Let's Play The Spirit Engine 2
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Chapter 8: The Wyrm Turns
Part 1: Detour
Hardly. I'm soaked to the bone. I don't think I broke anything, though. I'm still checking. I do not appreciate these frequent flirtations with the reaper.
This is my second rapid descent from a great height in as many weeks. I'm becoming rather good at it, if I may say so. I just have to wait a moment or two for my heart to restart and I'll be fine.
Damned if I know. Shortly after they changed course, one of those stupid little creatures suddenly rolled over and fell from the sky. It looked like it was having a seizure.
Fortunately, the rest of the crew managed to pick up the slack before I hit the ground. I don't know why they were struggling so much. I'm really not that heavy.
Look, they're running away now! Yes, that's right, flee you treacherus little monsters. You'd better not let me catch you!
Something down there spooked them. I do hope they can find their way home alright. They've carried us such a great distance. Does anyone know where we are?
I think so. I got a good view of the surrounding area as we descended. We're on the south-western edge of the Kipleck Sink, a great forest just north of the Great Plains. We can't be more than a day's ride from Longreach.
Great, so we have to walk the rest of the way? Those lazy little twiglets have really let us in the lurch. What possessed them to drop us here? We'll never get to Longreach before Batiste.
The river they've set us down beside must drain into the Great Plains. We'll need to find a crossing point.
How about there. Across... whatever that is.
An Aulder ruin. But why would so large a relic so close to the plains have gone unreported for so long? This great structure must have sat here, damming the flow of the river, for thousands of years.
I've got a bad feeling about this. The last time we visited Aulder ruins, we weren't made at all welcome. Something about this place is very wrong. I can feel it.
I say we should go upstream and look for another crossing.
We can't afford to risk delay for little more than a feeling, Ionae. I can hear cannon fire from here. The battle for the Great Plains has begun and its conclusion won't wait for us. Come on.
This isn't at all ominous!
And of course the door closes as soon as we step in.
Sweet Jegus, what the hell is that thing.
Martyr Fish do magic damage to anyone who comes into melee range. Time for Denever to go on the defensive!
Jesters don't have nearly the same fancy tricks as the Fish, but what they do have? Dodge chance 70%.
Ionae is nervous in here!
The rest of us have normal status.
More new enemies!
Sunken Slaves are undead, but I can't take too much advantage of that, since this area is too small for Swordfaith. Misguiding Lights are magic-users with a buttload of Chi backing them up.
That's some ominous shit!
This may take a while!
I'll tell you where we are. We're lost! This is all your fault. If we'd checked downstream like I said, we could've found a ford and been across the river by now.
Or we could still be walking up and down the banks, wasting precious time. Did you hit your head when you landed? I know what I'm doing here, just give me a minute.
No, no more time! Who put you in charge, anyway? I'm tired of always following your lead. You're completely lost. Just swallow your pride and admit it, you old fool!
yes, we're lost! But at least we're lost halfway across the river. If you think you can do any better with this spinning compass, you're welcome, Ionae.
In fact, if you could do anything other than whine back there, I would be supremely grateful. It's all that I've heard from you since we met. You're like a spoilt child who refuses to grow up.
Denever! Ionae! What are you doing?!
I... I don't know. I suddenly felt so angry. This isn't like me at all. I'm so sorry, Ionae, I don't even know why I said that.
No apology needed. I have this splitting headache, as though something outside is trying to force its way in, gnawing at the back of my skull. It's getting hard to think straight in here.
Something about these ruins and the science that built them is very wrong. You can smell it in the foul gusts that billow up from the mists below. This whole place reeks of decay. Perhaps the stale air is affecting us.
I'm sorry, both of you. I think Ionae's fears may have been justified. We need to find a way out of here quickly, before the fumes overcome us.
MORE NEW ENEMIES.
Void Blinkers are high-armor teleporting bastards.
Avatar Athelloths are more chi-based spellcasters, who I can deal with better now that I have no ceiling above me. Notably, they can do True Damage, which ignores all my defenses.
Merciful Karvey! What is that thing, Denever? Is it alive?
I don't know, PyanPau. The light is coming from the machine. Whatever it is, I think it's trying to speak.
Yoor lungaj oonfamilai es. Il adaftuc al.
Perhaps it's a message? Some of the structre matches your quaint dialect. For what it's worth, I can tell you that the language resembles none of the eleven thousand forms of speech native to the Counterplanes.
Success! I converse with you, yes? Adaptation was required, but I learn fast. Your dialect is not too far descended. The sight of your faces fills me with what can only be described as joy! I am Darak, pilot light of the Adjanti.
It is alive! And it can talk. We may be the first humans it's ever seen. It's a pleasure to meet you, Darak.
What a monumental discovery. Life preserved inside an Aulder relic! There are so many questions I could ask. Are you native to these ruins? What is your purpose here? How did you come to be entombed within this great structure?
You have questions for me? I... I don't understand. You have come in from the outside after all these years. The questions should be mine. What is the meaning of this word, 'Aulder'?
Aulder? It is the term we use for the creatures who inhabited Medea long ago, who built this and other such great structures. The creatures who created you. The Rakari?
No. Is this a test of my cognitive functions? The Adjanti is a ship, and it was built by human hands. The same hands you hold before me now. If you call this Aulder then yes, you are Aulder.
No, spirit, you're mistaken. The construction of this place is far beyond the limits of human science, and perhaps always will be. No man could have built such a machine.
You believe that, don't you? There is such a dreadful emptiness in your gaze. What has happened outside in the years I have been trapped here?
For all the madness I have seen and all the silence I have endured, I still know a human face. But yours are blank. Someone or something terrible has taken your past and denied you your future. What have you become?
I don't know. If history makes a man, are we not the people we should be? Please, Darak, start from the beginning and tell us how you came to be here.
I will try. I have been alone for so long with only the creature and its minions for company that I fear I have begun to forget. My circuits have been slowly rusting and decaying as the river has risen through the ship.
Perhaps I am the one in error. It would be a cruel twist of fate if the one mind the creature could not touch had been eroded by the mere lonely passing of the years.
But I still remember, before the storm. Mankind had entered a new age of prosperity, but still the many nations of Medea fought for power wielding economics and culture as their weapons.
Then one winter, astronomers saw doom in the lenses of their great telescopes. A cosmic tempest approached Medea from the depths of space, a vast stellar furnace falling towards our world.
It could not be stopped. It could not be fled from in the little time we had. And so there was much panic, much fear and much lamentation. It was only then that the people truly came together, united by a common fate.
Such was the awesome capability of all humanity focused on a single goal that no task was beyond them. They set about the salvation of Medea in earnest.
They constructed a great machine, the World Eye, with the power to shape reality by command. It was the pinnacle of our technological achievement and the ultimate realization of our potential.
The World Eye became a mechanical extension of mankind's will. Around itself it built this great shell upon which we sit, and humanity made the great exodus in their billions to safety beneath its surface.
There they would shelter, entire nations slumbering peacefully together, stacked in their millions whilst the storm raged against the shield above them.
A carefully chosen few of us remained outside, caretakers who would watch over the machine, oversee repairs to the shell, and wake the others, eighteen generations later, when the storm had passed.
At first all was well. The storm bathed Medea in an incandescent tapestry of fire, and we hid from it on the dark side, probing with our instruments and marvelling at its power and its fury.
It was some months before we came to realize that the storm was not empty. It brought life down upon us, refugees from the vast abyss of space and the worlds it had broken millenia before.
We caught this creature that calls itself Ick Thelloth, and amidst its powerful thrashings, caged it within the Adjanti's hold. As we took it away for further study we thought it was confined. We were wrong.
It attacked the crew's minds, as it has begun to do with you. It drove them crazy. The helmsman ran the planes down and all the efforts of the staff could not tear him from the wheel, so crazed was his fury. The ship broke against the ground.
Stranded beneath the storm, the crew turned against each other. I could only look on in despair as once great men and women fought amongst themselves like wild animals.
When it ended, I was left alone with only this monster for company, thrashing against its chains and calling out to me from its prison.
It cannot touch my mind, and that has driven it mad with rage. I am an artificial construct, formed from electric light, and the supervision of this ship and its crew is my only purpose.
Some time after the crash, Medea itself went into convulsion. The World Eye broke the shell, heaving it skywards in all directions as if grasping in vain at something it could not touch. I could do nothing but watch and record.
Many below must have perished as their sleeping places were opened to the storm. Whole nations must have bled away into the eternal emptiness of space.
Then all was silent.
Long have been my years of confinement, listening to the mad song of the beast and tormenting myself with questions. Questions I could spend eternity asking but never hear answered.
I feared corruption would take me long before the Adjanti's heatbeat faded and I was extinguished.
When no one came to find me, I ssumed the worst. I feared that other creatures like Ick Thelloth had fallen from the stars and enslaved the minds of men.
But now that I see you here, I know that my worst fears were unfounded. Mankind has survived the cataclysm, and despite all that you've lost, you remain free men!
...
Freedom is relative, Darak, with so many measurements. Until recently, Lereftain has been free from war and poverty. If the Rakari who govern us are as alien as the creature you describe, what they have given us could be considered a gift.
A golden cage is still a cage. Before now I thought that libery was a price worth paying for peace. Suddenly I don't feel so eager to defend it. Maybe humanity was never really given a choice.
Much more has happened outside than I had imagined. I must leave the ship. I must see what these creatures have done for myself.
We would be happy to help you, Darak. What can we do?
Please remove my source cube from the Adjanti's heart and take it with you. I will not survive long outside the ship, but I have been here so many years, alone and blind.
I will happily trade an eternity of that for a few brief days of voices and sunlight.
But before we leave, I must make a demand of you. In the many years the Adjanti has lain in this river, Ick Thelloth has twisted the creatures here to its service. You have already encountered them.
After killing the crew in a sadistic rage, the monster realized it still could not free itself from its chains. And so it began to breed the river life into its twisted slaves.
The generations gave them limbs and claws and a limited intellect. In return, the creatures have spent the last thousand years throwing themselves against the great containment door, scraping their scales against steel.
They have almost succeeded in breaking it down, and soon they will be able to free Ick Thelloth from its shackles. That cannot be allowed to happen.
You must slay the alien abomination, and quickly, before you too succumb to its persuation. Take me to the bridge where I can restore power to the containment block and open the doors.
Then we will return and put it to death. It cannot be allowed to leave this ship. Freed form its constraints and let loose into your world, there could be no stopping it.
You have a deal, Darak. If the creature is as dangerous as you say, we can't afford to let it escape.
I don't know about this, Denever. I've had this thing inside my head for long enough already. I want to get out of here. The beast can wait a little longer for its death, surely?
We can't just run away. If all their technology couldn't save the crew of this ship, what chance would our world stand? We saw what the Cloud Children did to Porto Vale. This thing sounds a hundred times worse.
Your friend is wise. The creatures feeds upon indecision. When you face it, you must do so free of inner doubt. It will try to break you before that, so we must hurry.
Take me now to the bridge, so that we can access the power subsystems. It is the only way to get close enough to the monster to kill it.
I will be your pilot light from now on, your guide through these sunken corridors. The Adjanti is a dying husk, and my friends have long since left it. I, too, must follow them.
Next time: Deeper into the ship!
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