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===A Seasonal Tale=== Well we got the gang back together over Christmas/New Year with a bit of Skype meaning there's now another story. Would /tg/ still care to hear it? :>I thought you were all (mostly) dead? We are. With a healthy dose of MST3K mantra and by dint of this episode being set between two earlier ones, we can get away with it. Additionally this adventure happened over the festive season and was a sort of group reunion. :>When are we? Somewhere after the discovery of Martians at the north pole and before our trip to Egypt (MST3K). :>Where are we? We begin in London as the privy council explain over tea served by Baldrick, the gorilla, that the good ship DunRoamin pulled into Peterhead Harbour last Tuesday. This is met with an almost unanimous :"And?" Aside from Angus, who is picking his nose and simultaneously rolling a cigarette, and Cruella, who has taken a shine to a carriage clock on the mantelpiece and is considering larceny. :Blackadder explains "and the DunRoamin was thought lost at sea two years ago. Wreckage was found. Even some bodies. The 'crew' have no knowledge of the last twenty six months, the cargo of Spanish Oranges are still fresh. The last thing any of them remember is the Northern lights around Cruden Bay. We (the Privy Council) have had the crew quarantined. We suggest (meaning order on pain of death) you find out what is going on. Additionally, some of the local sheep have been (Angus perks up) going missing and returning in fractions. Do find out what's going on?" Blackadder also mentions a number of other missing ships, ones which were assumed lost to alchemists/sea monsters/necromancery. Given that good King Algernon has already (mostly unknowingly) put up and dedicated a number of monuments, it'd be far too confusing for the old duffer to dedicate them. Additionally wherever that ship has been, we want to know. So we find ourselves on the sleeper train to Peterhead. Having "snuck" (punched out the guard - cheers Navvie) our way into first class (where they wash the chickens you share the carriage with first) we are smoking and enjoying one of Angus's home distilled whiskies. To our surprise it tastes nothing like whiskey but also doesn't make you go blind. The surroundings, company, and drink being convivial, the party start to relax, finding their feet as their characters again, old arguments are resurrected and players get in character. As the Wizard and Navvie speculate on what the disappearance could mean, Angus and Cruella snipe at each other over whether Brown or tomato sauce is more of an insult to food while interjecting every so often. The consensus is that it's something to do with time travel, the bard dissenting because obviously it's whales. When pressed further all he says is "fuck whales." The party are finding their feet again reasonably quickly. The train journey passes quickly. The issue is that the DM is also finding his feet again. Cruella it appears has actually acquired the carriage clock and is inordinately pleased with it. We start properly in Cruden Bay, a small fishing village. We kind of expect everyone to be missing, we expect things to be not as they should be. Instead, and for once, everything seems fine. In fact the village seems more than fine, they're having a party. The group are quite content to get involved but the Wizard reminds us we are here to do a job. We make our way (nearly losing Angus and the Navvie to a bar) to Cruden Bay's one and only jail, where apparently the crew of the DunRoamin have been quarantined. The twelve crew seem altogether normal, if a little lost, you would be too if you'd lost a couple years inexplicably. They don't seem as though they've been at sea for two years. No Rime of The Ancient Mariner stuff here. Talking to them brings us almost nothing new in the way of knowledge. :DM: "The 14 men in the gaol seem perfectly, completely, and utterly normal." The fete outside seems to pick up a little in noise and cheer. :>12 crew on the boat. :>14. men in the gaol. Fuck. Problem solving has never been one of our finer points. We have the crew list and cargo manifest. We know damn well that there's only meant to be 12 people on that boat. The first idea we managed was taking them out one by one and asking them who was on the boat with them, and to describe them. It seems spending what may or may not have been two years on a boat with someone gives you a very poor recollection of what they look like. Each crewman can vaguely describe maybe two or three others. There's enough overlap and amnesia that no one can definitely be pointed to as an impostor. There's definitely not going to be a nice reason for there being two extras. The party form a small huddle. The crew being returned to the cell. These people (or "people") are amnesiacs and most don't seem to even remember their own names let alone each others. They all came off the boat though... :Wizard: "Clearly they're all impostors. It's definitely the only sensible thing. Bodies were found remember?" :Cruella: "Shoot the lot." :Angus: "How do we know?" :Bard: "We can't know, we can't leave them here either." The fuck are we going to do with this lot? We've all seen the thing. We also aren't tempted to pick one at random and start slicing. Someone has the not too bad idea, that if we're in this situation, and maybe, just maybe, there's some extras in there, we could try asking them things from before the voyage. The Wizard is from near this area. He starts asking each of the crew about the football team, "Aberdeen United." Most have never heard of it. Some have, enthusiastically so. Aberdeen United don't exist. Of course, while football (soccer to my burger-bros) is a big thing in Scotland, not having heard of Aberdeen FC isn't quite a death sentence, as much as some people I know might disagree. The questioning continues. We ask each individually about other things, things like how the winter was three years ago (most agree that it was pretty bad - it was), and whether Tunnocks Tea Cakes should be fried or baked (most think either is insane). We are slowly starting to get a feel that three identifiable folk are a bit weird. That's one too many. Possibly one is just a berk. On the other hand, well, we have no idea what to expect and fuck it, double blind trials and that sort of thing aren't our strong point. The Bard has been fairly quiet through all this. He's started to notice that most of them move pretty damn slowly. As though drugged or nearly blackout drunk. With the sort of exaggerated care of a man trying to unlock the front door at four in the morning with seventeen pints sloshing about in him and trying not to wake his wife. We've narrowed things down (we think) to three. We take those three to a separate room. Outside the carnival or fete is reaching fever pitch. We tie each of the three to a chair. For ease of reference, I'll number them, 1-3. The Wizard has had an idea. :"I'm going to tell you a joke: Two lads in a pub, one says to the other 'Your round Jock' the other says 'So are you, ya wee fat bastard.'" 1 clearly doesn't get it. Two laughs uproariously. Three looks amused. The wizard shoots number 2. :"Even I know I'm not funny." It's about this point that several things happen at once. Truth be told we were kind of expecting someone to explode into a mass of mouths and tentacles. We definitely were not planning on #2 being instead of a corpse on a chair, just an empty chair with rope tied round it. As though we had tightly bound rope to the back of the chair without anyone actually being there. The bullet can clearly be seen having dug a hole in the wood of it. #3 is similarly gone as though he hadn't been there. As we are coming to grips with this. The fete outside seems to involve an awful lot of screaming. 1 appears terrified. :"Why did you people tie me up then shoot an empty chair?" We will come to terms with whatever that means shortly. Angus has been looking out the small, barred window. Several townsfolk have just been snatched, dismembered, and dragged off by something large, tentacley, and coming from the sea. The rest of the partying folks seem oblivious. We can still hear music and dancing. Now we really think about it, the last local festive day was two days ago. The townsfolk definitely look as though they've been dancing since then... We breezed into the gaol/police station thinking the lack of staff was just festive, the keys and jail had been easy enough to find. The snoring, passed out and very drunk sergeant at the front desk was (we thought) reason enough for the lack of efficiency. There is something very wrong here. The empty chair however presents a very different issue. We all definitely counted 14 crew. We all definitely took three in here. We felt, saw and smelt each of the three we tied up. The wizard can't sense any magic in particular. What the hell is going on. Angus who is still at the window reports that several pterodactyls just flew past. For the avoidance of doubt that is not normal. It seems the townsfolk might be hallucinating or under some sort of ergot poisoning. We might have got a touch of it too even on our short walk through town. We can't just bug out though. There's too much weirdness for us to leave this alone. We decide to return our surviving and definitely tangible crewman to the cells. To his thirteen friends. Oh fuck. We note that it's kind of hard to tell 14 men in uniform with beards apart from each other. Clearly one's the captain and the other is the first mate, but the rest are a bit tricky. Cruella is greatly in favour of burning the lot. We are a bit tempted to now. It's about here that the wizard sees that one of the crew has a hole in his jacket. Just above the sternum. He has one on his back too. Perfect for the entry and exit of a bullet from a revolver. This time I shoot him. He hits the floor about the same time as his friends bare their teeth and give a horrible ululating cry. Skin flakes or sloughs away to scale or chitin. Muscle flows and warps. The whole group like figures made of wax left too close to a flame. They start to flow and slither into each other. Ropes of sinew and intestine slapping and crawling round the bars. Angus still has his flamethrower and by God is it handy here. The rest of the party open fire as well. Our original interrogatee is all that's left shortly afterwards. Lying on the floor with his hands over his head, trembling and (when our ears stop ringing) begging not to be shot. He is lying against the bars, fairly near to us and actually, if he had hit the deck and lain there, could logically have survived. All of his mates have just exploded however. The wizard decides (supported by the rest of us - even the penguin) to stick a harpoon through him. He does what you might expect a perfectly ordinary human to do. Scream a bit and expire. :a perfectly :normal :human Fuck. Did we just? Yup. We just executed a terrified civilian like big damn heroes. We've killed plenty innocent bystanders before but this actually feels worse than usual. Even the Purple Penguin briefly ceases his reverie on the intricacies of axiomatic metaphysics and tits to look disapprovingly on us. As does the DM. We think we just slaughtered our exposition device. So to recap, we don't know what's going on, there's weird Thing type person impersonators, dinosaurs, and the population of Cruden bay are under some form of mass hysteria while being massacred. Also it's Tuesday. We know just what must be done. Angus, as our resident good samaritan, does what he feels is appropriate and makes sure our interrogatee is actually dead. He also takes to opportunity to rifle through his pockets. The man coughs up a lot of blood? It seems a lot darker than it should be, the consistency of treacle, and hacks one word out before finally and definitely dying. :"Merde." We will process that later. There's stuff to do. We make our way out of the gaol - and past the still comatose desk sergeant (who is going to wake up to the worst hangover imaginable). The village is alight, at least one lantern has been knocked over and smoke and sparks colour the scene. Outside the fete has become a nightmarish scene of violence. The exhausted villagers are being grabbed by long white sticky tentacles which can be traced seaward, toward the end of the village square. If anon imagines the villagers dancing in a square then the ones at the western corner are slowly and methodically being stripped of flesh piece-by-piece by the tentacles. They are still very much alive and seemingly unable to take flight, but they get to watch the person up the line from them being skinned. The only ones saved from this fate are women who are dragged off "whole." Emerging into the square and making for those tentacles, they seem to emanate from a couple of vehicles. Like a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathysphere bathysphere] on tracks. With thick diving bell type windows too bright to see within, the tentacles ooze from hatches and ports while the bits of flayed villager are conveyed within. A pterodactyl circles overhead, but doesn't seem to take part in this. How the fuck do you fight a bathysphere and/or bathyscape? More to the point, as we make our way to the villagers we argue, it seems that trying to carry them off one by one isn't likely to work. We are going to have to wreck those things. As we get closer it becomes apparent the cobbles are thick with some sort of transparent and very unpleasant mucus. It reeks of rotten fish. The wizard is our best tin-opener and while Angus tries to create a wall of flame between villagers and Bathys, the rest of us follow him. The Wizard starts to work on a bolt, then another, they slowly (achingly so) start to loosen, he has to concentrate very hard indeed on this task. This leaves Cruella, the Navvie and myself with the tentacles. Up close they can be seen to be covered in horrific looking barbs or bladed suckers. You do not want one of those touching you. As a bolt becomes loose enough it seems the internal pressure of the Bathy fires it like a musket ball (unfortunately into the forehead of another villager - collateral damage though) with this revelation, the bathys very much turn their attention on the Wizard. We do our best to intervene with shot, blade and hammer, but it's going to take time for the wizard to pop those things open. The combat becomes a blur of slashing, shooting and bashing. The fact they are trying to concentrate on the wizard makes the tentacles easier to combat, but they are also happy enough to take a chunk out of us - as the bard who has been generally fucking about in the background learns. He was about to try and play something inspiring, but instead a tentacle has seized his bagpipes. The two wrestle and the struggle between man and pseudopod is evenly matched. Meanwhile bits of villager can be seen being dragged into the bathys. The Wizard is having some success, with three bolts loose now, a panel zings off the lead Bathy. The pressure within causes an ejection of a thick white fluid (shut up whoever is sniggering at the back) and some sort of machinery is revealed within. Angus is able to turn the flamethrower on the tentacles we are fighting, momentarily giving me enough time to get a half dozen slugs into that panel. Smoke and fluid belches and farts from Bathy 1. We might be winning, we might not but we are doing our best. The bard at least has won his struggle - his pipes are, for the time being at least, out of action. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoHxG4-Rh4U Zart - The Tentacles of Doom] have some mood music anyway. The Navvie is usually reasonably well prepared with a couple of blasting charges or some dynamite and decides now is the time for some fireworks. Headbutting the last tentacle near him (losing a decent chunk of his forehead in the process), he primes a charge and hurls it like a shot-put at Bathy 2. He doesn't quite get the charge under the tracks, but it does knock the thing over. It can still slither tentacles about the place, but it's definitely immobile. There are a couple more pterodactyls above us now, and from somewhere nearby thunderous footsteps can be heard. We are slowly closing in on Bathy 1. Bathy 1 does its best, but with Bathy 2 just about out of the fight we close in enough that the Wizard is able to tear off thick cast iron panels now. There's a crack and a highly pressurized fizz from within before the entire internal hull is breached. It goes up like a bomb, showering bits of highly pressurized pseudoplasm and other goo all over us and everything else within forty feet. If we had any doubts about this thing having come from the deep sea, those are very definitely assuaged. Those footsteps are coming closer. Big thumping ones. With Bathy 1 destroyed and Bathy 2 down, the villagers are at least no longer being eaten. Deciding we don't have all that much time to investigate Bathy 2, we make for it as quickly as we can. The Wizard sealing shut the ports from which the tentacles are exuded while cautioning us against just tearing it open - explaining that the internal pressure, will, if released, destroy any evidence of what is within the thing. Looking closer, we can see on one of the hatches some Latin lettering which might read: :"Avertissement , contenu sous pression , ouverte avec une extrême prudence" It seems the real enemy have shown themselves at last: The French. However the Spinosaurus (or what might be - it's not entirely biological nor does it quite fit the description - but who knows - paleontology being a very dangerous profession in Britbongsteros), which is watching us, seems to beg to differ. Ok so dinosaurs are a new one. They're not native to Britbongsteros, though there are rumours that there's plenty of them in Africa. We are not inclined to ask this one particularly about his heritage, especially given that he squares his shoulders and charges right at us without a second thought. As he gets closer, mechanical or maybe cybernetic augments can be seen on his joints and around the back of his head. An arc of electricity whips from his rib-cage and washes up around his skull. What the actual fuck is that thing DM? Spiney races toward us, we move to engage, planning on hamstringing him and going from there. This, for once, actually goes to plan, with some decent rolls Cruella gets his left leg and not eaten, and the Navvie is able to crush his right ankle as he goes down. It's almost like he's not paying us any attention and has been told to go for Bathy 2 at all costs. He just about makes it too, smashing into the thing on sheer momentum. That highly pressurized hiss that proceeded Bathy 1's explosion can be heard. We make for cover and, a moment or two later, bits of dinosaur and Bathyscape rain down around us. We re-emerge to investigate the wreckage. :"YOU ABSOLUTE CUNTS." The short and very angry orc gesticulating and swearing at us identifies himself as Doctor Andrew Ure ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Ure you're not going to believe anything about this guy], [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3556709/Raising-the-Dead-the-men-who-created-Frankenstein.html some of his more fun experiments]). He seems really annoyed that we just killed his pet. The orc - or Doctor Ure, explains that that monster was the best chance we had of ending whatever the menace from the sea is, and now we've gone and ruined that. While he doesn't seem especially threatening, Dr. Ure definitely has plenty of other dinosaurs around if those pterodactyls are anything to go by. He is also completely mental. We do our best to ignore the small, insane green midget and examine what's left of Bathy 2 for clues. Bathy 2 doesn't render up much in the way of info :The Wizard reporting: "It's a Bathyscape." :Cruella: "The fuck are you looking at me for?" :Angus: "I reckon we could rebuild this if we really tried... some sort of... maybe a submarine?" :Bard: "I think Angus might be onto something." :Navvie: "Shut up bard. Also more French writing found." Doctor Ure has become somewhat more insistent to the extent that everyone else was examining the Bathy (and scraping bits of it and Spinosaurus off themselves). I did my best to calm him down enough to work out what he was on about. The following information is learnt along with a lot of raving: :>The Bathys are of unknown origin but have been doing things like this up and down the coast. :> Mad Dr. Ure is also an agent of the crown, at least he was, the letter of authority he shows me is eight years old and entirely out of date. :>The dinosaurs are what he calls "Galva-saurs" (as in Galvinism - yes, I know Ure predated Galvinism by some decades) and are his own flesh melded designs which he suspects the Bathys (who may or may not be French) to have stolen. I ask him about what happened with the exploding crew members (above) and he postulates :"That could be a logical result of my research, but only a mad" he laughs uproariously "man might do that. If the Crown ever found out about that he'd be burnt at the stake." So the end result of that is we don't really know what to do. The rest of the party has now joined us. :Bard: "Where are the Bathys coming from?" :Ure: "The Sea." "Bard: "Ok but where in the sea?" :Ure: "How should I know?" :Wizard: "You knew they were coming here right? You might know where they go next? How'd you know they were coming?" :Angus: "More to the point where did you get these bloody great lizards?" :Ure: "Made them." :Everyone: "You what?" :Ure: (cackles some more) "Well it's been a bit lonely up here in Cruden Bay, what else was I meant to do? I had all these eggs and other bits and... Galvasaurs!" (if anyone paying attention is wondering, Cruden Bay has a lot of history and links to Frankenstein...) It's been growing darker and stormier. Lightning flashes illuminating Slains castle on the near horizon. :Ure: "Come up to my laboratory... We have much to discuss, as you see I suspect someone has been stealing my research." After agreeing that we'd follow him up once we've seen what we can do to help the villagers (which we do our best to, those that haven't been dissected mostly fall unconscious - but we can provide water and try to move some away from the now steadily blazing town - a process which takes about an hour or so but isn't terribly exciting to tell), we follow Mad Dr. Ure up to Slain's Castle because we're smart like that. Dr. Ure himself having simply extended his arms, waited a couple minutes in that rather daft position, and then gets scooped up by two Ptero-Galva-Dactyls. Dr. Ure is very pleased to welcome us, as are the small pack of GalviDeinoychus that scutter about his feet. We have decided (having met plenty of lunatics by now) that we should start very slowly and softly. He welcomes us into the great hall, the chained and mostly assembled item which he describes as "THE GALVASAURUS" is bigger than the Spinosaurus and indeed Babi if anyone remembers him. :We ask him: "What are you doing up here?" Ure: "The Royal charter [n.b. they only last for four years and need renewed when a monarch dies] should tell you all you need. The kingdom needs soldiers, my original research in Oxford was deemed too unseemly for the populace, so I was sent to quieter, more... unseeing areas to complete it. Helpfully, new discoveries from Araby [shit was that us?] have assisted enormously." :Party: "So you're making the traditional ubersoldats then?" Ure: "No, these are so much more, imagine a galvasaurus pulling plowshares, or a hundred powering pumps, why we could drain the Irish sea if we wanted to. Think of the engineering potential." :Party: "Ok that's... that's actually less bonkers than it sounds. You err... you don't happen to be using any crazy blood magic or anything that'd mean we have to kill you?" (we asked this a bit more tactfully, but then the bard just asked it straight out) :Ure: "No? Just science. Why should I use anything else? With science man can usurp the reigns of power from G-d! G-d has other things to take care of, such as our souls, (I don't know how he managed to pronounce it like that but somehow he did) he has allowed science to assist him!" As Dr Ure is working himself up into a proper frothing rant, we change topic. :Party: "So Dr., who might be murdering the townsfolk?" :Bard: "Yeah! What's the French Connection?" Ure: "I told you that I don't know, you probably already know they've attacked ships, that they've likely discovered a way to not only utilize my research but to corrupt the human form, to make things which appear to be men but are not, there might be hundreds or even thousands of those sleepers (he means what happened in the gaol) in towns on the east coast already, all seemingly normal until some threat or command and then..." Dr Ure whistles and a ParasaurGalvius cracks open a bottle of Chesnokov brand vodka (there's at least one /k/ommando in the group if anyone was curious) "..it doesn't bear thinking about." Angus has wandered off but returns at the mention of free drink. He has something to share. He nudges the Navvie and I and gestures at the Galvisaurus surreptitiously. That sure looks like a really big soul-cube if you squint just right. (Remember the necromancers?) Well then... what do we do with this? Giving it some thought we decide that, you know what? Fuck that. We'll deal with that later. Night has very definitely fallen outside and we are invited to spend the night in the creepy weird Dracula inspiring castle. On second thought we could spend it in the village... which has burnt to the ground... On third thought, lets stay. We are given half a dozen rooms and waited on by a couple of small servant lizards (the wizard reckons they might be some velociraptor relative), in any event we decide it's far more sensible - and defensible - to all sleep in two adjoining rooms. We also have a chance to properly study one of these lizards up close. It seems the things are not quite dead but definitely not alive, motive power is being provided by some small generator in the chest and thought and direction by the modified box on the back of the skull. If we had to guess, it might be a good idea to smash said box if we had any issues with one of these critters. We have no idea how Dr. Ure is controlling the things, however the wizard theorizes it's low level magic tweaking the copper diodes and control in each box on the Doctor's part, and when he isn't controlling them directly, it's instinctive behaviour on the part of the lizard. We are woken - those of us who were sleeping at least (we've had enough of the DM to know that everyone being asleep at once without explicitly saying X will be on watch first leads to bad things), by a small Galvinychus battering on the door. It seems to very much want us to follow it. We do with some leisure, it seems that a village up the coast is under attack from our local bathys. We could just relax here but something tells us that the Penguin would much prefer us to take the offer of being Ptero-Galvi-dactlyed into the middle of the village. It also sounds fucking awesome. *** A short while later. Six adventurers are borne aloft, silhouetted against the harvest moon on our way to Newburgh and wondering what the fuck we have gotten ourselves into this time. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-49noOAFsG8 Saxon - Princess of the Night] Not all of us exactly have a head for heights nor indeed the way the Ptero-Galvi-Dactlys like to swoop and swerve, the screams of Cruella as her two do a loop-de-loop can probably be heard in Inverness, but we make it. Newburgh is only a few miles away and at this speed it's five minutes flying time. Below we can see in the flames of the fishing village, more Bathys, and something else, something really unpleasant. Like a creature made of chitin and fishhooks, it's grabbing towns people and eviscerating them or... oh lordy that's not nice. It's cocooning them and forcing something down their throats.... With a cry of "Fukken Xenos!" we land in the middle of the town square. Apparently bonkers Dr. Ure will send reinforcements, but right now we're it. The big sky above us is fire lit, and all around us civilians scream. :>We Xcom now baby. :>DM? Is this a terror mission? This feels a lot like a terror mission. :>That's not a bad idea bard. This is now a terror mission, save those civvies. We don't exactly take much coaxing to try and do the good thing, but this is going to be bloody hard. They're everywhere and if (as we suspect any villager impregnated - and yes that is probably what happened to the women further up) they're going to make more gribbly things, we think maybe we should burn out those nest things first. Then we still have the Bathys, and whatever the fuck else there is running around. Well fuck it. Lets do this. So we pretty much have two choices. Go for the "nest" and hopefully cut off the alien reinforcements, or try and fight through everything and save as many civvies as we can. It seems likely we might save more lives in the end going for the nest, but more will die while we do that. It's a DM dilemma and a big gamble. We like a good gamble though, and while the combat isn't too exciting to relate, we wade through mucus and those horrific chitinous beasties to the "nest" or what was once a small inn. Now it's a horrific mess of bodies and bio-resin, we're just in time to see the stomach of some poor woman burst in a shower of gore (muh edge!) and several smaller nastier little things scrabble towards us. :"Well fuck this." Angus bathes the place in flame and the Navvie tosses a charge into the flames. The (fuck it, we'll just call the Chryssalids) lids swarm us as we do so, the Wizard being knocked to the ground and only saved from a really nasty death by Cruella decapitating the Lid. She in turn is grabbed and dragged a few feet before the Wizard harpoons the Lid standing over her. Eventually (really a few moments later) we are standing on a pile of chitinous bodies when the charge cooks off. Still leaving the rest of the screaming and abused village to save. Out there in the night there are still people dying, being picked apart by Bathys and god knows what else. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwNOmS78q-o UFO - Doctor Doctor] We know exactly what must be done. :>Ayyyyyyy LMAO We are heavily outnumbered but we think we just about have the hang of wrecking bathys, the first two aren't all that bad. The third is where we hit our first big snag. Angus and myself are herding civvies aside when several of them do that horrible shifting exploding thing and go full Thing, grabbing and devouring others or trying to eat us. :>Fuck. Nothing is to be trusted. As Bathy 3 detonates, (there's still plenty more of them) we have to execute not only the Things but the half eaten (and possibly contaminated? Turned?) civilians with them. The rest of the bathys are a struggle, but with reinforcements (fucking dinosaurs!) we manage pretty well. There's plenty more French in the wreckage, but as the last of them retreat, the wizard looks awfully smug. He's missing his solid iron broach that keeps his cape/kilt in place and holding it in place with one hand. It's stuck to the back of the last of the bathys. He reckons that as long as it stays within seven or eight miles he should be able to pinpoint where it goes. It's also a dead cert that wherever "there" is, is likely underwater, so we are going to have to do some preparation for dive. Fortunately, there's enough bits of bathy scattered around that, with plenty of ingenuity and around four or five days work, it ought to be possible to fashion a crude diving bell and some extremely crude diving suits. We are going to engage the terror from the deep on its own terms. The tracker indicates that where we are going is reasonably close to the coast in one of the few areas where the North Sea is lower than 100M (110 yards-ish) but not much more so. It's still pretty bloody deep - especially in home made diving suits. *** So, going forward in time slightly, we rejoin the party in a purloined fishing vessel ("In the Name of Cod") a few days later. Crude diving suits have been fashioned and, with some help from the lunatic Dr. Ure, we have an air-pumping station set up which is powered by half a dozen Galvelociraptors. The air pumps connecting via tubes to each suit. The suits themselves have a very small reserve of air. The suits have positive buoyancy, so if we remove the belt of lead weights we will shoot back up to the surface. :Bard: "Guys what about the bends?" :DM: "That's a very good point Bard, what are you all going to do about the bends?" :>Arguing We know the bends doesn't occur at a specific depth and is more a function of how quickly one ascends. If we have a managed ascent (say removing one lead weight every minute or two and coming up over half an hour) we should be totally fine. However, we are trying to use atmospheric diving suits (so we'll stay at about surface pressure anyway), so it may not actually be an issue at all. The bottom is about ~100M down, which we realize is actually further down than anyone dived in such a suit until at least about 1920, and that these are very much bodged together suits. However, in our favour, we do have the wizard who, if he senses anyone being likely to spring a leak, can repair the suit before the occupant even knows there's a problem. Reasoning that the wizard allows for pretty much factory level precision repair at depth we feel pretty happy. Satisfied we aren't going to just implode, the party sit on the edge of the 'Cod and fall backward into the water. We are diving well below where natural light penetrates. It's very, very dark down here. We also have no means of communicating with one another - except that the wizard can ding on our helmets to try to direct us if we get lost, and if we want to talk it'll have to be by pressing face-glass together. We have torches and while some of our weaponry will work underwater, the rest we have decided to place in leather bags sealed with tar. The descent takes us from light, to darkness, to something beyond darkness. Six little spots of light that, as we hit the seabed, send up a huge plume of silt, bringing visibility down to a meter if that. The slightest movement of our feet sends more of the stuff into the water. We sensibly decided to rope ourselves together, but now we are each isolated from one another and yet only a meter or two apart. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUHqtNCK878 Ambient Music: Underwater Madness] MOOD MUSIC So to recap, we are going to fight god knows what, if we want to run away we'll have to be slowly lifted up to the surface, we can't see a damn thing, the wizard can only vaguely guide us, and we are roped together and pretty much helpless. The wizard is in the middle. To really hammer home the helplessness for us, the DM decides he wants to really mess with people. Step 1: the party cannot communicate with one another unless the players are physically holding hands. The party are roped together in a manner which is clockwise from the DM and you can't talk to anyone who isn't in that sequence. The wizard is, for all purposes, driving the party. He stumbles and by the time he has righted himself with the help of the bard behind him, he realizes two rather concerning things: The guide rope has snapped just in front of him - sending Cruella, Angus, and Me off into the darkness unattached (but still guidable) and there's very possibly something big and nasty lurking out there in the gloom. Additionally, if he were counting helmets, there now seem to be seven of them. The thing is, the players can all listen to this but are totally unable to do a thing about it. The wizard can guide us and try to bring the two halves of the party together, but I (as the one on the rope in front of him) have no idea there's even a problem yet. There's still something out there in the mud or at least that's what the wizard reckons, and there's also the issue of seventh party member. All the rest of the party can do is watch, remember that. The wizard tries frantically to guide us all into a circle. Something is interfering with his tapping, people are getting mixed up, airlines are being crossed. The tramping of heavy lead shod boots is causing even more silt to rise, we're entirely obscured now, lights do nothing more than illuminate the filth in front of you, then suddenly something might loom through it, a hand, the back of a helmet, a tentacle. :>A tentacle fuck. Panic is starting to set in. The party can't do anything but beg the wizard to do something, the wizard can barely concentrate as he tries to process so many things at once, to direct six people, to try to assess whatever threat is around us, and to try to ascertain if one of us isn't who we should be. Imagine that choking sensation of being isolated in your helmet, breath rasping, horrible tasting air being pumped down, and only the rank smell of your own sweat and rubber as you try not to hyperventilate. How quickly in that sweating, horrible little box you'd lose your mind, and most of us have no idea what's going on. Then a tentacle traces across the glass of your helmet and something grabs your hand. The bard has finally worked out there's something wrong. He grips the wizard tightly and starts pulling in on the rope behind him. The Navvie is heavy but he's not that heavy, rather than allow the rope to go taut and just wait, the bard drags himself and the wizard into the gloom. The Navvie can be made out wrestling with something, something that has lots of tentacles. Now pretty much everyone who isn't the wizard is down to using a knife, and the wizard has his hands full trying to wrangle the party. In the gloom he has no idea how successful he's being, but it seems like other hands are joining in on assisting the navvie. The sheer amount of silt and nastiness being thrown up makes it impossible to tell. Eventually the tentacles withdraw with the creature either going to die or lick its wounds. There's still the issue that we can't tell who is who, or where, or what is going on. The wizard manages to get us all to stand in a circle, slowly waiting for the silt to settle and visibility to improve. Our hands are linked and bear in mind again that the rest of us have no idea there might be a seventh party member. It takes a while for the silt to settle, a good long while. Remember the Wizard is the only one who knows why we've stopped, why we're standing in a circle holding hands. Imagine waiting in the horrible inky darkness, illumination being provided by a torch which doesn't do anything more than show particles of mud an inch in front of your faceplate, unable to hear anything other than your own breathing, heart racing and no idea what might be out there. Eventually it's clear enough to count lights. Seven lights. You can't see the face of the person in the suit unless you're up and close. As the party realizes there's party + 1, things become very interesting. :>These suits were jury rigged and likely individually distinct Aldous Yes, but it's pretty damn silty and dark still. The Wizard is able to get everyone's attention by materializing a small cannon ball in front of himself. This is more than enough to demonstrate to everybody that he is a wizard. It also rather handily gives us a sort of nominated inquisitor. The wizard is able to go from faceplate to faceplate. *Aldous, *Cruella, *Bard, *Angus, *Bard, *Navvie. :Bard: "Oh fuck there's two bards!" :Navvie: "KILL THEM BOTH!" The Wizard can't think of a way of deciding who is who. They're both carrying an oilskin which looks exactly like the one with the pipes in it. This is actually a bit of a challenge as the DM obviously won't let us talk to each other (in character) and we know pretty well that this thing is going to probably explode with lots of tentacles. Thinking scientifically, the critters (such as the crew above) replicate humans reasonably well, they can at least fool the senses into thinking clothing and other items are there as well (so for example they might look to be carrying a gun, it might even go bang, but it probably can't shoot bullets if that makes sense), in this case they also fooled the Wizard's senses into thinking there are seven diving helmets. :>Aren't you roped together? Same thing. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3MLeHGkYO0 Chris Stapleton - Parachute] The party have naturally edged away from Bard A and Bard B, the DM (on the understanding that we will always have someone watching the two of them) allows us to talk. The bard meanwhile is marveling at his own complexion. Majestic chucklefuck that he is when suddenly something occurs to him. The bard reasons as follows: :>I know I'm me. :>Therefore if I know I'm me, then the other one obviously isn't me. :>Therefore, if I stab my double, everything will be fine. So he does. This actually goes fairly well for once. Except that Bard B doesn't explode into a mess of tentacles and things, it just bleeds a lot and thrashes a bit with a knife in it's stomach. To an impartial observer, Bard A has just stabbed Bard B with an unknown motive. The bard is smart like that of course. The party can see what might have been the logic here, but on the other hand, if the tables were reversed, it sure does look like the impostor just stabbed our bard. More to the point anything the Bard now does will make him seem suspicious. :>Ah Bard... The wizard does his best to weld something over the wound to Bard B. We don't know which Bard is our bard. We take the wounded and, with a knife at his back (do knives even work on weird tentacle-y things?), prepare to slightly less cunningly and gloriously make our assault on the underwater enclave of... we are not entirely sure. Up above there is one bonkers Doctor and that's as close to sanity as this one is going to get. We mount a rise and below us we see our objective for the first time. There are ship wrecks, these are dark and barnacle encrusted, in the center sits what can only be described as a facility. An underwater building? It looks like an oil rig, and it's very well lit. Cargo from the ships is strewn around from steam engines to bricks to pottery. In the distance we can see Bathys making for shore. Entrance to the facility isn't too hard. There's a suspiciously unguarded airlock. The air hoses prove to be a problem to actually get in, so we have to unscrew the things and pull on them to be hauled up. We still have our reserve tanks, but now we're down here and alone. Also one of our party members is who-knows-fucking-what. So, time to work out what the flying fuck is going on down here. We've had a taste of quite a lot of DM level weird but things feel like they're only just starting. Something must have a very good reason for stealing ships and eating people. There also must be a damn good reason why there was French script on the Bathys. The interior of the facility is dank, and there's the sound of a thousand drips reverberates through the darkness. There's also the very, very distinct noise somewhere far off of honking. :>Honking. Oh yes. Honking. We have something much more immediate to attend to however. The bard is carefully held at gunpoint, while the other bard is stripped out of his suit. The bizarre maggoty situation with the wound is enough of a clue to tip us off to him not being human. The way he begs us not to as we pour flamethrower fuel over him is really kinda horribly grimdark. Burns good though. The flames give us the same result as in the gaol. What the hell are these things? We're somewhat inured to terror, also bizarre, horror and all that other stuff, but there's so much oddness going on here it's almost too much to take in. The party takes a moment to think things through: *Person replacing weird things. *Bathys. *Some French connection. *Honking. *Villager stealing (in fractions). Why is it all happening off the very north east coast of Scotland? Dr. Ure seems to have been fighting as best he can against this stuff (he's also bonkers) for quite some time. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyFniXdqsQQ I do like to be beside the seaside - Mark Sheridan] :Angus is the first to say it. "Ok. DM. Honking, French, and stealing villagers in bits or not. I know what this is." :>French-clown-leech-spider things :Bard: "Wat?" :Navvie: "Oh god not those things." :Cruella: "You mean... yuck. They ate me." :Wizard: "Bugger them." :DM: "You'll find out..." So, this adventure took a bit of a peculiar turn about here. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_76Orifags If You Were The Only Girl In The World Sung By Henry Burr] Anyway, what's it like in the facility? It's warm, unpleasantly so. Hot enough that we're sweating before we are out of our diving suits. Hot enough that it feels like breathing blood. The lighting is red-lit, like a submarine at battle stations. It's built of rusted, damp, dripping steel, covered in pipes and gauges, valves and a billion other things. The whole thing is cast in that red light, making everything crimson or black. It was clearly a significant investment for someone. Why on earth would the French of all people build this? They're just slutty elves. What the hell is that about? This really isn't their style, nor is it Dr. Ure's - he's just weird, but not this kind of villain lair sort of weird. By the way if you're wondering about the less normal music, the DM is playing this sort of stuff on his laptop for reason we aren't entirely sure of. We proceed very slowly. Not being particularly happy about anything down here. Least of all the lack of alarms, bodies, creepy shit or anything else. This place should really have been noticed when it was built, it's huge. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKXi7f7AFmU Soundtrack 24: Das Boot Theme] (the DM starts playing this) So we're used to exploring abandoned facilities and dungeons, this place isn't. It's got no sign of habitation, as in never lived in. There's not even the debris that builders leave around. It's like it fucking grew here and we're the first people to enter it. Angus in theory is the engineer of the party (with some help from the Wizard), but it's Cruella who raps on one of the pipes experimentally. :"What are these things for?" She taps a gauge. "I mean what the fuck is this thing? Come on boys. Explain?" Five dice hit the table and permutations of :>I roll to explain whatever the fuck that thing is follow on from the dice, but oddly, none of us can make any heads or tails of it. It's all connected, almost knitted together as much as interlacing pipework can be, as much as gauges, valves, speaking tubes, and other bumf can be. Some if it's slung across the roof - making the experience of entering the facility seem like walking under low brush, and other pipes and things are set across the walkway, seemingly at ankle height by design because fuck you. One of the speaking tubes honks. Then a louder honk comes echoing from somewhere up the passage, or maybe under the floor, or outside, or Wales, in this mess we can't fucking tell. The further in we get, the denser this stuff gets. Stooped, with aching backs in tight confines, half crawling in boiling heat and unpleasant watery damp, the fluid black in the light. We pass under shafts which seemingly extend upward to other floors or god knows where (in theory we could climb up but we're going inward for now). Angus traverses what he thinks is a puddle, putting his hand outward to balance himself in the ankle deep water. Instead he sinks right in. He comes up again almost instantly treading water. So anything coming at us could come from below, or above, or any direction it feels like. Cruella has some pretty funkily good hearing, so does Angus, one of them picks up on a noise. So deep it can't really be heard at all, it's more that you're aware of the absence of noise. It's then followed by a more high pitched ping which is right up at the other end of the frequency range. Very shortly afterward, Cruella thinks on both of these frequencies :"If I can hear those, you know that really does mean I can speak Whale?" The sound is an event regular enough to sound almost mechanical, like an engine, or a heartbeat. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBN56wL35IQ The Bloop: A Mysterious Sound from the Deep Ocean] Our slow, painful, soggy pace is becoming even worse now. It's hard to tell where to place your feet and simultaneously watch for low hanging pipe work. Something coils around Angus's leg. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=royW0LZspXs The Rose Of Tralee] The something comes from the Navvie. Or what we thought was the Navvie. Turns out we didn't get our Navvie back from the octo(thing) when it fucked off. We got something else. Something much worse. With very little ado the party are quite happy to shoot, chainsaw, stab, and uselessly play music at the impostor that was their friend. The amorphous tentacle-y horror slinks into the the mess of pipes and is practically indistinguishable from them in this light, water, and environment. A (smirking) party member down (the Navvie's PC has something else to occupy him) we try to continue. It's almost impossible to watch every direction, or to even watch each other - any of us could be replaced at any moment... The Navvie's player seems to relish his task of hunting us. We don't know whether to head into the facility, or out of it, or up, or down, but we've also established we are lost as fuck (no one even thought about a trail of bread crumbs). The Navvie-Thing seems to regenerate as well, it can be seen off by bullets and flame, but it always seems to come back, always from some new angle. Flowing from between the thicket of pipes. Rearing up from a pool of water. Dropping from the ceiling. Always in some new form of amorphous face eating blob. The thing seems to call back to a number of critters we've faced, things from the Isle of Mann, Coliunn, Witches, Cthulhu's Dad. Not mimicking them, but enough that there's similarity. It also just will not die. Whichever direction we take, the path seems to shift, to twist, and definitely not to make sense. The Wizard can sort of machete his was through the pipes but it takes quite a lot of time. What really doesn't help is that I get separated. The pipes aren't a solid mass like the bulkheads around us (though pretty bloody close). They are however solid enough to block sight almost entirely after three or four feet. The party can still hear me, they can't see me. The Wizard picks what he thinks is the best direction and starts bending. Meanwhile, alone, in the light of my torch I watch the darkness for movement. Trying to watch every degree of the compass at once with my back to the pipes. The Navvie-thing can worm its way through the pipes as it's pretty much an amorphous blob of bits (think the way an octopus can fit into and then pop out of a jam jar). The gatling shotgun has drum magazines that hold 128 rounds, at best that's sixteen seconds of sustained fire. That might seem like a lot but it takes a while to reload, and if the thing that was the Navvie... ....just happens to be crawling along the ceiling.... :>brrt ....drops from the ceiling.... :>brrt ...starts to gather itself to charge... :>brrt ...manages to walk into the hail of shot as I walk fire onto it... :>brrrrrrrrrrrrt ....keeps fucking coming.... :>brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt ...and coming.... :>brrrrrrrrrrrrrrt ....losing tentacles and chunks of flesh and bone.... :>brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt ....but keeps coming..... :>brclick. ...Fuck. I'm trying my fumbling best to reload, the spent drum falls between my boots. I realize I'm not going to make it in time (ask /k/ about the 21ft thing sometime) the wizard spangs a glancing blow with an iron bar off the thing slowing it a little. Angus, beautiful bastard that he is has a bright idea. :"Hit the deck." I have just enough time (nearly) to hit the deck as the muzzle of his flamethrower is shoved between the pipes and a spear of napalm shoots between my shoulder blades. The Not-Navvie recoils, hisses, and starts to melt... not the good kind of on fire melting, the "I'm going to run along the ground under the jet of flame kind and shoot tentacles at the dwarf whose beard is on fire." :There now follows a science argument - given that we are at a pressure of above one atmosphere, would flamethrowers work like they do? Also what happens to any bullets that hit the hull? :>DM: Assume that the hull is bullet proof - though let's add some ricochets in for fun? Flamethrowers? Hmm... reduced range? Oh Aldous you're still on fire. :>We love you too DM. :''>RANDOM SCIENCE TIME!'' :''The effect of a high pressure environment on a flamethrower would depend on the atmosphere. Unless you were in a Nitrox or Heilox charged bathysphere thing, and nothing else around you was flammable, the fuel would burn faster and hotter than at sea level. Higher pressure = more O2/m3 = faster fuel consumption. This is why fire on a submerged submarine is a very bad thing. Normally there would be the added hazard of setting paint alight as well, but given how damp it sounds like the area was, you have more of a risk from O2 depletion and toxic gasses than secondary fires in said situation.'' So while I'm beating out flames (My beard!!) Angus continues playing fire over my head. The wizard is able to slowly clear an actual path to me - one which Cruella and then the bard (as the skinniest party members) are able to worm through. The not-Navvie thing decides to retreat as I'm reinforced, schlopring off into a duct with a horribly soggy noise. In the distance can be heard sounds of distant honking... and swearing. Deciding that swearing can mean one thing and one thing only - also there's no way to replicate that vocabulary (so many variations on "cunt" - fanny, meat curtains, dribbling pleasure slit, wee bit o' touch, badger's pouch, gaping axe wound, money syphon, bearded clunge, furry kebab, baby cannon, cock-warmer, Deoxyribonucleic acid depository, meat saloon, your uncle's pot pie, fuck-trap, sausage pie, raw steak flange, trembling love cave, happy seal, rabid cock hamster, minge.), so we make for the sound. We remain extremely worried about the Navvie-thing, but aside from the flickering of tentacle thing from a vent or creepy noise, it seems to have decided to go a bit quiet. Sounds of displeasure however remain the same, the environs do not. There are now windows - windows that look out on green fields or Mediterranean beaches, a world that doesn't seem at all like ours, if you look long enough you can see peculiar things - no violence, seemingly peaceful people staring at little shiny pebbles or sitting in front of bigger ones. The people all seem very sleepy and especially fat. Weirdly, the windows don't cast light into the facility but seem more like moving pictures? I can't describe it like the DM did, but, in the red-light of where we are, we are definitely below the sea level still, but the scenes outside make no sense, nor do they seem any less real for it. The bard reports that this does not seem at all natural and that we must be in a highly magical area. The wizard reports that he's speaking shite and he can't feel anything. Twisting down more and more corridors - all still damp and dark, where there are no "windows" covered in those pipes and other peculiarities, and worryingly the odd slither of biological looking goo, we make for the sound. The place has a million different echoes and twists and not even Angus and Cruella are entirely sure we're going the right way. Especially not when that [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBN56wL35IQ long biological] comes back. We stop by one window. This, if anything, seems to actually be "real"; it's slowly dribbling water and outside we can see Bathys and other... things, they seem to be fighting - fighting what? If we had to guess, mad Dr. Ure upstairs has gotten bored and has decided to quite literally unleash the kraken. (I mean they're fighting electric dinosaurs, which is fucking awesome) [https://youtu.be/W2s_cDnS22M John Carpenter - In The Mouth Of Madness] Shortly thereafter, the swearing - and he still hasn't repeated himself (love canoe, soggy hammock, sausage roll, etc etc etc) leads us to a bulkhead. From somewhere in the facility a long, low groaning quake rocks the place, as though the whole thing had been kicked. The water trickling from the ceiling takes on a far more urgent timbre. After a minute or two we get the door open to find the Navvie, or at least... sort of. The first thing we find is that fucking octopus. Someone has beaten the hell out the poor thing and it shies into a corner when it sees us. Then we find shredded bits of diving suit. Then we find a lot of what seem like human remains. A lot of human remains. The penguin's 6th sense is very definitely pinging. Inside a bathyscape, with the hatches all dogged shut and a voice coming out over the external speakers, is the Navvie. He catches sight of us. The swearing stops. :"It's still out there you mad bastards! Hide!" He looks terrified. The room is composed of a large moon pool with a number of cranes above it - and lots of empty spaces like you might use to pick up and lower bathys into the water. There's a wet schlorp as something familiar falls from the ceiling above us, a disgustingly familiar noise. The Navvie-thing splats into a pile of human remains and, as it starts simultaneously chowing down and waving tentacle things at us, our Navvie is frantically undogging hatches. The party however are pretty happy - fighting this thing in an open space - with very little room for it to run? Easy. :>Easy. It's never easy. Never. You'd think we'd have all learnt this by now. Wouldn't you? I mean really. It almost seems like we should expect all those bodies to start moving about on their own a bit, being absorbed as biomass into the Navvie-thing. We should totally expect that they'd sprout tentacles and other unpleasant bits. We're not even surprised to see what looks like Dr. Ure's face and some dinosaur bits in there. We are in formation, locked and loaded. It's time for a good, honest, balls to the wall fight. Let's trash these fucking things. As the bard announces :"I am going to play something inspiring" [https://youtu.be/-_PNff2c-nk Warrior (1999 Remastered Version)] The waters of the moon pool ripple. As though someone had thrown a pebble into them. :>Dats no moon.jpg The waters vomit out a pretty sizeable Clown-Leech (see the time we visited France). The thing's not even slightly wet. It never occurred to us the waters were another mirror like we'd seen earlier, something with a view to someplace else. (I'm not articulating this well but issa portal). We also note that there are distinct signs of galvanisation to this thing Anyway, the party broke to get more beer at this point. :It's handy to recap our speculation on what's going on. There's been notably little exposition and we've been slowly puzzling this out for ourselves. In order to insulate against my deficient story-telling here we go: :There's Dr. Ure on-shore (we think). There's whatever resides in this facility. They don't like each other. We also don't approve at all of the use of Clown-Leeches. On general principles, whatever has been nicking villagers needs to die. Dr. Ure, as a mostly respectable agent of the crown, seems to be up to things he shouldn't, but he's also been trying to protect the area. Whatever the portal things are about, well fuck that. It seems this facility is French (and entirely covert - meaning there's something on the seabed they wanted and didn't want to tell us about) and something, we think, must've come through from the other side. :>Is Dr Ure Evil? Well maybe? What the fuck he's doing galvanising clown-leeches though... :We continue. Mucking about complete. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjCFyw67TPs Nazareth - Go Down Fighting] By god, Queene and bacon butties, we are not fucking having this. We've reached maximum weird saturation. Portals, clown leeches, the fucking Thing, and fuck knows what else. The penguin has entirely had enough. The clown-leech is at least as big as one we fucked up in Paris, and the Navvie-thing is getting bigger by the second. We are not having this. The Navvie pops out of the Bathy (I like how that rhymes) just as the Leech goes past and gets on the things back. Cruella has, once again, ended up in front of the thing. While the Navvie beats it about the head, it opens its great big maw and sights in on her. :"Not this time." We're not entirely sure how she manages this, but she sort of zigs and zags across the thing's exposed throat and underbelly. It does the Kill Bill splitting thing, and, much to her total disgust, splats green goo over her from head to foot. Again. Meanwhile the Navvie-thing, having absorbed a whole lot of corpses, is ranting and warbling to itself in English and French, for the bi-lingual among the party (Cruella and me) (Angus does claim to speak sheep) it can be heard saying something about the portal, something about the other side, and something about going beyond the world of man. Something inarticulate about a horror that even the Elder Gods speak of in whispers. While we're in the process of blowing bits off it and generally slaughtering it, a new word can be heard, one which becomes more and more pronounced, clearer and clear until it's a chant, a chant from a hundred, maybe a thousand absorbed souls. :>Pendragon. :>Motherfucker. :>But Aldous, how does all this fit into the big plot and... :Think of it like an expansion pack. While the fight with the roiling mass of the Navvie-thing is bloody, it isn't all that exciting. What is, is that with further exploration of the facility once the Navvie-thing is (we hope) dead, we manage to piece together a bit of a story here. I have no idea where the original short notes have gone. I did have them in an email someplace but the three main ones can be paraphrased as follows: :"In the 14th Year of The Croissant (France has a different calendar in Britbongsteros because fuck being normal) Monsier De Talleyrand De Baguette reported on a formation known as le Triangle des Bermudes. Further research by Monsieur de Mouton indicates that with appropriate study we might be able to summon and control a creature of great import to our neighbours across the channel. We have identified a site in the la mer du nord which has all of the auspicious ley lines drawing together in one spot. It will be difficult to construct the facility in secret, but at great expense Monsieur de Mouton and M'me Curie-CharB1 anticipate that the project can be completed in less than half a decade. :"In the 12th year of the Bonbon, Tuesday. On this day Monsieur De Mouton is not present in the facility, he presents his work on a new system of controlling and binding the occult within our world. He theorizes that by reinterpreting how man sees the world, man can himself, much as his eyes emit light into the world, rebrand the world in the image such as he sees fit. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emission_theory_(vision) PEOPLE BELIEVED THIS]) Therefore if man sees the world in a different fashion, a new, structured fashion, then he creates the epistemological framework of his world. One man cannot bend the entire physical world to his will, but what he can do is recalibrate it. Instead of seeing things in terms of "inches" and "feet" outdated measures based upon the crude physicality of the body, by creating a new measure, a new METRIC, then this system allows for the imposition of science upon the world. If MM Mouton is successful, it will, he feels, give him the power to remake the world around him, by redefining it, he can remake it." :(God I hope this makes sense, my philosophy is piss poor after about 1640) :"In the 57th year of the Voulevont, 2nd Friday after the 124th degree of the Cochon. Success! MM Mouton and M'me Curie-CharB1 have successfully breached the measures binding the world, the subtle genius of France has done what the Rosbif never could. We have created a portal to the other side. Without blood sacrifice like the Irish, without the crudity of the barbarians who do not use our new glorious metric. Vive Le France! However time, it is noted, is flowing differently, for us five years have passed, for France, but a week. MM and M'me theorize that the portal we found - identical to our own creation on the other side, is a matter of simultaneous construction - what we build here simultaneously is constructed there. They are building another edifice on the other side. It is theorized that there might also be some sort of mirroring of mind on the other side." :"Date unknown, it is harder to keep this journal now as I grow older, I do not know how much time has passed since my last entry, but I do know that I might be the last man alive, we have lived with the strangeness of the portal now for at least three decades and no one is untouched. MM Mouton has managed to hold the portal and through it, our minds as well, but our bodies have grown so ancient, but also so changed, now we flow and twist like the structure of the facility, we are no longer human, simultaneously greater and worse than human, like the first days of the great republic. I do not know what we are now or what we will become if MM Mouton fails. There is a word on the lips of all now: Pendragon." :"Do you know what it is to look upon the face of god day and night and know that he studies you as intently as you did his realm? The abyss has looked back, and the abyss came back with us. We know that on the surface the effects of our research have been felt, ships lost and perhaps twisted by the void. We know also that Dr. Ure has been oh-so-curious and we think might suspect..." :"In any event, biological material grows scarce, 'piscine material will not do' states the beating voice that roars in my ears, it must be human, perhaps we must be fishers from the sea..." :TL;DR - IT WAS METRIC ALL ALONG The party have a little chat about new developments - having found the documents and some other ephemera as described above, we now actually have a fair idea what's going on. It seems whatever is coming through the portal (whichever portal that is) is really a rather bad thing, so our first objective is nuke the fuck out of that portal, and preferably everything else down here. We also are extremely concerned by the clown-leeches having something to do with Dr. Ure, it seems the cult that has something to do with them may have infiltrated the French facility, then he got his hands on some. How he got a handle on the portal technology is something we don't know. It looks however like we may have to have a chat with him after this is over. Given that the facility seems pretty empty at the moment we are in an ideal position to search, but those Bathys which we saw leaving earlier are likely to be coming back sooner than later. Our plan is as follows: :1. Find the big portal, the one that leads to god knows where, and shut it from the other side - by leaving a large pile of explosives and legging it back to our world. :2. Find the generator (a place like this must have a really big one) and blow that up - then make for the surface and fuck up Dr. Ure's shit. What we don't know is what the other portals might do when we blow this place to bits, some of them (the TV type things) might just be a one way connection, others (like the big moon pool) might be doing something else. Also we really don't like the sound of M'me CharB1 for some weird reason. Its around this point that Angus decides that he's going to have a bright idea. This takes a while, he has to get a bit of a run up, but once he hits his stride and is powering toward the cognitive leap that will cause neurons to fire and... Meanwhile the bard sticks his head into the moon pool to see what happens. Very little actually. Apparently there's a view of Slains castle. That actually doesn't surprise us much. Nor do the Galvasaurs he can see roaming around. We are pretty happy this portal, by accident or design, leads ashore. Other smaller portals are investigated leading to revelations about a planet made entirely of rabbits - we are fairly sure either Cruella or Angus attempted to adopt one as one was seen later, another world where a community of tiny colourful horses appeared to be in the process of being hunted down and butchered by a unit of automatons, all with a large double headed eagle on their chests; other highlights included a zombie world where a suspiciously familiar group of people were drinking around a table and throwing dice at each other, Cruella deciding that whoever the girl is, she clearly needs more attractive friends, another portal lead to a world which was almost entirely dark save for a creepy child singing - so we legged it, and penultimately a world where there was a cube made of weapons and someone yelled "Get out of here Stalker" so we didn't stick around. Meanwhile Angus is still baking his bright idea, he has decided he won't turn it halfway and will totally ignore the instructions re: letting it stand, so he will burn his tongue instead. :>What if we didn't have to blow up all of the portals? I mean how cool is this research, think what we could do with it... We are mulling this over when shortly afterward we find the world of the clown-leech, which is as hellish as you might imagine, a bright sunny place where clown leeches of various sizes frolic through leafy trees and meadows eviscerating things whole as they go. We also remind him that the actual Thing fell out of one of these, if anyone should be building these things it should be... err... well not us... or the Privy Council... Definitely not the French... also they're leyline dependent so... fuck it, poets take off and nuke the site from orbit. So, it appears that the world of Britbongsteros also has multiple dimensions, but we actually already knew this (Ireland for one), what we didn't know was that the Clown-Leeches came from one. We theorize that the ones encountered in Paris were summoned at some point by the cult. In any event, fuck those things. Eventually we discover the portal we are looking for, or at least we assume so. It's big enough that you could drive a tank into it, it also looks rather like a Stargate so fuck it, we SG-1 now. The other portals we've discovered have been much smaller - aside from the moon pool and that has something to do with Dr. Ure, that weird bastard. We all secretly suspect Duncan might also be secretly involved but we aren't entirely sure how. :>Who's Duncan? A big fish. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiR71VvCYks Def Leppard - Bringin' on the Heartbreak (HQ)] In we go. To the land of the gods. It's a shithole. The place is a desolate, sandy wasteland. The wind howls in the semi-darkness. Shapes of what might be huts or human construction surround the portal. We look up at the night sky. Good lord. That's not a sight for pre-watershed times. There are a whole lot of Gods, but it turns out one of them looks like Chris Evans. The rest is a scene from Hieronymus Bosch. Things cavort with one another in the inky void. We surmise we might even be on the body of another God. We are Lilliputians in this land and have no idea what the rules are, we are hopefully too small to be noticed. The living tapestry of the sky dances on to the tune of an orchestra we can't comprehend. An enormous fish looking thing swims into the side of Chris Evan's head and explodes out the other side in a shower of custard while he cackles. The Navvie takes in the true cosmic insanity of this world and rubs his stubbled chin. :"Bugger this lads." We couldn't agree more. Well most of us, the Bard however is intently searching the sky for Babi. :>Who's... :>An old friend. He's the first one to spot something. Duncan on a cosmic scale is quietly floating past in space, he's munching on a planetoid. Elsewhere a bowl of petunias and a whale fight, written on the side of the bowl are the words "oh no not again." We decide that enough is enough and start laying charges around the gate, the wizard and Cruella making holes (with summoned chisel and dagger respectively) which we stuff with TNT and anything else the Navvie has in what he called his "Party Bag" which, on a random and pointless aside looked like [http://www.sofmilitary.co.uk/products/1937-Small-pack-and-strap-.jpg this] - he was weirdly specific about this to the extent of having mentioned in autistic detail back in character creation. No I don't know why either. This all takes time, we want to make sure this thing is utterly and completely fucked. We also are a little curious, it's not like the DM to have us go somewhere this interesting and not have something try to kill us. We try not to broadcast this to him however. Unfortunately he was onto something already. :(in atrocious french accent - I mean 'Allo 'Allo bad) "Oooo hare yeuu?" (Who are you?) We look around for the source of the voice. There's nothing to be seen. That doesn't fill us with confidence. :"Wuit hair yuuuu doeng?" (What are you doing?) The voice seems to be coming from all around us. The CharB1 is not all that intimidating as tanks go, it's a bit funny looking really when you think about it. Mostly it looks like something from metal slug, or an angry potato. The thing seems to be blind, her ocular units are heavily damaged. She can certainly hear us though. She doesn't seem to be too threatening, despite the tentacles which seem to be a sign of having spent too much time near one of these portals (as with all the other French people). These tentacles lash from in and around what would be hatches. :>What is she? We don't know. She might have been human once, but if that's Curie-CharB1 then we know, following a whole lot of standing next to science experiments, the woman was horribly mutilated. It seems she must've built, or had built for her, this device - which coincidentally is a tank. :(still in terrible french accent - why she's speaking English we don't know- surely she'd be speaking French) :"Please :Help me :I know I can't go back :I came here to watch the dance of the spheres, the beauty of the realm of the gods, but I am blind. Can you imagine what it is to sit beneath the greatest sights the universe will ever know, and be nearly blind? I can hear the music but I cannot watch. :Can you fix me? Or if you can't, kill me." We know time is doing weird things around these portals, she might've been here for days or centuries. Alone and nearly blind. We take sympathy on her. Angus and the Wizard take a look at those ocular units. The bard and Cruella try to explain what looks like the painting "The Garden of Earthly Delights" to her - much harder than you'd think. The Navvie and I decide the only appropriate thing to do in the realm of chaos is to get drunk. Above us a giant crocodile builds a pyre for a snowman made of vaseline while a dozen weeping ducks and other waterfowl look on. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNLhxKpfCnA Pink Floyd - Is There Anybody Out There?] The Navvie and Wizard reckon it'll take them maybe 20 minutes. That's 20 minutes of sitting here looking up at all that weird. Things go reasonably well at first, but there are shapes that can be seen out there in the sand. This might be considered bad. This is confirmed as bad shortly afterwards. A very large, very familiar looking fish seems to have noticed us, or at least he's circling closer towards us, it will take him a while to get here though. :>Hello Duncan. Meanwhile whatever those shapes are, there's a whole lot of them. If they come for us, we're going to have an interesting fight on our hands. If they come for us, we're going to have to kill all of them and then either fix Marie and get eaten by Duncan, or just bail. We're blowing the gate anyway, fuck her. We actually feel pretty bad about that last option though. The Penguin certainly wouldn't be happy. Well we could just... The DM decides to speed up our deliberations, whatever those many, many things out there are, they're getting closer. We'll need at least ten minutes of further repair, but at least the charges are laid. :>What the hell are those? Frogs? Snakes? Whatever they are, they're man sized and sure do have a lot of teeth. There's also fucking hundreds of them. They decide that if they're going to eat us, they'd better do it sharpish. The swarm as they come closer, they seem to be made of what looks like brass? We can't be sure, whatever the hell they are they're not nice. We open fire/start thumping them. We're two men down (fixing things) and we are slowly being driven back. Angus lets the Navvie borrow his flamethrower (most excellent for crowd control), it's still not enough though. We're swarmed. I mean really swarmed. They're getting closer and closer, a mass of slithering chomping biting bodies. :>Why can't Marie go back through the gate? She'll die. I should have said this earlier - I didn't, my bad, she's been subject to enough time fuckery and weird that her mind will just melt on returning to the normal world - it also seems like whatever Monsieur Mouton was doing still works on this side, but won't on the other - so even if she lives she'll go killcrazy. One of the swarm manages to bite down on Cruella's leg. Teeth lodging into the leather of her boot and beyond, blood soaking into the sand. Another couple are gnawing on the Navvie shortly afterward. Angus calls it. :"Marines, we are leaving." The wizard however has one last try. :"Imma gonna just hit with ma hammer and hope for the best." :>Rolls a 20 :"I can see!" So we leave Marie and book it for the gate. We run take cover on the other side and are very happy to watch the weirdness explode. This leaves poor Marie on the other side, but at least she's doing what she wanted. We make for make reactor and, in a surprisingly incident-less attempt, we lay charges and decide to off fuck. So one short bathy ride later we are back at Slains Castle Well fuck it, we've not beaten up any dinosaurs before. :>More importantly, why are we angry with Dr Ure? If Dr. Ure is mixed up in the leeches, in whatever the fuck the French have been up to and more importantly, has lied to us, we are very angry. Something he said comes back to us: :''"That could be a logical result of my research, but only a mad" he laughs uproariously "man might do that. If the Crown ever found out about that he'd be burnt at the stake."'' So this crazy green midget has been fucking with us all along. More to the point, those Galvasaur things actually could be pretty damned useful to the crown. While this might be a one-shot, we decide if we can, we need to nick some of them or generally some plans for them, why not earn some brownie points? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T65rW_SIzg0 Blue Oyster Cult Godzilla] That song is a fairly large foreshadow. :>It's never easy. Nor in Britbongsteros are things ever simple enough to be black and white. Dr. Ure might have used us to wipe out the French-Things who, admittedly, were kind of eating all the locals - so all in all a net gain on the side of good. As we mull this over, the facility detonates spectacularly in the distance. So at least he knows we're coming. We also know he had something to do with Clown-leeches but he could have just galvanised one. So that's a maybe. He also has been thinking with portals. Again though, benefit of the doubt, it seems like the one outside Slain's castle he might've just discovered without really understanding. We decide that in the name of British decency we're going to kick down his front door (well it's a castle so we shoot the hinges with a shotgun, bend the portcullis with a wizard and then hit everything with a great big hammer) give him a chance to explain himself, then fucking murder him. :"By the purple penguin, we are here to fuck you up." Well fuck me. Fuck us. Dafuq is that? The courtyard is lit by the light of a pretty decent sized set of engineering works. That sure looks like they're building a portal. A really big portal. Big enough for god sized things to come through. Big enough that this whole region, nay country, maybe even Europe could become another playground for them, just like we saw. Assuming of course Dr. Ure even knows how to get the right realm on the other end. Who knows what might be summoned. Our happy little green friend can be seen standing on a battlement directing things. Spookily, all the galvasaurs and leeches put down their tools at exactly the same moment and turn to look at us. Oh so many dead eyes staring. Welp. He yells something from the battlements, but is far too quiet to be heard. Some fumbling and with a crudely constructed megaphone made from a few sheafs of blueprints he announces more audibly. :"You may want to sit down, shocks are much better with the knees bent" Electricity arcs up and around a soulcube looking thing off to one side. That sounded really familiar... :"Stop... whatever the fuck you're doing... in the name of the Crown!" Yells the Navvie. He gestures at the assembled masses of critters. :"Animals are fine, but their acceptability is limited. A small child is even better, but not nearly as effective as the right kind of adult." ...balls. I decide to try a different tactic. :"What are you doing exactly?" :"Parthenogenesis." :>Fuuuuuuuuuuck He continues :"We have men who came here of his own free will. :Men who came here representing the power of a Monarch :One who came here as a virgin" (Hang on... who's... ... oh god not you Bard) :"and all who came as fools!" baaaaaaaalls I'm aware not all of the anons who read these things are British, so if you're wondering why this stuff is important watch the 1973 film "The Wicker Man". Just to ruin the dramatic tension, Cruella mutters to herself over her G&T :"Well he didn't mention me, so you lot are fucked, I'll just be over here waiting quietly while you all get murdered." :"Of course my new kingdom will need a Queen... One to allow me to bring forth my new breed of humanity, a humanity which shall walk with the gods. How kind of you to bring me a woman with royal blood and such a fine specimen indeed. The breeding shall be sweet." :Wizard: "Och mate ye've din it noo." :"You who have all survived so much, what better specimens of genetic stock? What better clay? I shall remake you, do not be sad, for entropy will ensure you all return to the stuff of stars soon enough. Your bodies are but transient vehicles in any event." :Angus: "Shall we murder him? I say we murder him." Angus it appears has actually had rather a bright idea. There's an awful lot of things between him and us though, and knowing our luck something horrible is going to happen on the way. Doesn't stop us trying though. Time for some good old fashioned ultra-violence. In between spurts of blood and other bits, it can be noticed that Dr. Ure is definitely up to something, something involving that big portal... That big portal we are now in the middle of, thumping dinosaurs while he powers it up. ... Fzzzzzzzzwhaaaaaacha! (now that's an onomatopoeia.) Reality splits asunder approximately forty five feet in the air (given though that these things work on metric, really that should be 13.176M), to the trained and discerning eye it appears to rain several tons worth of Dulux Green Meadow paint. Still in the tins. One bounces off Angus much to his disgust. The crackling changes pitch slightly and an enormous pair of mandibles enter reality from nothingness. Dr. Ure raises his arms high and a whole lot of monster follows those mandibles. '''Fuck, I always miss the threads, the conclusion has not been posted yet'''
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