8. ESCAPE FROM THE TRIANGULATED CIRCLES OF DEATH

The massive truck you all are riding in (except for MICKEY) rumbles over the dusty-brown earth South toward the river in the East. A solid concrete bridge spans the river. It's wide enough for three trucks. Beyond the bridge and river is a set of low-lying hills which lead up into snow-capped mountains touching the clouds. And indeed you can see a crude road across the river leading from the bridge and into the hills. Up in the mountains you can see flickering of light, the setting sun reflecting off metal surfaces. Looking around you in the chaos, you see you are in a valley of some kind ringed by these mountains, and sharp brown cliffs of rock. But the bridge suggests some kind of travel by infrastructure. The bridge seems to lead to the compound most of you are from. The river appears to skirt just alongside the compound, another means of transport, trade, or simple power.

CELLULOSA is at the wheel attempting to guide the rig and all of you. MORN-START is sitting shotgun firing his handgun at the pursuing vehicles. Three vehicles, one a trike, with a driver and another, wielding some sort of long gun. The main vehicle of pursuit resembles a dune buggy with massive wheels, the size of the chassis. Mounted on the back is a large gun with an operator standing behind it. The other vehicle is a motorcycle and is on the Eastern side of the party's truck, out of sight from MORN-START, but CELLULOSA can see it in the side-view mirror.

MOSES is working on the wires, trying to hail his comrades, before attempting to unhook the trailer from the forward cab!

Giving chase to the Thrice Church vehicles pursuing the party are three hawkmen and their apemen cargo who wield flamethrowers. In the trailer, upon which sits The Temple of The Mother, Telem and Fortunata fight with TEDDY, the pure human, and WINTER BLACKFORD. The strange Twinses, holding a newborn baby of The Mother whom they are oddly obsessed with, are combating WINTER as he has harmed The Mother and the babies within her massive gelatin body.

MICKEY, thrown out of the Temple by Telem, faces down a hawkman and apeman.

Further behind is the immense battle raging between the Thrice Church and hawkmen/apemen. Flames arise from many portions of the church caravan as the swarm of hawkmen is unrelenting. Black smoke rises into the sky creating a thick forest of forest of smoke trees.

7. A SKY OF STEEL

Amidst the chaos in the large room of The Mother inside the vehicle's large structure and beyond, out into the murmurings and cheers of the crowd outside, in the background, is a sound coming from the East. It is some kind of music and chorus and it's getting louder.

Looking East you see the sun is setting and up against the ruby-red sun, there is a massive amount of giant birds. They appear giant because in their talons they are carrying humanoid figures. The humanoids are covered in fur of various earthen tones. There are both male and female humanoids. But some have dyed their pelts outlandish colors. The humanoids clutch weapons, which appear to be rifles. They also wear silvery helmets which cover their faces. The giant birds have human arms and hands that grasp cruder instruments of death, like swords and spears.

You can see there are different divisions marked by different colored birds and humanoids. They carry different weapons. There is a division which is playing the music. They have trumpets, reed instruments, and amplified stringed instruments.

They are and army. And they are all singing to the music.  They begin to descend on The Thrice Church caravan.

6. BAPTISM

Cellulosa

 Teddy

The Mother

The Twinses lead you through the glut of vehicles crowded outside the wall. Felix and Steven with their odd shared gait, and Rudy protruding from Harlowe's abdomen, like a child riding a person. Despite his uncomfortable-looking arched position, his movements are fluid, almost like a large dog loping along. You are headed toward the largest vehicle.

On either side are the members of The Thrice Church. There is a mixture of men and women in soft, felt clothing in two color hues, much like the "children," but in other color combinations, like red and purple, yellow and blue, and pink and umber, etc. Most don't look younger than forty. Tools hand from their belts. They all were different hats. Some with broad brims, others without brims at all. Some are shaped like stars, others vertical ovals, a few are tri-cornered.

There are others among the throngs of people who look like they've been on the road for all their lives. Their eyes, when they aren't hidden behind a mask, goggles or visor, are the color of slate, and seem to stare through you and into the distance. Their faces are weather-worn, speckled with tiny bright veins and black sores. They don't have many teeth. They have rope wrapped around them with various materials strapped to their bodies, over their ragged clothes for protection. You see different weapons hanging from their belts and sashes. Rusted blades, steel pipes, clubs, a few pistols, and some stranger shapes foreign to your memory.

Also, among the people you spot tall masked warriors, in the same cut as Telem and Forunata, but with different markings on their masks.

One of these types walks alongside your group. He is wearing a shirt and pants made from long brown hair and it ripples and waves as he walks. Sewn into the hair in a checkered pattern are human teeth and human toes. A small shield hangs from his left forearm and there is an antique sword on his hip and he cradles some sort of rifle in the crook of his right arm. With him he is leading two figures. One is a humanoid woman form, but who is made completely out of a single plant. The other is a squirrel walking upright, stiffly.

The man in the hair says something in a language you don't understand to the Twinses to look back and nod, Telem yells something to the man as well and the man guides the plant woman and squirrel into your group.

Looking behind you see Telem and Fortunata following you casually. You can see the rusted metal wall. You see the "children running through the streets. There are rooftops barely peaking out above the top of the wall.

Finally you come to the largest vehicle. There is a long, rectangular structure of gray brick sitting on top of it's wheel bed. Metal steps lead up into its dark interior. The Twinses stop on either side and gesture for you to enter the dark doorway.

Inside the pungent smell nearly overpowers your senses. It is a mixture of sweet rotting and spent fuel. Your eyes adjust to the darkness. At the far end of the one-room structure is a large figure seated on a throne upon a dais. From the abdomen of the figure a green gelatinous substance oozes forth and into an enormous vat. The vat itself takes up the majority of the room. And the green gelatin fills it entirely. The gelatinous form pulses and writhes, ever moving. It appears to glow in the darkness. Looking closer at the gelatinous form in the vat you see it there are shadowy shapes held suspended inside it, small human shapes, the size of children or babies.

The Twinses take up positions behind you.

"Let the Baptism begin." And they start to chant a strange ritualistic song.

5. THE TWO TWINS AND MOTHER

 

Fig. P5M4 

 

Fig. P5M5

Over the fallen wall, two giant forms make their way toward you. Each one is a set of conjoined twins. The first set is two torsos sharing one pair of legs. The second is a man with his back arched, walking on his hands and feet. His twin is a torso growing out of his stomach. It looks like the twin is riding his brother like an animal.

Each set of twins wields a metal staff that breaks into a small trident at the top. Each of them wears a cape. Even the one with the arched back. Their skin is like old, wet clay. Their teeth are a radioactive yellow hue.

"Telem! Fortunata! What have you there? Blessed ones?! They are chosen?! Praise to the glory of The Activation! It is the glittering spirit of the wind that guides us and protects us!"

The sets of twins break into a song in a language you don't understand. They stand there and sing at you for several minutes. You are a captive audience to their performance.

"Blessed ones," says Telem, "These are the twinses. They guide our journey. They are high priests of The Thrice Church and first lieutenants to Hood Prie, the great spiritual leader to us." Pointing to the twin stalks on two legs, "This Felix and Steven Pettycrow." Then gesturing to the other twins, the one seemingly riding the other, "This Rudy and Harlowe Blackball."

"Telem! Have they accepted The Veiled Activation as their God?" yells Rudy, the twin riding his brother.

"Yes! Father Rudy, they will be with us in The Thrice Church now! They have been touched by The Veiled Activation! They are ready to be baptized into The Thrice Church." He clangs together his hands above his head.

"Come with us, blessed ones," says Felix waving a beckoning hand. "It is the time of The Mother then."

 Fig. P5V1

4. THEY WERE AS POLISHED BRONZE GODS

Examining the Relics, by Todd James

 
Fig. P4M3

The closest man, who taunted you with his flint blade and strangled male genitalia, bleeds profusely from his screwdriver and tablet wounds. He's sobbing now, having dropped his knife. He's utterly defeated mentally.

The crowd of men around him are shouting at you. Some hit at Mickey, the two-headed mutant rat, Maulmuire, the mutated human, and Morn-Start, the convenience store android, with the base of their palms in a way that suggests they would strike at you to cause you pain, but instead are holding back using this technique which does no damage at all. The expression across all their faces is far from the jovial one from before. Now they look annoyed, agitated, angry. They look on the verge of tears. They grip their dick-and-balls pouches and knead them in worry.

The two men who were crushed against the stone of black glass with the Force Screen are curled in fetal positions at the base of the rock, bleeding, their bodies broken. They sob silently, their faces hidden as if hoping by not looking up they'll receive no more physical punishment.

A perplexed group of men in orange and green is gathered around Moses and Winter testing the boundaries of the Force Screen with quick strikes with the palms of their hands and then quickly retreating back several steps.

Two sharp, loud clangs of metal on metal ring out from the Northwest corner of the square. Two human figures stand their with their arms crossed over their heads (See Fig. P4M3). There is a man and a woman. Both are very tall, seven feet you would guess. They wear only the minimum clothing to cover their groins. Calf-high leather books are on their feet. They have brown, ceramic masks covering their faces with slits for their eyes. On the woman's mask are three diagonal white marks across the cheeks. On the man's mask are three vertical red marks. Their bodies are constructed only with powerful shapes of voluminous muscle. Their skin is deeply tanned from exposure and glistens from sweat under the sun. At the end of their forearms aren't hands. At the end of their right arm is a rough, metal globe, from which protrude three foot-long needles. Instead of the left hand there is a blade that splits into two pieces, one a curved hook, the other a long, serrated sword. Around their waists hang a several strands of steel cables. They look like bronze statues you didn't see before.

But then they move, striding toward you, through the ring of tubular cats who have dropped down again from their "S" poses. The cat tubes slither behind the two giants.

The men in orange and green who've noticed these new arrivals on the scene of conflict run toward them, excited and yelling to them. In a beseeching tone they say, "Gooba! Gooba! Vard puchasey nucks! Gooba! Vard puchasey nucks, Gooba!" And the men point back at you accusingly. They huff and squeeze their members and stamp on the ground.

As the two tall figures get closer, you see their gleaming bodies are covered with wormy scars over their chests, arms, and legs. Their hair is dark long strands.

The tall man steps to one of the men in orange and green and shoves his hook blade into his stomach impaling him, lifting him up, then kicking him off the blade.

The two tall humans walk toward your party.

Moses and Morn-Start perhaps?

3. ENTER THE FOUR-HEADED GOD

 

Fig. P1M3

The group of men in orange and green clothing in the town square—now numbering about two dozen— turn toward the figures emerging from the large building in the North. First a silvery android with cat-like features and clutching a slate tablet, steps out, followed by a two-headed ape-ish man carrying a two-headed rat on its back. The mens' laughter dies down to silence. Some, who still haven't noticed what's going on, are murmuring, bent over, as they pick through the bodies in the square.

In a soothing, yet synthetic voice, the android says, "Rejoice workers and companions hear Moses speak as we praise or New God reborn in this wasteland to bring us light, Bzzzt--rzip beep-lo fat meals!! This message has been brought to you by Morn-Start and is subsidiary's, Start your morning right, Morn-Start! Bzzzbleep!" The android, Morn-Start, puts one hand behind his back, hiding whatever it is he's carrying.

“Oh my faithful peasant worshipers, LISTEN TO YOUR GOD! Give us your attention or give us your LIFE! Tell us what has happened here in this town square! Tell us that this was not your doing! Tell us that this was not done in my name! TELL US!” yells one of the simian-esque heads.

“Worship! Attention! Life! My Name! Tell us! TELL US!” yells the other.

A mutant piranha, known as Moses, with a skull helmet on its head and holding a pale white bone like a scepter as well as a silvery blue metallic egg object, emerges and stands to the side of the two two-headed figures. "Your god has returned! Here, now, and in the flesh! OBEY him!" Moses croaks. "Tell the four-headed god what has happened here!" The teeth in his skull helmet rattle as the piranha gesticulates wildly with his bone. "And tell me, His high priest, what tribute do you offer?"

Aloft, the two-headed rat holds a red ring high over his head. The sun, behind a dull-brown haze, catches it and it glints in the air.

All is silent. An aching silence.

The men don't pay any attention to the tubular creatures with feline heads who now walk freely among them. The men in the square, their smiles collapse almost at the same time. They begin to look at one another, searching for guidance in the faces of their comrades. 

2. THE SHADOWS ADVANCE

 Soundtrack 2

A New Situation, by Todd James

As your party sifts through the wreckage of the town square, the site of some unknown carnage, there are parts of your mind you feel malfunctioning. Synapses are firing, memories stirring, but they are echos of water in a deep dark well and you can make no sense of it. The ringing in your ears grows louder when you try to focus on these specters of memories. Everything, the corpses, the buildings, the large stone of black glass, even the carcass on top of the stone, the others walking around, all of it is familiar. But who and what they are is on the other side of a chasm too far to cross.

In the relative silence of the scene comes an ear-splitting sound. You flinch in surprise. The sound is of metal snapping. As though a foot thick piece of iron was broken in half under pressure. That sound decays into a high-pitched whirring sound which in turn evolves into an almost a deeper, constant resonance of metal slowly cutting through metal. The sound's source is in the Northwest.

Fig. P2C1

 Post 2, Map 2

Winter Blackford, by Pete Conlon

Fig. P2M2

1. GLIMMERINGS IN THE DARKNESS

A Meeting, by Todd James

The darkness fades as the light from the sun glows behind your eyelids. You awaken. You sit up and are on the dusty ground. There is a sound in your head vibrating your skull, but you can’t tell if it’s ringing in your ears or if it’s external. Others are sitting like you, but most are lying down and their bodies are shredded. Some have their insides in piles next to their bodies. Some look like they’ve been turned inside out. Some look to have been flayed. Steam rises from them.

There are buildings on the edges of the town square made of gray clay or scrap metal. In the center of the square is a stone of black glass. It’s one meter tall and three meters on a side. On top of it is flesh, guts, hair, and bone, of some large, unrecognizable animal.

In the sky behind you a sand storm is receding. The storm clouds are iridescent. They shimmer in the sun when they move at certain angles.

All you remember is your name and who you are. Otherwise you remember nothing.

Morn Start the Android, by Todd James

Mickey, by Eric Gillin

Map 1