO margin of error if they want to carry the chamber out; if every one of them strains their muscles to the fullest AND all those capable use their relevant magics to the fullest, they could JUST BARELY lift the chamber. However, this leaves something to be desired, as does the idea of the vampires carrying Cain.
Here is the plan: They rent two mechanical exo-skeletons, and Bryce and Ian don them. Bryce, Ian, Nikolai, Ariona, Meechum, Vito (hiding inside Ian), and the four vampires enter the building using Bryce’s fake ID and his “guest passes.” Ian will be feeding mystic energy to the key to fool the mystic security in the building. DEE will attempt to follow their progress, but he will be somewhat hampered by the security system. They will head down to B7, find Cain, retrieve him, and walk out, with the vampires defending them. Then they will deliver the chamber to Moss. Sounds easy, right?
Well, they head inside. No alarms are triggered, so far as Bryce can tell. So far, so good. . . .
The party heads down five levels, inside the stairwell they’ve seen Adana Cassenti descend further in, and are unable to descend further. Ariona suggests that Vito try, so he exits Ian’s body and attempts to go through the floor, but it’s as if there’s a force field there preventing him from descending further.
Since Vito fails, Ariona tries again. Astonishingly, this time her foot is able to push slowly into the floor. It’s not easy, but she eventually is able to push halfway through. At this point, she grabs Nikolai’s ankle and attempts to pull him through as well; this is successful only as long as she’s touching him. So, one at a time, the rest of the party is pulled through the floor by Ariona.
They descend to the seventh floor, where there is a massive door off the landing. Again, Ariona’s elven heritage seems to be the key; at her touch, the door reluctantly opens. The party sees a droid about 40 feet down the hall, which Bryce quickly bashes into the equivalent of unconsciousness. Again, no security system seems to have been activated by this.
The hall is 50 feet long, with many unmarked doors on either side. The ghost jumps out of Ian again, wards his head to be invisible, and starts sticking his head through walls.
The first two doors on the right lead to a large, mostly empty room, probably used as a lab or as storage now. There are quite a few beakers, papers, and general debris of experiments. The first two doors on the left also lead to a mostly empty laboratory. The third and fourth doors on the left lead into a third lab, again 20’ by 25’, but this one is lined with five biochambers. In the corner of the room appears to be a woman, chained up. The third and fourth doors on the right have a few desks, some papers and beakers, and two stasis chambers, both apparently protected beyond what the chambers on the left had, but Vito couldn’t see inside them.
Vito does some further looking at the biochambers, and discovers that on the right, the two chambers are labeled Genesis and Mordred. On the left, all five appear to be empty. The doors to the right were locked, but Bryce was able to get the door to pop open. The party files in, except for Vito, who looks back in at the woman in the left room. She appears to be mostly human, of average height, with tangled brown hair, and a rather feral look (slightly lupine). She is also quite dirty.
The rest of the party continues to study the biochambers, and debates which of the chambers is more appropriate. Nikolai appears horrified, and says that both of them are massively evil and they shouldn’t let either out. He says that Genesis is the one the party should take with them, because it’s the one that feels like the vampires. They shouldn’t even look at the other one.
Ariona asks Nikolai to check and see if the girl is evil, so Bryce lets him into the room with her. She is certainly magical, of the Gaian type, but not evil per se. Vito seems intent on convincing her to leave with them, and while she indicates – silently – that she wants to leave, she is also quite obviously afraid of what she will do if she’s let out.
Ian tries to use his exoskeleton’s strength to break the chains, but is ineffective. They don’t even budge. Vito then tries to sizzle through with Pyrotechnics; this is countered immediately. The vampires tell everyone that they ought to just leave her; she’s “some werewolf bitch” that went on a rampage and killed a bunch of people.
Meanwhile, Bryce lets Nikolai into the first room on the right, where they find all sorts of nifty shit. Nikolai grabs some enchanted roller blades, among other things, and leaves a bunch of pretty antiques. They are unable to get into the file cabinets, however, so they leave that room and head back to Cain’s room.
Ariona and Bryce combine to use their blood, willpower, and technology to bring down the three walls surrounding Cain’s chamber, and everyone in the room is promptly overwhelmed by an enormous wave of evil. Bryce and Nikolai stagger out, retching, and Ariona and Meechum are nearly overpowered as well. The vampires, however, seem to be basking in the aura.
The four vampires immediately go for the chamber and pick it up. Meanwhile, Ariona tells Meechum to go into the hall and get Bryce’s suit so he can help Ian carry the chamber. The vampires struggle, and get it hefted. They each carry one corner of the chamber and step towards the hall.
Ariona notices that when the chamber is removed, a plate beneath it rises up. This worries her.
The ghost is adamant that the chamber not be carried entirely by vampires; he’s not even very subtle about this anymore. Finally, one of them snaps, “Fine! It’s obvious you don’t trust us, so HE can carry one end, and two of us will carry the other end. The other two will stay far away from it!” Thorpe then grabs the front end, backing toward the door, and Kimi and Hunter take the other end. Angelique and Petrov, true to their word, stay away.
The party staggers out, still divided about who’s carrying the chamber, but without much of a choice, as Meechum can’t put his deformed body into the exo-skeleton and Bryce and Nikolai are too busy retching.
At this point, it looks like the point may be moot, as Adana Cassenti walks through the door at the end of the hall. There’s a bit of awkwardness, understandably, but no threats. Instead, she makes them an offer. She will let them take Cain, and in return, “All I want is Moss OUT of our forest – for good!”
It is obvious that the party was sent by Moss, of course, so there’s no attempt to deny that. They all agree readily to try to convince Moss to leave the forest on Luna, and seem quite surprised that their egress is going to be so easy. Adana says quietly that she doesn’t really want to have it around anymore, anyway. As for Moss, “His place was in that forest once, but no longer. He has stolen that sanctum from us; it does not belong to him.”
Ariona timidly asks what’s in the other chamber, the one marked Mordred, and Adana replies, “Something that should NEVER be let out . . . again.” Then she tells them again to go, now, so they do.
They party walks out the door and up the stairs, and discovers that the barrier is gone. They continue up to ground level, and leave the Magitech building. Communication is instantly restored with DEE, and that is where the session ends.