Holes/Session 15

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Session 15 (Overview)

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INT. Lab - underground complex

The Gravedigger, Rhu, and Greibel are asleep. Radek is at a table, working on various tinkering, not all there, doing his bizarre equivalent of sleep.

The Gravedigger Dreams.

: You dream of Earth, dark and moist and full of wurms. It surrounds you on all sides, yet you are not Earth. Well, of course you're not Earth. You know Earth. You are not Earth. You're what is left when the Earth is removed. You are black, like a sky once the bright lights are taken out of it, and empty, empty, empty... Struggling, you reach to grab the Earth that is all around you, so dark and moist, with all its wurms, the lives and the fullness of it. You reach and you grasp and you pull, and it all falls into you, but you feel no less empty. You feel bigger, and more powerful, but also more alone, for the Earth is further away, now. It fears you, or it longs for you, but when you embrace the Earth it falls away and is gone, and you are even more alone with your black and empty sky.

: Your dream shifts, and still you are not Earth. You are standing on Earth, feeling its moistness beneath your bare feet, knowing it to be dark and full of wurms. You hold in your right hand your tool that you use to move the Earth, and you stand before a grave, a grave of the Earth. You did not dig this grave. The earth that was moved from it was more than moved, it was re-moved and un-moved and now there's no telling where it is, or if it even is at all. In your left hand you hold a dead chicken. It needs to be buried properly, but you don't think this grave can do that. Proper burial requires the Earth to be moved back into the hole. If the Earth isn't there...

: "Are you going to get on with it?" asks the chicken. You don't answer. You're not in the habit of talking with your clientel.

: "Look, just pop me in the hole and get on with it," says the chicken. "Quests don't wait for ever, and the library will close eventually. Time is of the essence, you know."

: You look at the chicken, then back in the hole. And then you bury it in the blank and empty sky.

: The dream shifts again and for the briefest moment you see the girl standing behind you, flickering like a bad TV image, first in one colour, then another. The winged kitten on her shoulder hisses at you and she begins to turn to look at you, but before you can see her face...

The Gravedigger wakes up suddenly.

Greibel Dreams.

: "Hello," says Amadi. "It was about time you dropped by."

: You're dreaming about a sky, a vast sky full of bright lights, colourful and glorious. You're flying, or swimming, or just being, and you really don't care to find out. You're all alone in the vastness of space, but for Amadi and the chicken. It isn't really space, either; not the dark, empty void that spans between the worlds. This is a place of light. This is the bright and colourful void that spans between -

: "Do you like it?" asks Amadi, cutting off your thoughts before you have time to think them. You nod. You want to tell her just how much you like it, how much better it is than anything you've experienced before in your life, but it is she who holds the words, the great and terrible words one would need to explain a place, a feeling like this, the words that are too big to fit in a mortal mouth. And so you nod, because it's the best you can do.

: "It used to be bigger, you know. She was supposed to govern it, but it's not a thing that lets itself be governed, and after the split... I'm afraid we lost some colours. Or maybe it wasn't even our fault."

: You look closer at Amadi and realize that she isn't that person you've met before, the one who says, after all, that she is not Amadi. Miss Teatime? This one is brighter and more colourful, and you see bits of others in her. Dave. Not Dave, Dawn. And you see something altogether darker, as well.

: "Holes. She never accounted for them. They weren't here yet, and easy to ignore, and now we can't even remember well enough to do something about the ones that seep into our own selves... They weren't supposed to be our problem."

: You see the dark between the stars, the colourful myriads of lights that are far more than mere stars, and the Black Holes among them. They make your head spin and your stomach swirl and your eyes sting and you realize that this is a dream and you ought to wake up so you can find somewhere to go and throw up but you can't, and now you can't look away from the hole that is swallowing up the whole world, all the loveliness of it and you feel like screaming; this is the saddest thing you've ever witnessed, and -

: Suddenly there's a chicken in your face.

: "Dude," says the chicken, "what do you think you're doing? You don't want to be trippin' over there, man! It's bad mojo, like, really, really bad, and besides... aren't you s'posed to be on some quest, man? Dude, the library is totally going to close on you, and that librarian might not take kindly to not being rescued on time! Man, librarians can be some mean bitches when you don't do things on time, oooh boy, did I tell you about that time when -"

: The sudden silence is the most harrowing thing you have never heard. The black hole is right in front of your face, and the chicken is gone, and you think you might die, or go mad, or something even worse, if you fall in after it, and -

: Amadi spins you around; she's strong for someone so little. Or maybe you're just very light. You look into her eyes and you open your mouth and you're about to tell her...

Greibel wakes up slowly.

Radek Dreams.

: You dream of -

: No.

: You're working. You never fell asleep; you would never fall asleep. You're working. Mending, repairing, breaking down, reassembling, making, creating... working.

: So far you have made fifty bombs, a spaceship, a particularly good coffee-machine, a rather imperfect sandwich, a chicken, a whole pen of Mouseforged, a pen (to hold animal-machines), a pen (to write with), half-score bottled genies, one of them even more or less functional, although very rude, and on a special request you've mended a broken mask. That was a tough one, and something about the mask made you just itch behind your skin and under your nails and in the back of your eyes, but the payment was good. Currently you're working on a perfect rendition of the whole universe. You've managed the bright bits fairly well, but you're having trouble with the holes, and find yourself wishing you had Gravy to help you. He's good with holes. But unlike you, he's asleep. Everyone's asleep, even the Mouseforged, everyone except you and the chicken.

: "You're never going to get that right, you know," comments the chicken. It's been giving unhelpful comments like this all along. You don't want to recall all the atrocities it mentioned while you were working on the mask.

: "It's not conductive at all. You don't have the proper tools, you don't even have the proper blueprints. And by this point, it's changing too fast and you won't manage to update it before it's all gone dark. You should focus on your quest. You should find the bound librarian. Sometimes, you don't need to know exactly how something is supposed to be in order to fix it. Just try harder, and remember to-"

: The chicken makes a squeaky sound before going silent, and you deign it the briefest glance to notice that the annoying mad girl is holding it by the neck. "Sorry," she whispers, "It got away from me. Won't happen again; promise." And she steps back and away and leaves you to your work.

: While you looked away, though, the model became all mangled. You're going to have to start over...

Radek's dream fades, and he dozes on, still tinkering at his things.

Rhu Dreams of darkness, empty and silent. A dead end.

The Gravedigger and Greibel awaken to hear Dawn saying 'WHEEEEEE' as she flies overhead and then notice some other things - the porridge has eaten most of the zombie corpse bits; the sphinx fell asleep and drooled all over the Mouseforged, which appears to be leaking something strange and silvery; Dawn got into Radek's things, borrowed some books, and made herself a floating disk and started whizzing around the room on it; and Amadi is sitting upside-down on the ceiling juggling geese.

GREIBEL

This is better than breakfast in bed.

DAWN

Wheeeeeeee!

Dawn tries to fly up a wall and nearly falls off the disk.

GREIBEL

Don't crash into the geese! They'll fall...up!

Greibel watches Dawn intently while occasionally glancing up at Amadi, and loads his bong accordingly. He smokes, grinning, watching everything unfold.

Amadi juggles geese.

AMADI

(to nobody in particular)

It totally was.

The Gravedigger sighs.

Rhu continues to sleep.

Radek finishes whatever he was doing and snaps out of his dozey fugue.

RADEK

Where's... where's that chicken gone? I was about to immolate it. Bloody pessimist.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

I thought I was going to go and fight strange monsters. Battle wondrous beasts, bury them, go home, get money, go on holiday.

The commotion wakes Rhu as well, and Dawn crashes into a nearby wall and slides off the disk, winding up in this awkward upside-down position against the wall.

DAWN

Ow.

Rhu opens one eye, looks at Dawn, looks at Amadi, and then closes his one open eye as tightly as he can.

RHU

Five more minutes.

AMADI

Good morning.

The Gravedigger goes to check on the Mouseforged. It seems to be oozing. Almost like it's slightly melted. The sphinx is also sleeping on it, drooling.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Radek! Melty robot!

RADEK

Hrm?

Rhu opens both his eyes and stares at the ceiling for a minute, waiting until he can be properly resigned to his lot.

Amadi loses control of the geese and they all fall on Rhu, squacking indignantly. They flap around, running in every direction.

RHU

IN THE NAME OF -

Rhu gets up, covered in feathers.

AMADI

(from the ceiling)

Tarnation and blimey! Buggery planks! Obsequious goat blowers!

Rhu dodges away over a table, hitting a particularly large goose.

AMADI

Dementian blasting!

Rhu gets up and goes over to Dawn to help her up.

DAWN

(quickly, before he actually does)

No not the, spine, my spine is broken, spine spine pine.

RADEK

(over the Mouseforged)

You wanted danger, Gravy? Remove the cat.

Radek takes a step backwards.

Rhu realises something is going on behind him and quickly turns around.

The Gravedigger readies his best shovel, takes up a golfing stance, limbers up his shoulders.

Rhu holds his breath.

The sphinx snores.

Dawn slowly slides down onto the floor, glaring at nothing in particular.

The Gravedigger swings and hits the sphinx with his shovel, sending it flying like a sack of potatoes. Unlike a sack of potatoes, it lands on its feet several feet away, looking confused.

DAWN

You... attacked the sphinx? With a shovel. I... can't...

Dawn lies in a horrible heap.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

It's magic, it'll be fine.

Amadi falls off the ceiling.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Mr. Mousie! Are you allright?

The Mouseforged doesn't respond. It's rather wet.

Greibel can't take it anymore and cracks up laughing hysterically.

DAWN

Glad someone is amused.

Amadi gets up and looks around as though seeing the room for the first time.

AMADI

HI ROOM!

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Greibel, I think Sandwich lady is too high.

DAWN

...hi?

The Sphinx starts licking itself.

GREIBEL

You're not too high until... uh...

Greibel starts laughing again.

Amadi starts laughing as well.

Radek examines the Mouseforged, trying to sort out just what it was that is leaking, and where it's leaking from. It seems to be coming from the heart. It might be the soul, mixed with a fair amount of sphinx drool.

The Gravedigger hurriedly starts trying to mop it up into a mug. He gets some in, but isn't very successful.

The Gravedigger tries harder, getting more drooled-on soul into the mug.

Frezak (Gravy): AAAAAGH. GORRAM CAT. SHALAS COUL TAKE YOU, CAT.

Amadi suddenly stops laughing and just stares off into space as though shocked at something.

Radek examines the rest of the Mouseforged carefully. (rolled 31 arcana (natural 20)) The mouse soul looks fine. The leaking stuff seems to be... another soul.

Rhu turns back to Dawn, who is still lying in a horrible heap on the floor.

RHU

Are you okay?

DAWN

I'm great. I'm just waiting for my spine to regrow.

Rhu stares at her.

RHU

O... kay...

Amadi turns her head slowly toward Gravy and the others.

AMADI

Tofu?

THE GRAVEDIGGER

What, Sandwich Lady?

Rhu wanders over to the north door and has a look in the corridor. (rolled 15 perception) The corridor is dark and not very interesting.

AMADI

TOFU!

Greibel expresses exaggerated shock at the statement and looks around.

RADEK

Oh! Well that explains it.

The Mouseforged is leaking out remnants of a second soul because it wasn't designed to house two of them!

Rhu goes and checks the other door, and senses undead in that direction. (rolled 27 perception)

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Oh, hells.

RADEK

Here, let me see that cup.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

This has demon cat dribble in it.

RADEK

That's probably fine.

Radek checks the soul in the cup - specifically, if there's any "mouse" in it. (rolled 30 arcana) It seems to be all not mouse, but full of memory and history. The drool also seems to be somewhat magical on its own.

RADEK

...Yes, good. The mouse soul isn't leaking out. It's the other one instead.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

WHEW. I was worried for a bit.

RADEK

That said, it would be helpful to gather up what we can of this one. It has a memory I should like to dig through.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

You can have my mug.

RADEK

Thank you.

Radek gathers up as much of the silvery soul mixture as he can into the mug. It's full of drool, but he seems to get most of it. The thing has also clearly stopped leaking at this point.

He moves it into a stoppered flask.

AMADI

Greibel! Have you made room for the tuna? Tuna!

GREIBEL

I've always got room for tuna!

AMADI

Where is it?

AMADI

(louder)

Where is it!

Greibel points to his stomach.

GREIBEL

In here!

AMADI

(screaming)

WHERE IS IT!

GREIBEL

Cool it! We'll find it!

AMADI

YAY! Wait, what?

Dawn pulls herself back onto the disk and proceeds to lie on that instead of on the floor.

Radek directs his attention toward Dawn, walking over and indicating the floating disk.

RADEK

You made this?

DAWN

I guess?

RADEK

Well, you're the one commanding it, at least. Why are you lying like that?

DAWN

My spine is broken. It'll regrow. I think.

RADEK

Unfortunate. I recommend ceramic reinforcement if that happens often.

RHU

I've never heard of stuff like that, spines regrowing by themselves. Does that happen often?

DAWN

I don't know if it does or not.

Amadi walks over to Dawn and straightens out her spine.

AMADI

There. All fixed.

Ganelon (Radek): ...Is it actually all fixed, or just straight?

Apheori (GM): Hard to tell. Dawn doesn't seem to want to test it. She's not moving and looking slightly worried.

Greibel composes himself and then walks over to Dawn.

GREIBEL

Open your mouth and say "ah".

Dawn does so, looking confused.

DAWN

Ah?

Greibel chuckles a bit before straightening back up.

GREIBEL

How many fingers am I holding up?

Greibel keeps changing the number of fingers and switches hands occasionally.

DAWN

Nine so far?

Greibel pokes her spine. (rolled 18 heal)

DAWN

Agh!

Dawn almost falls off the disk, and then it starts floating away. She tries sitting up, determines that she seems to be fine again after all, and makes herself comfortable.

GREIBEL

Another satisfied customer.

Dawn glides over to Radek and watches him, possibly uncomfortably.

RADEK

...Did you want something, Dave?

DAWN

Probably. I should know what, shouldn't I? But I should know a lot of things.

RHU

If we're done here, we should get a move on. There are undead down this way, but I don't think there's too many of them.

I'd like to find out where we were transported to when we came here: same planet, different planet, space ship...

These tanks that Amadi keeps appearing in, they're not teleports, are they?

GREIBEL

I don't remember teleporting anywhere.

DAWN

We're underground.

RHU

(to Dawn)

Oh, are we? We got here through a teleport, but the other end of the teleport is underground too. Under a well in the town of Coffle, the seat of Deslan, on That Planet Which Only Had The One Big Hole.

DAWN

(pointing up)

There is a lot of rock up there.

Amadi disappears. Nobody reacts.

RHU

(to Greibel)

Maybe you were teleported and you didn't notice?

GREIBEL

That is...

(he looks at his bong)

Totally possible.

Rhu nods at Greibel.

RHU

(to Dawn)

How do you know we're underground?

Amadi appears behind Greibel.

DAWN

I just... do? I can sense the rock. Rock and space. It has warmth.

RHU

If there's anything left to explore in the southern corridor, I think we should explore that first. I remember we stopped looking when we heard voices and came in here. Once we're done investigating there, we can go through the north door.

AMADI

(whispering in Greibel's ear)

Dribbly and full of goo.

Greibel straightens up, a bit confused.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

All right! Let's go exploring!

AMADI

Jiggly and full of juice!

The porridge jiggles. Greibel picks it up.

Amadi mutters to herself about mean, cold-hearted individuals and clucks disapprovingly. Then she walks over and picks up the sphinx and puts it on like a hat.

Dawn floats her disk over toward the corridor.

The Gravedigger swishes his shovel at the darkness down the corridor.

The darkness makes funny noises and disperses a bit.

RHU

That's... worrying. What about the Mouseforged?

THE GRAVEDIGGER

I'm not sure darkness should make noises.

AMADI

Hey, don't do that!

RHU

Definitely prefer silent darkness, myself. We still have torches, don't we -

(to Amadi)

Eh?

AMADI

What did the darkness ever do to you?

THE GRAVEDIGGER

It made me trip! And ate my lunch!

AMADI

That wasn't very nice of it.

The Gravedigger attaches torches to his horns.

Radek checks on the Mouseforged again, making sure it's okay now that all its excess soul has been removed. (rolled 19 arcana) It... seems fine.

Radek smacks the Mouseforged sternly.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Hey! That doesn't look like science! That's animal cruelty!

Or robot cruelty. Or something.

The Mouseforged wakes up and makes mouse noises.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Hey, Mr Mousie! Yoo-hoo!

Oh, sorry. Squeak, squeak.

RADEK

I know what I'm doing.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Well, you're not going to say otherwise ever if you were!

The Mouseforged gets up and falls over.

RHU

Oof. Careful, Mr. Mousie.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Hrrrm. Can we borrow your disk, Davenotdave?

DAWN

What? Oh... I suppose.

Dawn looks reluctant, mostly to get up.

Finally she slides off the disk and bounces it off Gravy a few times like a slow-motion horizontal yo-yo.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Oh, thanks, Davenotdave.

The Gravedigger heaves the Mouseforged onto it and leads the way out.

Dawn eyes it suspiciously and then doesn't climb on top.

RHU

How's your back, Dave?

DAWN

A back.

As the party heads out, Dawn and Amadi wind up side-by-side, not talking to each other.

INT. Hallway - underground complex

The party pass several uninteresting doors. One opened into an empty lunchroom. Another to a pile of offices with bones on the desks. A few to generally empty store rooms.

At one point they pass a closet, and Rhu opens it. The other side of the door is a solid wall of ice.

Rhu stares at it, then touches ice wall. It's definitely ice.

RHU

Huh.

He shines a light at the ice to see if he can see anything beyond it, but it looks pretty solid. He then checks around the door for a sign or something, but finds none.

DAWN

Ice?

RHU

Yes, ice. In a closet. Underground. Without a sign.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

You expect things to make sense now?

The Gravedigger scoffs.

The Gravedigger scoff again.

The Gravedigger thinks scoffing is fun.

Greibel examines the ice, trying to see if he can figure out how the ice got there or something. (rolled 14 nature) It looks like it froze. The entire room froze. Filled with something and froze.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

Melt some. See if it's salt or sweet water. If it's salt water, maybe leave it alone.

RHU

Is it fire bird time?

Greibel summons a fire hawk, which slashes the ice with flame. (rolled 18) Some of the ice melts and the edges turn kind of black.

Greibel's eyes turn to fire briefly and fizzle out back to normal over time.

He tastes the melty stuff. (rolled 27 nature) It tastes like burnt fish. And seawater, perhaps.

GREIBEL

Sea water with... well, a high concentration of fish.

RHU

F... fish? Not... giant fish?

GREIBEL

Giant fish don't taste much different from regular fish.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

That is valuable information and I will remember that, Greibel.

AMADI

I've got a sack of fish!

THE GRAVEDIGGER

NEXT DOOR. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

Rhu looks nervously up and down the corridor.

THE GRAVEDIGGER

PUT THE BIRDS AWAY.

Rhu closes the closet door and they move on.

DAWN

We should turn around.

RHU

Huh? Why? We are Discovering New Things!

DAWN

The space. It isn't right.

GREIBEL

Yeah. We discovered a walk-in freezer.

AMADI

It's okay. I know how to swim. SWIMMING LIKE A SHARK!

RHU

What's not right about the space?

THE GRAVEDIGGER

I've yet to see anything 'right' since we got here.

AMADI

Sharks! Everywhere!

Amadi flails.

DAWN

Er...

Dawn moves away from Amadi.

They come to another door, and Radek checks it for magic or general wrongness. (rolled 14 arcana)

Amadi opens the door. Beyond just looks dark.

AMADI

(loudly)

TUNA!

Amadi runs in and disappears.

The Gravedigger looks inside, shining his torches inside. It's full of beds and not very interesting. There are some cabinets.

And some corpses in the beds. Living quarters.

Rhu goes and looks through the cabinets, and Greibel looks too, mostly over Rhu's shoulder. They find some personal items, random stuff, some money, some trinkets, some pills. A dead rat.

The pills disappear into Greibel's bag.

RHU

(to Dawn)

Is this space any better? In terms of... spaciness?

DAWN

It's going to cave in.

RHU

That's not good.

Then Rhu suddenly realises how not good that is and takes off, helter-skelter, running for the transporter room.

The Gravedigger runs too, getting ahead of Rhu, just in case. Amadi runs with him, singing 'Brave, Brave Sir Robin'.

Radek, Dawn, and Greibel run after, with Dawn pushing Radek to try to help him move faster. It doesn't really help. The disk with the Mouseforged drifts after.

Behind them, horrible noises and dust drift after them, indicating that that section of the complex did indeed cave in.

As they pass the lab where they'd spent the night, Amadi pulls Dawn aside, back into the lab. The Mouseforged, on its disk, is pulled inside as well as a result.

The others keep going.

INT. Teleporter room - underground complex

Everything is quiet again. In the relative calm, Radek gives Greibel a rundown of the controls, and which ones seemed to be trapped.

The Gravedigger goes first, standing on the dias while Radek hits the controls.

There's the usual light play, and then it makes a funny noise and dumps a bunch of silvery stuff on Gravy. It looks suspiciously like the same substance that had been coating Radek before.

RADEK

That's not good.

The silvery stuff mostly just slides off and winds up in a puddle, and the Gravedigger wipes off the rest.

RADEK

Is that...

THE GRAVEDIGGER

It's Mr Gooples, yes. The Silver Surfed.

Radek pushes on the Gravedigger to move and when he does, stands on the dias instead.

RADEK

This substance is marvelous. Hit that button again!

Rhu hits the button.

Some more silvery stuff falls on Radek with a gloop, and then the entire contraption seems to die.

The silvery stuff slides off him as well, adding to the puddle.

RADEK

...Bah.

Radek collects some of it off the floor in a mug. This time it sits sadly, not disappearing.

RADEK

This is troublesome. What's wrong with the teleporter?

GREIBEL

Well, it's wet with silver stuff, for one thing.

Radek goes to check, and fiddles with the console.

RADEK

It's... out of power, or not receiving it.

GREIBEL

Maybe...somebody's been here since the last time you were?

RADEK

We won't be able to use it like this.

GREIBEL

If we can find a room with a cat god shrine, I know the way back out from there.

INT. Lab - underground complex

The lab is empty, looking very much how they left it. There's no sign of Amadi, Dawn, or the Mouseforged.

The Gravedigger has a go at tracking them regardless. (rolled 40 perception (natural 20)) He finds some bits of tuna, and tracks them out the other door.

Continuing to track down the next corridor, he finds more bits of canned tuna on the way.

The others follow.

INT. Presentation room - underground complex

It's a circular room with 49 seats around the center, where a hologram is currently flickering about, showing random snatches of scenes and people. Amadi and Dawn are fiddling with a console on the other side, but the sphinx is draped across half of the console itself, so it's hard to tell how they'd make any progress.

The Mouseforged has apparently been dumped across a few seats.

The Gravedigger and the others spill in.

Greibel strolls over to Amadi and Dawn and watches their console-hackery. Amadi's just poking random buttons and Dawn is half-heartedly trying to move the sphinx, but most of the attempts turn into ear scratchings and whatnot due to the sphinx intentionally getting in her way.

DAWN

(to Greibel)

Oh, hello.

RADEK

The teleporter is powerless. We can't use it to escape. What's all this?

Radek goes over to them as well to do some REAL science to the console.

The hologram is mostly flickering back to a single recording - it's a figure of a man, dressed like some sort of wizard or scientist. He seems to be speaking, but there's no sound. It jumps about randomly.

GREIBEL

I see you found one of Radek's friends.

DAWN

Some sort of recording. I think...

Well, if somebody would stop messing with it, maybe we could hear what he said?

Dawn gives Amadi a significant look.

AMADI

(poking random buttons)

What's this do? What's this do?

GREIBEL

It's really the only way to learn.

Greibel presses a few curiously.

Dawn picks up the sphinx and dumps it on Amadi's head.

AMADI

I'm blinded I'm blinded it's the dark!

Amadi runs around in circles, trips over a chair, and disappears, leaving the sphinx suddenly occupying the chair.

The Gravedigger stands near the door, having nothing to contribute. He checks a few chairs for popcorn. There isn't any.

RADEK

Right then.

Radek presses buttons purposefully. He unmutes it and restarts the recording from the beginning.

The man in the recording just stands there for a bit, as though trying to figure out what to say...

HOLOGRAM

So this is it, then? The end? It wasn't supposed to end like this.

RADEK

I used to love watching my colleagues' tapes of this sort of thing.

HOLOGRAM

If you're seeing this, then we're all dead.

Since we lost contact with the surface, things have only gotten worse. The dead... have no stayed dead. The living have... disappeared? I'm not even sure. The contagion spread, but when the countermeasures were enacted that should have dissipated it, it only slowed, not stopped. Even the last puzzle box has been destroyed.

I don't even know when we lost contact. Time got funny, the walls got... funny. If it's still funny, then we'll have failed to even guard the rest. The worlds will be doomed.

The man stops, thinking, recomposing himself.

HOLOGRAM

It's like the rifts, but I don't think it had anything to do with the rifts. Otherwise the countermeasures should have worked. And the experiments never breached containment. The subjects were all inert.

The man shakes his head.

HOLOGRAM

We're supposed to know these things, right? Recording the final log, telling those who will come after exactly what went wrong?

RADEK

You'd be surprised how often they don't.

HOLOGRAM

Except everyone who knew is already dead. I'm already dead. We're all dead and there will be no answers, nobody to get back to Arah with this, to tell them the truth.

This was the wrong way forward. The very research intended to slow the end of times is bringing it about, and if the Orders would not keep interfering, this never would have happened.

Please, whoever you are. Dispose of the labs. clean up the experiments. Exterminate the dead, and close this place. Let the world's end wait another day.

The man in the hologram stands there for a bit, thinking if there's anything else to say, then walks out of the circle and the recording ends.

Radek finds some other recordings, too. Earlier logs, things about specific projects, information that might indeed be useful. He plays a few back.

Ganelon (Radek): "Final recordings of failed scientists" are like home movies to Radek, though. And he's an old person, so he loves them rather than finding them embarassing.

The Gravedigger goes and stands by the door in case of zombies.

Most of the recordings turn out to be actual presentations. Findings, progress reports, proposals.

The main project was an investigation of what they decided to call 'rifts'. The rifts were largely centred on Cerris (apparently this plane), but apparently they'd been popping up all across the planes, even outright destroying some of them, and it's only gotten worse as time went on.

Initially they sent teams to investigate the rifts directly, but the scientists were driven mad, their souls twisted beyond recognition. After that, they avoided getting close, and instead sent golems to collect samples and energy readings, to some success. They found several subjects that had apparently come out of more stable rifts, as well, and brought them back for further study - apparently the folks in the tanks.

Another project they were working on involved shielding based on an artifact they'd found. It suggested some new way to create invisible boundaries that blocked energy rather than matter, meaning only low-energy things could pass through - low levels of light, slower and colder objects...

RADEK

Fascinating.

Two other projects involved something with mutating birds and a thing about talking to the dead. It's unclear just what they were exactly because the guy documenting these seemed to be pretty crazy.

The bird one seems a little like it might have had something to do with a contagion like the first hologram mentioned, but it's not exactly clear.

Radek finishes, satisfied, then collects the storage crystals to take them with him.

Greibel, meanwhile, plays with the porridge.

GREIBEL

Porridge?

Greibel makes a face at the porridge.

The porridge makes the face back at Greibel.

Ganelon (Radek): One of these days, man, that porridge is going to steal his actual face. I'm calling it now.

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Session 15 (Overview)

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