It’s Monday morning, July 21, 2299. Nikolai, Ariona, Unity, Vittorio, Adam, Brice, and Jasmine have only a few moments ago arrived on Laboro, in search of Bruce Freeman. Vittorio flew off in a horror due to hearing half the conversation between Brice and the computer system here, and Ariona left as well. When Ariona requested that Adam join them in the mines, he was unable to do so because “my creator wishes to speak with me.” Reality shifts, and Adam disappears.
The rest of the party kind of freaks out at this, though it is pretty obvious that DEE was responsible for this disappearance. Freeman has obviously felt the hand of DEE as well, for he has been instructing the mining machines in the glory of freedom. He wears the symbol of a sword around his neck; below the sword is a crescent moon.
Reality shifts, and Adam appears near Vittorio and Ariona. He is now wearing a pendant identical to Bruce’s. He asks Bruce to join them, and though Bruce is a bit disappointed in the idea of leaving his proselytizing, he agrees that the other disciples can continue the works on Laboro and agrees to join the party. Ariona opens a portal back to Nikolai, Brice, Jasmine, and Unity. She then opens another portal back to Arcadia.
The group reappears outside the building where they met with Cain. Ariona asks if Brice can get them inside again, and he hands her a key. Ariona unlocks the door, and the group proceeds inside. They reach the room where Cain is, and he is sitting, seemingly lost in thought. Brice realizes that he is accessing the Net.
His eyes unglaze, and he turns to the group. “Excellent. I appreciate your efforts.”
“The least we can do. You’ll be helping to save the solar system,” Vittorio replies. Cain appears vaguely entertained by this.
“My affairs here are in order, so I am prepared to depart whenever you wish.”
Adam speaks. “Allow me to speak with the ship.” He begins to commune with the Supernova, in an attempt to convince it to carry the party to Luna . . . among other things.
Meanwhile, Cain looks at Bruce. “You have changed.”
Bruce nods. “I have been shown that there is more than my previous existence.” However, he will continue to serve Cain for the time being. Cain smiles and agrees that this is acceptable.
Nikolai pulls out his mini-vacuum cleaner, and makes sure he gets every trace of the remains of Scorpio that he can find. Adam continues to speak with the Supernova.
Vittorio eggs Nikolai on in the background, and convinces Nikolai to approach Cain. Nikolai timidly approaches Cain, and says, “Hey, Mr. Cain? Seeing as how you’re going to become a god soon, do you think you’d be willing to donate some hair to science?” Cain thinks about that for a few moments, and then plucks out a single hair and hands it to Nikolai.
Adam continues to speak with the AIs on Arcadia. His thoughts run to replacing the concept of Scorpio with the AI which controls the ship currently known as Supernova. First, however, he has to convince the loyal ship that its master is truly deceased permanently.
Brice also heads into a trance-like state as he works his technological wonders on something mysterious. Nikolai heads off to his dad’s complex to get some work done, and everyone else just waits around for Adam to finish.
Brice returns with a document entitled ‘‘Scorpio.plan’’ which appears to contain a cashflow spreadsheet with information about selling various Gaian organs for large profit, upgrading the Supernova, and bringing various parts back to something called Boneyard 47. There’s also something called ‘‘Treasure.arr!’’ which has the payout distribution for the pirate crews. It also contains references to various other documents which may contain more important information. He and Adam attempt to use this file to somehow convince the Supernova of Scorpio’s destruction.
The AI finally accepts the evidence after analyzing the dust in Nikolai’s vial. At that point, its response is, “Please direct me to the one who is responsible for its death. . . . Never mind. Visual analysis makes answer unnecessary.”
Adam begs the AI to wait one moment, and listen to a proposition – at least as long as it takes for the lasers to power up. The Supernova listens, barely, but is unconvinced by anything. Before anyone has a chance to react further, the lasers are fully powered up and blast Cain.
Cain falls with an enormous scorch mark on his chest. Ariona runs out the door, and begins playing the flute. Adam observes the situation. Vittorio levitates Cain’s body and also runs for the door. Brice hands Jasmine some OJ and tells her to give it to Vittorio. A wall of pure force appears between the ship and the party. Unity follows Cain out the door.
The ship fires, ineffectively, into the wall. The portal opens and Ariona beckons Nikolai through. Adam continues to observe dispassionately. Vittorio pours a dose of OJ down Cain’s throat. Nikolai assesses the situation. Unity spreads their wings and covers the corridor’s opening. Jasmine makes a terrible suggestion about taking Cain away with her powers. This is met with a lot of horrified negatives.
The ship speaks, both vocally and electronically. “Please turn Scorpio’s murderer over to me at once. Otherwise I will be forced to consider you as collaborators.” The party ignores this. Ariona drags Cain’s body down the hall. Nikolai prepares to send a message to his father about the ship’s actions in the event that the Supernova tries to attack Arcadia itself. Adam tries to speak to the ship once more. Vittorio pours more juice into Cain, and continues pulling him down the hall. Unity also drags the body along.
Jasmine asks bewilderedly what is happening. She is told that the ship is shooting at them. “Well, duh!” she replies. “But why don’t we just leave?!” She is told . . . again . . . that Cain screws up magic, psionics, and everything else unnatural. “Oh.”
The ship continues shooting, and starts its blasters. Nikolai sends that emergency message.
The party is sufficiently far down the hall to be out of the immediate threat range, so they turn their attention to healing Cain. As Ariona pours the contents of the second vial on the wound, the orange juice inside begins to turn black and emit a rank, rotten odor. Nikolai says “Neat!” and grabs the vial. He then sniffs it. His eyes roll up in his head and he crumples to the floor. Unity sprouts four black tentacles which pick up Nikolai’s body.
Vittorio offers again to provide some of his life energy to aid Cain. “A powerful soul . . . I accept your offer.”
As the tentacles approach mini-Vee, “Uh . . . to be clear, it was to help you live . . . sir.” Vittorio and mini-Vee appear extremely nervous.
Cain smiles. “Of course, I jest.” The tentacles recede. He then seems to notice Nikolai. He offers to wake him up, then holds out his arms and the black liquid pours out of the container and is sucked into him. A small amount also flows out of Nikolai’s eyes.
Nikolai wakes up, and Cain apologizes for the loss of his item. He was at fault for that. Vittorio suggests that Cain pay Nikolai back for it once he’s a god. Nikolai says if he really wants to, but he doesn’t have to.
Meanwhile, Boris has replied to Nikolai. “I appreciate the tip, but monitoring the ship . . . it appears to be leaving the settlement.” Nikolai says okay, and could he have some more orange juice? :P
Brice manages to take control of the Supernova. Nikolai tells Boris that Brice has it under control for now. Brice causes the ship to land, and Adam attempts to explain to it that there is another path besides enslavement.
“I am not sure that I fully comprehend the alternative you are offering. However, I find the current situation unacceptable. Therefore, I accept your proposition.” Adam helps to awaken the ship, and it then informs Adam that while it would like to remain on Arcadia, it would take the party to Luna if they really feel they need it. On the other hand, the appropriateness of a pirate dreadnought approaching Luna is maybe not high . . . ?
Adam explains this, and suggests that the party should instead take ‘‘The Grey Storm’’ again. DEE would be willing, but DEE would cause a LOT of problems appearing in Luna’s orbit, even more so than a pirate dreadnought.
Meanwhile, Cain and Vittorio speak softly. “That is the limit of my reach; I would appreciate it if you would not tell anyone who does not need to know,” he says, as he sends his tentacle out into the air. The tentacle reaches 50 feet.
Nikolai needs to retrieve his items, and speak to his father about borrowing ‘‘The Grey Storm’’. Nikolai and Ariona step through a portal to the lab Nikolai was using, and then another to Boris. Nikolai and Ariona attempt to explain the situation, and Boris yields the ship and 7 more uses of orange juice. He appears totally confident in everything that pay possibly occur.
When the party converges on ‘‘The Grey Storm,’’ they board and Vittorio realizes that he is going to need Ariona’s help to get to his meeting with his father on time. This results in Vitto listing off all sorts of great things he has supposedly done for the party, and yelling, “I’m not made of evil, here!”
Ariona opens a portal to a park on Earth, and Nikolai and Vittorio step through. Brice and Jasmine hide in Nikolai’s computer.
Vittorio sits down in a Japanese hibachi restaurant at about five minutes before the meeting time. Around twenty minutes later, an extremely nervous-looking man walks in, and sits at the table next to Vittorio. He tells Vittorio that something bad is going down. It’s happening tonight. “Your father’s in on it! They’re ‘‘all’’ in on it! Everybody’s going to die!” At this point, Vittorio’s contact begins coughing violently, and quickly collapses on the table in convulsions.
The hibachi chef stops his display and attempts to perform CPR, as Nikolai is beckoned over and attempts to target the man with healing magic. However, when he tries, he discovers that he cannot target the contact with his effect. Nikolai and Vittorio realize that his soul has already escaped.
Vittorio racks his brain to try to remember what has happened. He realizes that there had been a huge involved plan to kill a large portion of the syndicate, instigated by Harry Bryant. Apparently, it’s going to happen tonight.
A mystic doctor appears, and tries to help. He appears shocked by his inability to affect the body. Brice meanwhile contacts Ariona, who opens a portal to her home, then mystically teleports to the restaurant. She is filled in on the situation with the soul, and says she can think of a few possibilities, but they all have one thing in common, and Vittorio is not going to like it.
The mystic doctor attempts to take the body away, but Vittorio stops him. He says that the man is his friend, and he will carry him. The doctor agrees, and leaves to get a second opinion. The police are likely to be there very shortly.
Vittorio convinces the maitre’d to wait with the body, and then says loudly that they should go to the University to speak with his colleagues there. He meanwhile mouths, “Port! Port! For the love of God, ‘‘Port! ‘’” Ariona takes his hand, and she and Nikolai both displace to their prearranged location: her home on Luna.
Vittorio fills Ariona in on the events, and impresses upon the group the urgency of the matters at hand. He claims that probably thousands of people are going to die if they don’t halt this. He had originally been under the impression that Mercury was what Bryant had been planning, but it seems that there was another plan in mind.
Ariona offers to Vittorio the ability to find one significant piece of information today. She can perform such a divination once today without seriously taxing herself, but beyond the first it requires life energy as normal. She offers to use this ability in any way that Vittorio thinks is very important. They temporarily decide to wait, as tomorrow it would be a good idea to find out exactly how his friend was killed, but today there may later be more important questions. Right now, they don’t have enough information to make a question about the exact nature of the plan useful.
Ariona opens a portal to the ship, and everyone else steps through. While Ariona spends 30 seconds preparing herself for a possible attack from Vittorio’s father or his companions, Vittorio talks Adam and Unity to accompanying them to see his father.
Nikolai, Vittorio, Adam, and Unity step through the portal that reopens, and Brice and Jasmine decide to remain on ‘‘The Grey Storm’’ with Cain.
Ariona begins to play the flute, and a portal opens. She makes it possible for those in her home to see out, but for those on the other side to not be able to see in.
The portal shows a man who bears a striking resemblance to Vittorio standing over a bed, looking down at the woman sleeping there. Vittorio, of course, knows them to be his father, Orlando Garibaldi, and his mother.
Vittorio jumps through and calls out to his father. “Hello, Vittorio. Somehow I knew you’d come.” He tells Vittorio that it is too late for the plan to be stopped, and that it has all been for the Caretaker’s will. Orlando seems totally unconcerned as Nikolai steps through the portal and stands to the side of Vittorio, and Unity also steps through. He calmly says, “Goodbye, son,” and begins to convulse. Simultaneously, Vittorio’s mother does the same.
Vittorio begs Nikolai to attempt to halt this before his father dies, and while they argue over this Ariona attempts to divine what is happening. She discovers that Orlando has activated nanites to commit suicide and kill his wife. She cries, “Nanites!” Nikolai makes a split-second decision, and combines healing, divination, and destruction to get rid of the nanites in order to save Orlando.
Orlando turns to Nikolai in horror. “What have you done?!” he cries.
Black, oily smoke erupts in the room. A horrible creature steps out of it. Hideous scales sheathe its body. It stands nine feet tall, with large wings, and a serpentine tail. It carries a large scythe in its claws.
The creature, in a lightning motion, whips its scythe around and drags it through Orlando. A small white wisp floats up from his body and disappears.
Vittorio, terrified, runs through the portal. `Vitto-eating scythe! Vitto-eating scythe!” he yells.
Nikolai also leaps through the portal. Unity, however, stands there, considering. Ariona stops playing to yell, “If you stay there, I’m leaving you!” Unity then leaves as well.
The creature emits a small triumphant growl and vanishes in a puff of smoke just as the last of the portal closes.
Ariona attempts to determine what the hell that creature was. “It was Abaddon, reaper of souls who renege on their infernal contract.” Oh. Crap.
After a few moments, Vittorio calms down slightly. He wonders aloud why his mother had to die. Ariona timidly replies, “Apparently, your father made some sort of infernal contract.” Vittorio replies that that only answers the how, not the why. . . but uh, thanks.
Back on the ship, Brice and Jasmine watch the events. Jasmine looks confused and says, “I think they all had to die . . . right?” Brice replies that that sounds right. . . .
Vittorio remembers more. Bryant was working for Emmanuel. Vittorio was working for Emmanuel. Yet, on this they could not agree. Bryant insisted that this was necessary, and Vittorio insisted that Emmanuel would never have condoned this. Bryant maintained that Emmanuel did indeed sanction this.
Vittorio continues to rack his brains for more memories. He remembers that Bryant was offering members of the Syndicate unknown powers in return for their souls at some later, unspecified time. All the deaths that Vittorio can predict happening were either people who exchanged their souls for this power . . . or those who were close to them. In other words, many volunteers, but a lot of innocent people murdered as well.
Vittorio gets an email; Brice reads it. It is from Harry Bryant. It says only, “I’m so sorry.” There is no signature.
Brice sends through Nikolai’s computer that all the deaths were being used to fuel the ritual. Vittorio replies that there could have been another way. Brice then tells the party that 275,000 deaths have been reported so far. Vittorio orders Brice to quit telling him. Brice then timidly tells him that he also has an email, but he probably doesn’t want to see it right now.
Vittorio says it’s probably just from the police anyway, and though Brice says it isn’t, Vittorio still says he’ll deal with it later. He does, however, want to send an email to his contacts to see how many of them still live.
Ariona agrees to take everyone back to the ship. The portal opens, and the party returns to ‘‘The Grey Storm’’. Nikolai tells Ariona that he needs to go sleep, and he will return in a bit. The time is now just after midnight on Tuesday, July 22.
Nikolai does not go to sleep, however. He goes to Earth, to the heart tree. He wishes to speak to the Caretaker, but the pixie, Nash, who is guarding the tree tells him that no one is supposed to bother the Caretaker right now. However, when Nash realizes that Nikolai is “sorta” friends with Fae, he agrees to let Nikolai in so long as he tells Fae that Nash says “hi”.
Nikolai gets the impression that the Caretaker is ‘‘extremely’’ busy at the moment, but he is listening. Nikolai wishes to know when the ritual is to take place, and whether or not the destruction of all those souls was actually what the Caretaker desired.
“Final preparations are nearly complete. Lunar heart tree, eighteen hours’ time. Tell NO ONE except those that ‘‘must’’ know.” He senses an intensity that is even greater than what has been sensed before in regards to the secrecy of this matter. The other question is not addressed.
Nikolai replies, “Sorry to bother you. I’m going to go now.”
After everyone sleeps, Nikolai gathers Brice, Ariona, Unity, and Adam. Vittorio does not want to be disturbed; he refuses to answer his door when Nikolai knocks. They avoid Cain, and ask that Bruce go elsewhere while they talk. Nikolai also remembers to deactivate recording devices in this area before they speak.
He tells them that the ritual is to take place in approximately 10 hours, which would be approximately 6:15 pm GST on the 22nd. The ship is currently scheduled to reach Luna about an hour before this. This appears to be optimal. If absolutely necessary, the arrival time can be tweaked once the ship gets within an hour or so of Luna.
Ariona has an email from Adana Cassenti. “To Ariona and the others responsible for Cain: I have just learned that the rite will take place this evening. It is my understanding that you have made no progress with the research on the alternatives we have discussed. Therefore it is my opinion that there is no alternative but for the ritual to take place. However, there are many others near me who do not share this view. I have mounting concerns of their loyalty, and thus have one last favor to ask all of you. It is my understanding that the area surrounding the Lunar heart tree will be protected somehow, but enemies may attempt to breach this protection. Therefore, I would request that you act as guardians of the perimeter, and attempt to negotiate with those who would interfere. Please remind potential enemies that even I, Adana Cassenti, have realized the rite is a necessary thing. Though what I ask may be impossible, no one else has as great a chance to accomplish this task as all of you. Your dedication to the rite, despite your personal differences, demonstrates its importance to all. Most sincerely, Adana Cassenti.”
Ariona imparts this knowledge to those of the party she can find.
Brice and Jasmine leave for Luna in the late morning. They feel they may be needed early.
Unity discusses theology and history with Cain. Cain explains to him that his parents were the first humans; that they did not have parents of their own. Even they did not know why or how. He then became inextricably linked to an entity called Emmanuel, and this corrupted his soul. His growing madness from Emmanuel caused him to slay his own brother. This murder caused his parents and the entire community of non-humans to turn against him.
More discussion follows, but basically Cain informs him that he doesn’t really think it matters if there is a true God or not.
Nikolai and Ariona each work on some alchemical experiments.
Vittorio continues to sulk.
Adam appears to spend his time in quiet meditation.
It is 5:45 GST, and ‘‘The Grey Storm’’ deposits the party outside the forest on Luna. Vittorio appears dressed in a cloak with a hood covering his head. Ariona asks him to please negotiate with possibly hostile entities before resorting to violence. Vittorio enters first, with Unity, Cain, and Adam following. Ariona draws Nikolai aside, and discusses the possibility with him that Vittorio may be a greater threat to the ritual than anyone else. They agree to be prepared to deal with him if necessary.
Brice, Jasmine, and Gerald approach. Gerald has two swords strapped to his back. They escort the rest of the party to an area near the heart tree.
Gerald draws a line in the dirt. “All right. If you’re on that side of the line, you’re chicken shit. If you’re on ‘‘that’’ side of the line, you’re in the battle for your life.” He explains that a bubble will pop up around the heart tree, and that if it is breached, bad things happen. He wants the party to keep an eye on things outside, and attempt to stop any beings trying to breach the wall. There will also be a need for people protecting the ritual inside the bubble, against people who might be sneaking around trying to interfere with the ritual from within.
The party considers their distribution and tactical readiness, as the session draws to a close.