Thanks to Eva for this session summary.
These session notes are from Rae’s perspective, and are originally from [http://www.digitalchangeling.com/gaming/session_notes/deus/060617.html].
Session started at 2:33 pm on 6/17/06
Attending players: Every single player! (All three parties of us!)
Presiding GM: Curtis
We are at the end of time. Noun just had to open his big mouth.
We are floating in a white space (the astral plane). I find that I can fly, though there is no air to press against. There are a multitude of other people and creatures here. Some of them I recognize and some not.
There is a brilliant light at the center of this place. I do not know what to name it. It seems more essential and central to all things than I could have imagined. When I am able to turn away from the light I realize that there is a vast blight here as well. I think it may be the Beast.
Time and space do not mean the same thing here. I feel a great fundamental understanding of how reality it self works. Noun claimed to understand all along and I am not sure how he stayed sane.
The universe itself is telling me the story of its birth somehow. In a galaxy somewhere far away there was another people, so far alien from us that I can scarce understand them. They were greatly advanced and curious about the nature of life. They thrived on mystic energy, but the energy of backlash rather than the energy we know. A creature threatened their world and they developed a plan to trap it and save themselves. They caught it in a black hole in the center of their galaxy and channeled backlash into it. The black hole was able to absorb the energy so quickly that it became infused the way that our worlds do with mystic energy. Their plan worked, but not as they expected. The black hole exploded in a great ultra-nova and it destroyed their entire galaxy and all the creatures who lived in it.
Our universe was formed out of the remnants of this destruction. It is linked to their universe some how. The destruction of the Antiverse formed our universe and in some way we are a pale shadow of it and yet greater in our own way. The mystic energy from the initial explosion, the big bang as the humans call it, spread across the whole universe and it gathered on some worlds, including earth.
Unfortunately the essence of the beings from the Antiverse did not go quietly into oblivion. They fought against their deaths and in their anger and pain together they formed the Void. It is all their terror; all their hate. It wants to devour the universe itself and the great light at the center of things is its target. If it can it will take the light and everything will be ended, our Universe and the remnants of theirs.
I feel that there are forces working in the people around me that are not wholly of either universe. Perhaps we could find some other end for the story. It is hard to know. The many dimensions of time roll out before me and I try to understand the myriad paths that we could take.
I can see that the very event that brought us here was not meant to be. Somehow it was outside of the track that destiny was meant to take.
Millions of years ago the Void came for Gaia, and her children. The dragons lived on her then, but my anchient ancestors could not protect her by staying there. They constructed Glaurung, formed from a fragment of Gaia. The process formed the moon and the asteroid belt as well. The five percent of all the dragons who survived the process fled on Glaurung and they got the Void to follow them away, saving Gaia. They could not protect Gaia entirely, the Void dealt her a great blow before it followed Glaurung.
Still recovering Gaia created the elves, dwarves and gnomes, pale shadows of her first children.
An asteroid crashed into Gaia with some of the while substance on it. Their planet had been taken by the destroyer but a little bit of their spoor escaped. With little understanding of the events that had taken their world they formed a religion which praised the Void as the Peacemaker and reviled mystic energy. They made it their mission to wipe out all sources of the mystic energy. When they landed on Earth they tried to create a great weapon to destroy the potential for magic on the world. They created a viral seed which could infect humans and other creatures and cause them not to have the potential to use magical energy. They planned to spread this virus across the entire earth.
In about 6000BC they felt something coming. Their weapon was not complete, but they feared that the Peacemaker would appear too soon and destroy them and the earth as well. They were mistaken, it was Emanuel who had come to the world. He was a great being who lived on the astral plane. He came from the Antiverse, but he had left on a scientific mission of inquiry and had not been killed in the great explosion. He returned to find his people slain. In the hope of discovering how this had come to be, he began to try to understand the universe that had replaced his home. Eventually he found Earth and wanted to learn more about the races that lived upon it. He came to earth and infested the life force of Gaia and her creatures in an attempt to understand them.
At first no one knew he was there. Gaia could not see him and meanwhile humans were spreading across the earth like a cancer. They caused great strife and pain across the world. Emanuel though that this turmoil needed to stop so he created a mythology and he came to them, presenting himself as a god. He tried to get the humans to live a less violent existence. But only a few people believed him and many continued on their warful paths. When people died Emanuel took their souls and consumed them to understand their memories. He presented his avatar with a more peaceful message to try again.
This brought the backlash situation to a crisis.
The humans desperate to quell the strikes of backlash against them, began constructing an obelisk which would seal away all magic from the world. The elven race race protested. They need magic to survive, but their cries fell on deaf ears. The humans, who had little respect for the elves to begin with, finished their seal. Magic faded from the world, the elves withered and died, and Gaia fell into a deep sleep.
Two thousand years later magic began to reawaken and there was a great crisis in the world of man. Magic was unsealed and Gaia and Emmanuel together became the Caretaker to save the world from the forces of his backlash. The old races of earth reappeared in common life and the world was greatly changed, but not destroyed.
For three hundred and fifty years Earth was in a great age of change. But the Caretaker was far more powerful than Gaia or Emanuel alone and the Void began to scent at its heals once again.
When I came to Percepie, I tipped the scale and it followed me back to the human worlds. It took Percepie, and though it followed Glaurung away, it remembered the humans and it instinctually wanted to return and wipe out the remnants of Gaia. Destiny began to take more and more of an effect on this part of the universe. It reached out and touched several people and made them psyons. A part of the divine grammar, called Noun broke away from the chaos and ran. A crippled boy was touched by the divine Verb and there were others who where affected by the divine Calculus. The essence that reached Nicolai caused him to leave home and to learn more about the Void. Jasmine, only a girl then, was in a horrifying car accident, but in her panic she drew on some power of cosmic luck that saved her and her family. The karmic balance of her life had to equal out, so many terrible things went wrong after that. The final piece was the influence these forces had on the ocultem lapidem. It caused the great accident of Mercury, but now it is reformed in Max.
Some how all the rest of us are tied up in this as well, though I do not know quite how. There is some greater force at work here; I can see its effects but not its face. Perhaps I will be able to learn its name before this is all over.
The moment of silence is ending and soon it will all begin to move again. I can feel that the former king of hell, the great red creature is here as well. He has some plan he is about to begin. I can sense his intentions coalescing. The Caretaker, Lillith, and Glaurung are here as well. He has seen them. Ares, the spirit of Mars is here. I recognize him, though I have never seen him before.
I try to take in all the people around me. (Curtis describes everyone’s characters.)
Jasmine is here. There is an intensity in her that I have never felt before. Something about the understanding is pulling her mind down into turmoil. She now understands why all the terrible things in her life came to be. She knows that she had an opportunity to stop destiny once and for all, but she can see that what she tried was just playing into everything that was already meant to be. It has broken her somehow, she is going to try to go further, to destroy everything in a great big fuck you to the rest of reality. We will have to stop her. She is going to take Brice into the Void and try to do something that may annihilate everything. If she succeeds it will be as if none of this, our Universe or the Antiverse, ever was.
I can feel all of their motivations and intentions and know that they can sense mine.
Asmodeaus is going to try something before we can form any plan.
The Destroyer is straining towards the center, ready to destroy everything. Nothing will be or will have ever been.
The great light, the Destiny force, does not wish to be devoured so it may try to influence us and let us reach back through time for aid. We can reach objects or knowledge from all of time in order to fight against the Destroyer. (Each will be a standard action with an intelligence check.)
(The GM’s words of warning: That which has been your staunch ally may not serve you in this place as faithfully. Each of the three tasks before you is critically important. If any one ends in failure you will all end in FAILURE.)
Ares will pursue Jasmine. The Caretaker, Lillith, and Glaurung will try to protect the Destiny force. In particular Lillith and Glaurung were created to oppose the Destroyer and so they will do. The Caretaker is taking more things into account and it plans to react to Asmodeus as well. There is a feeling from it of "come and do what must be done." I do not know what it means. Asmodeus does not seem to understand its scrutiny.
I concentrate on the places of the legendary things as we left the world we knew. The weapon, Gerald has. The crown Xella has. The body part was Max’s arm, but now it is Max. The instrument Alex’s character has. The ambrosia has not reappeared. The obelisk is a bag that Noun has. The shroud was a cloak possessed by Huntington, but on his arrest it was taken by Xella.
Somehow we are connected to every point of reality, so it is possible that we could return to our times, if we can stop the annihilation of everything.
(A soul is a piece of Gaia’s essence.)
(People ask Curtis a number of clarifying questions.)
"It is fated that everything happens at once." ~ Curtis using a destiny token
The moment of silence ends and the more powerful entities act more quickly than I can react. The Caretaker reaches back through time with the help of the Destiny force and brings back the archway. I realize that any of us could attempt to bring back things in this way. Asmodeious brandishing a ruby red rod springs into action and summons a pit fiend. He say, "Those loyal, defend me."
Glaurung, Lillith and the Caretaker begin channeling energy into the archway. A huge shield of force begins to form between the Destroyer and the Destiny force. The destroyer pulses and churns. A piece of it breaks off and it shoots towards Glaurung, Lillith and the archway, but the rest is still lurching forward and trying to get through the shield. This bit of the Destroyer is now a Phane. Jasmine grabs Brice’s broken body and leaps into the Void.
(We have our choice of taking part in the Asmodeus vs Caretaker, the Glaurung and Lillith vs the Destroyer, or the Destroyer vs Destiny & Eddie.)
I am going to try to help Glaurung and Luna. As long as they can hold the arch, Destiny has some chance. Most peoples’ intentions have coalesced and they are trying to alter one of the three battles.
("I’m going to say three people per tentacle." ~ Curtis, about Nicolai’s ability to carry people)
Before I dive toward the conflict at the archway, I try to summon the crown, but it is too powerful and I can’t get a hold of it.
There are others who are coming to this fight as well. V, formerly known ask Vitto is one. Matt is following me. The pixie, Fey is be-lining for Lillith as well, and the soul mech, Ridge is following. They all intend to help Glaurung and Lillith so we try to fence intentions until we have a plan. It seems like I will try to find out more about the Phane while the others try to counter it physically. Ridge has a rather powerful spaceship she has summoned, called the Obsidian Tekknokon, so that should be helpful.
(We split off into three smaller groups to deal with each of the three tasks.)
Also, Zee-Lung has managed to call Shen-Lung and sent him to help us protect Glaurung. I will try to talk to Shen-Lung and help to organize our efforts with him. I don’t know if he can see the others intentions as I can. (OOC I know that he can get the information if he concentrates, but he didn’t get the initial dump of information.)
Before I can do more than turn towards them I hear Lillith and Glaurung in my mind tell us that they are here to protect the Destiny force and they can grant us some boons but this is our fight. Any boons they grant will distract them from creating the shield.
(We have a pool of their work to create the shield. We can use these tokens to increase any roll or stat by +20 for one round as a free action or re-rolling any one roll, but that means it’s not going to the shield. We can do each of these effects once per round. There are 30 counters to start with. We’ll have to figure out exactly how they do or don’t regenerate.)
A smaller version of Glaurung spawns near the Phane. A bolt of darkness flies from the Phane and hits the archway, damaging it. Not so good.
Ridge’s ship maneuvers to between the Phane and the archway.
I try to draw out knowledge of how the Phane can be hurt. I can tell that it has some resistances, but not what they are.
The duplicate of Glaurung begins casting and I recognize it as a fireball centered on the archway. It can’t hurt the archway, but it will hit all of us. I manage to dive out of the way, but he fires another immediately and it hits me full in the chest. Where I would have expected it to incinerate me it is only extremely painful. I find myself bruised and battered but awake and alive.
I feel Shen-Lung establish a mental link with me and I try to explain to him what is happening. I feel something pressing in on me with time magic and I try desperately to mentally pull my self out. I have to tap on the shield energy to make it, but I am able, barely.
The Phane attacks the ship with another bolt of darkness. The ship shakes and it scratches at the hull when the bolt hits, but it seems mostly unfazed.
(Meanwhile the devil is beating on the Caretaker and we lose four more tokens.)
The inside of the ship is frozen in time so neither it nor Ridge can act.
I try to draw out knowledge of how to harm the mini-Glaurung. He is resistant to damage and especially fire.
The mini-Glaurung is casting time stop now. I don’t think anyone can stop him.
When time resumes, mini-Glaurung has disappeared.
V has disappeared inside of Matt. He is inhabiting him. Matt has moved to far away so I don’t have a good idea of where he is.
(He hits the Phane but does not hurt it.)
(V is able to hurt it with magical damage and special abilities.)
(Fey casts a pyro [electric] and destruction effect at the Phane, but fails to defeat it’s SR with a roll of 30.)
The Phane disappears. I hear a voice from Lillith and Glaurung say, "They are by the arch."
Ridge uses the forces of the shield to to break herself and her ship out of the time-freeze.
(She gets Jason’s character’s message and they mentally talk about the possibility to teleport Asmodeus far away.)
Ridge’s ship buzzes by and sets a mine which explodes in a huge shuttering ripple of gravidic explosion. The Phane disappears.
Shen-Lung creates a steel shield around the archway.
A delayed blast fire ball goes off and two more go off, all coming from mini-Glaurung. The archway is melting.
(Ivan teleports Matt to the archway and they heal it. Fey moves next to the arch and uses creation and enhancement to heal it as well.)
(We use our destiny token to insure that the forces protecting the Destiny force are able to maintain the shield and protect the destiny force.)
We all have to resist the time stop effect (except for V), but at a desperately painful cost to the shield.
Two bolts fly from the Phane and strike the arch. The arch falls and the shield begins to fade. I can hear Eddie’s screams. He gets out "I’m sorry Ma-". Glaurung surges huge and he says, "No, this shall not be!" He vanishes and the shield reappears.
I hear Lillith’s voice, "The shield is now weaker because Glaurung is not helping me, be warned."
Ridge explodes another mine and the Phane screams in anguish.
The mini-Glaurung screams by us and both Zee-Lung and I are caught in a prismatic breath spray. I’m hit with the insanity spell. Then he breaths again. I get hit with poison and the world fades away…
(I take a walk to calm down. Meanwhile they are able to kill the Phane with another gravidic mine.)
(Shen-Lung tries to recall the archway from a different time and it appears.)
(A number of things happen all at once. The destroyer notices that its avatar is gone. All a sudden there is another one, but this seems to weaken the destroyer, at least a tiny bit. Unfortunately it is still successfully eating the shield, it is just slower. A green aura surrounds Lillith and Rae rises with full hit points.)
I am engulfed in a green light and I feel myself being drawn back to the white place. I open my eyes just in time to see Zee-Lung throw up an enormous pyrotechnics shield around the archway.
The Phane casts time-stop on itself, but I am unable to tell what it did during it.
Ridge tries to plant a mine on the Phane, but it slips out of the way (with a prepared action). Sable manages to plant a mine that hits it, and takes most of the brunt of the blast.
Zee-Lung throws up two shields with the archway. He lays his hands on the archway and begins channeling all of his great stores of magic into the shield.
(Eric uses his destiny token to stop Ridge’s ship from moving.)
The Obsidian Tekknokon’s engines malfunction so it is stranded 1500’ away from us.
The shields that were around the archway fall.
Shen-Lung throws up another shield around the archway and closes on the mini-Glaurung.
I try to shrug off the effects of the time freeze, but have to draw heavily on the power of the shield.
A bolt of darkness streaks at the force shield around the archway but has no effect. The Phane is preparing to act again, but Ridge and Sable teleport two mines on him. The explosion obliterates the Phane.
I prepare to try to counter the next magical effect that the mini-Glaurung casts.
A fireball goes off inside the forcefield. It must have been a delayed action. The archway seems to be mostly okay.
The mini-Glaurung tries to cast dispel magic. I stop it with a blast of destruction. It tries to cast again, but Shen-Lung bites at him trying to break his concentration. Unfortunately it maintains its spell and the wall of force falls.
The destroyer is still eating away at the field and the Phane reappears. Another mine goes off on it, but it dodges out of the way of the worst of the blast.
We get hit by the time freeze affect again and once again I have to draw on the power of the shield. This is not working so well.
Two bolts of darkness streaks towards Zee-Lung. He falls.
Ridge teleported the arch to the other side of Lillith and then teleported a mine on to the Phane. It tries to dodge out of the way of the mine but it dies anyway. The mini-Glaurung vanishes when the Phane dies.
(It is ret-conned that Shen-Lung got his action when he was supposed to and closed in to magically heal and stabilize Zee-Lung.)
Fey throws up a pyro-shield around the archway.
The Destroyer takes a bite out of the weakened shield and it devours Glaurung. I hear him say, "You must stop the destroy-"
Lillith drops to her knees, crying and desperately trying to hold the shield.
I heal Zee and have to struggle to heal him a second time before he is able to stand. He is still perilously close to passing out again.
(Kelsey uses his destiny token to insure that the shield stays down.)
The Destroyer begins to surge towards the Destiny force.
I make a final attempt to draw the crown and fails. Zee-Lung tries to draw the crown and fails.
Matt teleports in front of the Destroyer. At the beginning of the round a force ports Matt away (he hears a voice in his mind saying, "It is not your time").
The Destroyer grasps the Destiny force and begins to consume it. Emanuel interposes himself between the Destiny force and the Destroyer. The mystic energy that it sucks is being channeled through Emanuel and turned into pure backlash.
The people who jumped into the void pursuing Jasmine are expelled violently. Brice’s crippled body falls out as well though Noun is absent. Brice’s body grows in size and the Destroyer is being shaken off of the Destiny force and pulled into the portal. And just like that it is sucked into the portal and the portal closes. Emanuel is gone as well.
The end point of the portal was moved while it was in the void. It was pushed to a nearby galaxy and back through time. We know now that the circle is complete. What Emanuel did has resulted in the Destroyer’s transformation. In that nearby galaxy there is an explosion which ends the threat and transforms the sea of shards into the Antiverse.
It is hard to take in all the comprehension of the events, but when I recover I am still here.
Lillith knew. If she had been split, Cane could have dulled the blow and saved Emanuel’s life. But she could not forgive him for what he had forced her to become.
The Destiny force, the part that was once Noun, shoots out streams of light and grabs Nicolai. It pulls him into the light and he is gone.
End of Session