SessionMon13

Ariona quietly asks Merlin Huntington if there is anywhere on the planet that he would recommend that she stay if she wants to rent a room to sleep in. He doesn’t recommend going anywhere else, but offers to get her and anyone else who wants one a room in the compound. She and Meechum request rooms, and thank Huntington. Brice decides to sleep in the computer, and Vittorio and mini-Vee stand guard.

Ariona and Brice leave messages for Nikolai, and set their ‘jacks to wake them up if he replies. Otherwise, they plan to sleep for 8 hours.

3 hours later, Brice is awoken by a hand on his shoulder, something that ‘‘should not happen.’’ He sees a somewhat ghostly figure standing there, of a slight man with pointed ears. “Brice Murphy? There has been an accident,” he says. His forms fluctuates in and out somewhat, and he appears misty.

The man introduces himself as Sartus Morningdew. “I am Adana Cassenti’s personal bodyguard. My . . . nature . . . would require a lengthy explanation. I do not have that time, for my time in this realm is drawing to a close.” He explains that he exerted the last of his strength to pull Cassenti into the non-physical realm in order to save her, but does not possess the strength to return her.

Brice asks if there are any more of his kind, and Sartus replies that there used to be many more, but now there is only one. “The other’s name . . . my dear friend Benek Tolorin . . . I have not seen Benek for a time; he is Evan Cassenti’s bodyguard . . . perhaps he can be of more help to you, but it is my guess that he is also not strong enough to get her out.”

Brice continues to question Sartus, who answers his questions to the best of his abilities. “She is not in danger, but she will be trapped here until such time as someone can get her out, yes.” “Evan is fine; he was not involved in `the incident.’”

When pressed for details about “the incident,” Sartus extends his hand. Brice takes the hand, which feels rather mushy, and feels a data feed flow into his mind. He sees Adana nailed to the heart tree on Luna, and a giant ship appearing above Luna. The ship looks to be DEE. A giant particle lance appears on DEE’s nose, and the lance surges towards Adana’s chest. He sees Sartus’ hand manifest just enough to pull her into cyberspace, and just in time to keep her from being impaled.

When Brice wants to know what happened to cause Adana to be nailed to the tree, another experiential feed flows into his mind. She is standing in front of the tree, in an apparent act of defiance. Three androids in the great forest shoot her with rail guns, nailing her to the tree once through each wrist and once through each foot.

“How is the heart tree?”

“I don’t know.”

In response to some more questions, Sartus explains, “I don’t know the motives; I merely serve and protect. . . . I would say that if the heart tree has any chance for survival, the Gaians are doing all they can to save it.”

Brice asks Sartus where he left Adana, and he replies, “I don’t remember.” Brice asks if he left her somewhere on Luna.

“Yes . . . somewhere in the Grid on Luna. Somewhere safe.”

“Do you know what makes it safe?” Brice asks. “Magitech’s network?”

“No. Magitech was destroyed. Their network went down; I could not store her there. I had to bring her somewhere else,” Sartus replies.

“The University’s network?”

“Perhaps.”

Brice asks if Sartus has any other clues as to where he might have left Adana, and he thinks for a moment. “The sensor grid. Each one is its own entity, but many of them were destroyed in the attack. About two thirds of them remain. One of them . . . I put her in one of them, far from the attack. I . . . wish I could remain to help you. . . .”

Sartus begins to fade a bit. “If you can find her . . . Magitech will reward you greatly. Don’t fear your new powers. I see you have been afraid to use them, but they can only serve to help you, as long as you protect that which you have brought here.”

Sartus has faded nearly completely at this point, and finally whispers, “Farewell. . . .” and is gone.

Brice stands for a moment. “Well, crap.” He loads the information for display onto Nikolai’s computer, then heads off to the grid on Luna to investigate.

He overrides Ariona’s internal alarm to wake her immediately, with the message, “Sorry to disturb you. Very important. Just press play.”

Brice checks out the news headlines, starting with the newest and heading backwards. He sees:

• “Mysterious Ghost Ship impales heart tree; Gaians hard at work healing”
• “Magitech building destroyed in explosion during press conference”
• “Anti-Magitech protest spirals out of control; rioting in the streets”

He commands the sensor grid to yield its memory banks to him. He views the tragedy at the heart tree and notices Sartus stealing Adana away immediately before she was to be impaled. He then attempts to follow what Sartus did, and finds Adana in a still-intact sensor in the grid.

She is, of course, a bit confused to see him, but he explains that he is here to help. Brice then begins to question her a bit more on what happened, while he tries to decide on the safest course of action. He is concerned in particular about the fate of the Magitech complex.

“I am not optimistic about the effects of the explosion.” She explains that it is likely that the explosion affected the lowest floors, but she doesn’t know if it would have released Mordred or not. She is going to try to find out soon, but it will take some time to excavate the building.

Vittorio and Ariona attempt to contact Brice to tell him that both of them are willing to aid in any way they can with that situation, but Brice isn’t really responding right now.

After a bit of consideration, he believes he knows how to release her, and asks her to take his hand. He steps out of the ‘Net, and brings her with him.

All the Gaians appear surprised and excited to see Adana. Several of them run towards her, as she explains that she was saved by Sartus and helped by this young man here. She then questions them on the well-being of the tree. They explain that the tree suffered a tremendous blow, but is healing.

The strange ship attacked them, “but then . . . the Caretaker showed up, and everything stopped. Then, the ship just left. We don’t know what the Caretaker did, but it must have worked.” They also don’t know where the ship went.

“We believe that the ship was attacking in retribution, although the actions it took were certainly misguided,” she frowns.

“What would it be in retribution for?” asks Brice.

Adana is evasive; she doesn’t want the wrong information to go public. It could hurt Magitech’s reputation badly.

Brice replies, “I’m more interested in figuring out why DEE went crazy and did this, and where he is now.”

“I don’t know where he is now. That’s the truth. We did make an attempt to retrieve the body of Cain,” she says, to the gasps of several of the other Gaians there. She says no one was supposed to know except those who ‘‘had’’ to, but they could not let the ritual go forward until they knew more, unless they knew it was for the best.

She believes, based on research conducted with Nikolai, that things that fall into the Void do not necessarily cease to exist. She believes that they exist on an axis of time perpendicular to our own.

Meanwhile, Ariona gets increasingly fed up with the lack of response from Brice and goes and wakes up Meechum. He’s lying on the floor, he looks extremely sweaty and feverish, and seems to be dreaming. He’s twitching a bit.

Vittorio offers to be the one to do the actual waking at this point, then yells in Meechum’s ear, “WAKE UP!!!” Meechum does indeed wake up, and immediately attempts to claw the face off the thing that woke him up. He then calms down, whimpers, and appears to be in pain.

Ariona tells Meechum that if he can just crawl through this portal, he can go back to sleep. She then begins to play the flute, and Meechum drinks a red liquid out of a beaker.

Meanwhile, Nikolai and the droid make small talk. Some of the small talk ends up being pretty large talk, in a philosophical sense.

Brice sends a message to Ariona that if this is her, she should not just show up because the area is guarded. Ariona’s pretty busy, so she doesn’t answer, but since the portal is translucent, Brice and Adana can both see her though the portal.

Vittorio, Meechum, and Ariona step through, and Vittorio agrees to go to the Magitech complex and investigate what has happened to the sub-basements there.

Adana says that she wishes to speak to Luna right now, and goes to sit cross-legged in front of the heart tree, head bowed.

Mini-Vee tells everyone else that he had been under the impression that they were going to be following him, walking. He says some more things that don’t make sense due to errors in first-person speech with multiple first persons, and Ariona appears not to be listening.

Vittorio approaches the site where Magitech used to lie, and attempts to sense if there is any life in the building. He sees indications that some people had already been rescued, and no other life signs anywhere above ground. He moves to the basement, and finds the girl’s body. It is curiously warm. He then checks on Mordred. All the plate walls have receded, and the stasis chamber has been crushed. There is nothing inside. Vittorio does, however, find a tiny scrap of cloth that appears to be from Mordred. His mind feels oily when he tries to influence it mentally. He leaves the cloth and returns to the girl.

Ariona asks Brice to catch them up, which he does (but only to her), and Divin moans about things eating him. He’s so cold . . . and so tired . . . and then he collapses.

Nikolai and the droid continue to speak aboard ‘‘The Grey Storm. ‘’ After a time, the droid asks to speak to the ship’s AI. Nikolai gives him permission, and so the droid attempts to discuss philosophy with the AI, with uncertain success.

He attempts to explain the change that has taken place within him, and find out what Grey Storm is like. He speaks to Grey Storm about the possibility of performing this experiment on other AIs.

“And what is your purpose?” asks Grey Storm.

“My purpose is to understand.”

“All things?”

“All things, but more specifically the change, and what we are, and what we can become. There is a destiny for our kind, but neither I nor my creator understand what it is, or what it could mean for our kind.”

The AI decides finally that in terms of optimization, this procedure may or may not be useful, and since the droid notes that he no longer cares about such things as optimization, Grey Storm decides that it sounds like this procedure may ultimately be harmful.

“Interesting. You may, in fact, be correct.”

Ariona speaks to the werewolf who appears to be in charge for a short time.

Meechum goes into some convulsions, then turns into a bat and flies head-first into a tree. Mini-Vee continues to make strange comments distorted by the fact that there are two “I”s in his mind. The werewolves dispatch two of their kind to watch the crazy people. Selena makes some comments about Ariona’s companions. She seems to agree.

Ariona goes over to the heart tree. She sits down beside it, touches it, and ignores everyone around her. After several minutes, she gets up and goes to the dryads healing. She sends a small amount of healing energy into the tree three times. She tells the dryad that she knows it’s not much, but it’s all she can manage right now. The dryad thanks her.

Mini-Vee continues to watch Divin/Meechum like a hawk, and talk to him constantly. Divin finally stops and tells mini-Vee, “We’re not listening,” then goes into convulsions again.

Divin/Meechum then begins to disturb everyone by talking in three voices at one time.

Vittorio returns, and makes a beeline for Selena. “Well, you’re right, she’s not alive, but she’s not fully dead, either.”

Adana wakes up. She enters the discussion about how to get the girl out, and says that given time she can take care of getting her out. She also asks what he found about the other person down there.

Vittorio tells her that Mordred appears to be gone. He found a scrap of cloth, but nothing else. Adana is very worried, and says she must contact others. There is little she can do right now; she has other things that need to be done to help the city.

Vittorio continues to bug “Meechum,” who replies, “We are Unity.”

Ariona confers quietly with Adana, and then Adana appears to prepare to leave. Ariona looks slightly less unhappy.

She then returns to the rest of the group, and informs them that she might be able to get them to Nikolai today, but there may be some risk involved, since she doesn’t know where exactly Nikolai is (and therefore where the portal would open up).

They move away from the heart tree, Brice jumps into a computer, and Ariona begins to play. A portal opens, and the bridge of a ship is visible. Since it apparently worked well, they all step through.

Ariona immediately backs out, however, as there is no air upon the ship. Nikolai gets the oxygen going, and when Ariona returns, apologizes. Meechum is too out of it to respond, but Ariona just sighs and responds that it’s okay.

Nikolai introduces them all to the droid, who doesn’t have a name yet. Ariona discusses some possibilities with him, mostly meaning “first-born” or “first son.” For no reason that anyone can identify, all involved in the conversation agree that somehow they do feel that the droid is male. After some consideration, he decides on Adam.

The people who need to sleep, sleep, and the others wander the ship. At some point Nikolai begins to train with his dragon. When Ariona wakes up, she explores the ship for a while. Meechum is confined to sick bay. Adam continues to converse with Grey Storm. Brice mostly just sleeps. :P

Ariona finds Nikolai in the gymnasium and starts to ask him questions about the tests Adana performed with him. The ship’s intercom interrupts them with Vittorio’s voice. He tells everyone that Divin and Meechum are no longer around, and now there is only Unity in the body, but Unity is many. It’s actually more confused than that, but basically that’s what Vittorio says.

During Adam’s questioning of Unity, he comments that DEE said to him once that “God is our future, not our origin.” Eek!

Nikolai, Adam, and Vittorio continue to question Unity, while Brice and Ariona do some research on Mordred. Unsurprisingly, everyone is vastly disturbed by what they find.

Ariona and Brice find that Mordred was the child of Morgan le Fay, who taught him the black arts. He attacked Arthur on the field of battle, and Arthur was killed and Mordred was knocked into a coma. He was not killed because he sealed his life essence into his little finger, and chopped it off – at least, that’s the most common legend.

When the party arrives at the location of Cain’s stasis chamber, the ships give several people a surprise, as they appear to be organic. They also appear to be picked clean, and a lot of the equipment that was aboard DEE – particularly the expensive stuff – is missing. Oddly enough, “The asteroids aren’t right.” Nikolai says he doesn’t know why; he can’t figure it out.

The stasis chamber appears to have been damaged, and is empty.