WoAF - Game Session 35

Ratta-tatta-tatta-tatta-tat! -- Ratta-tatta-tatta-tatta-tat!

Once his machine gun emptied its clip into the open turret of the tank, Good Captain Samwise pushed the dead Lizardman Captain to the side and took a long look downward.  It was too dark to see anything other than a few blinking lights on a control panel.  Inside the ricocheting bullets had resounded against the hull for a few moments, after which only the thundering roar of fires all around him could be heard.  The heat was getting unbearable. He turned his mind to the mind of the last living Lizardman inside.  There was a torrent of garbled guttural fury and pain, but the mind soon cooled, faded, and then, with a final agonizing realization of death, it was gone.  It was a bit disturbing to be inside the mind of a brutal, hostile, dying Lizardman, actually.  But Captain Samwise was made of stern stuff and shook it off; there was no time to waste.

He glanced around the area of the tank. The pain radiating from his leg sent rippling spasms of agony throughout his body.  He was, literally, on his last leg, he thought grimly with a slight smile. There was a raging brush fire on the south side of the tank where the tread had been melted through by the AGV's Plasma Cannon earlier.  On the north side was a plume of white smoke, but as yet no fire was visible.  Holding on to the cannon he made his way to the front of the tank, and leaned over precariously to look down the two hundred foot drop to the AGV below.  Through the diamond-glass dome of "the Perch" he could see Guns inside.  He was alive, although somewhat shell-shocked from the hits that struck the AGV a few moments earlier.  Through the front window he caught sight of Fred, covered in black soot, a thousand mile stare, and a little smile on his face as he watched the flames on the top of the ridge burn.  

So both of them were alive.  Good enough.  Samwise returned to the tank hatch.  There was no sign of the four Delta-Z tanks from his position. He decided to climb inside and find out what systems were still working.  Perhaps he could still turn the turret and fire the cannon, he thought.  He gazed for a moment at the large icon on the side of the tank turret.  It was the Manticore, and the words Delta-Z.  Damn that beast!

He shoved the Lizardman Captain down the ladder so he could make his way inside.  The climb down was painful and treacherous but he made it to the bottom without injuring himself further.  There was a good deal of smoke inside.  A small fire had broken out near the driver's seat. Sparks were spewing out in cascades at the rear of the cabin. It was hot in there. 

He scanned the interior with squinted eyes and saw the dead gunner, his blood-spattered crocodile maw still wide open in a last horrendous grimace.  He sought and found the gunner's satchel.  Inside he found three machine gun magazines and a hand grenade.  He looked around for a first aid kit.  On the south wall he found a panel in which he expected there might be one.  Below it was another dead Lizardman.  The light of the flames flickered more brightly.  He grabbed the panel door and yanked it open.  Inside was a medical kit.  He took it.  The fire was now climbing along a thin rivulet of oil along the floor.  He looked around for anything else that might be useful.  At this point it would probably be a good idea to exit as quickly as possible, he thought.  There was some chance that the fire would ignite a pool of oil somewhere, or get into the ammunition, which would be bad.  He grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and tried to suppress the fire, but quickly realized that was futile.

Meanwhile, down below, Fred revved the AGV engine.   It was working.  He wiped the soot from his face with his sleeve and threw it in reverse.  With his left hand he set the radio to Major Sekston's frequency.

"Major Sekston, come in," said Fred. "What's your status?  Major Sekston, can you read me?  Over."

There was some static but then her voice came through.  They tersely exchanged status reports.  She had made it further south in the Rhino, taken out another tank, and was at the moment concealed behind a set of earthworks as the remaining Delta-Z tanks had a bead on her position.  Fred explained the situation with the AGV.  She informed him that the four Delta-Z tanks that had been climbing the ridge to engage the AGV had been forced back down by the forest fire and were now circling around the major spur to the southwest of them.  She was in the process of distracting their attention.  Fred thanked her and said they would try to make it back north to her position.

Meanwhile, Samwise pulled up his wrist Comm and got on the line with Fred.

"Fred, Fred, this is Captain Sam.  What's your status?"

They also exchanged status reports, and Fred relayed what Major Sekston had told him. 

"We're retreating North.  That's it.  This is over," said Fred.  "We can't get the AGV up the cliff, so you're going to have to make your way North on foot, sir."

"My leg is kinda busted up, but I think I can make it," replied Sam hoarsely.  

Guns interrupted to state that he intended to exit the AGV, climb along the north face of the cliff (where there was no fire as yet), and get over to Sam in order to help him make his way north.   It was agreed that they would meet at a rendezvous point at the southern-most tip of a road that went along the top of the ridge from Panguitch to within a half mile of Sam's current position.  They could make it if they scrambled. 

Guns hopped out of the AGV and closed the airlock behind him.  He whistled to himself as he surveyed the damage.  Once again, the AGV was a mess.  Smoke was coming out of one of the holes the tank fire had made, and he could see that a good deal of the armor had been blasted apart on the port side.  Not so great.  He checked Ilene, his ever trusty Springfield rifle, and slung her over his back.  It was going to be a rough haul to get up to where Sam was.  He got going.

Fred took the AGV northeast.  He spotted Penelope walking along the far eastern road heading north.  He planned to pick her up, and then swing around to go pick up Sam and Guns on the top of the ridge to his west.  Since there were no Delta-Z tanks on his side of the ridge, he figured this was the best thing to do.  It was flat desert scrubland so the AGV could get up to roughly 40mph, which should be sufficient to execute his plan.  Off he roared, heading due east.

There was a lot of smoke along the top of the ridge. Guns made his way over to Sam's tank, but the flames from the brush fire were already starting to engulf the north side as well.  He only had a minute or so to get the Captain out before the entire tank was engulfed.  He swore under his breath at the Manticore symbol, and then heard Sam clambering about trying to get up the ladder.  His leg was pretty bad by now.  He could hardly walk.  Guns scrambled up the side of the tank, made his way to the turret, reached down, grabbed Samwise by the back of the collar and pulled him up.  Guns, in case anyone didn't know, was as strong as a bull.  Maybe two.

"Come on," said Guns, "Let's get out of here."

The two of them began making their way north along the ridge line.  But Sam's leg was too damaged for him to walk, let alone run.  Guns lifted him onto his back and they made their way toward the rendezvous point.  Unfortunately, the winds were such that the fire was catching along the brush and trees just about as fast as they could run.  Looking over Gun's shoulder Sam spotted one of the Delta-Z tanks round the corner of the southern spur, putting them in line of sight with it. It rumbled towards their position.  Then another tank rounded the corner behind it.  Two tanks! 

"Guns, pick up the pace.  We've got company," said Sam.  Guns glared at this news, furrowed his eyebrows and began trying to find cover as he ran.  Their best bet was for him to dodge along the ledge of the eastern side of the ridge, and pray they didn't step on a lose rock.  The fall over the edge of the ridge would probably have been enough to finish Sam off given the condition he was in.  And so Guns, carrying his Captain on his back, scrambled along the eastern-most side of the ridge as quickly as he could. Sam clenched his teeth and grimaced in pain, but said nothing further.

Fred, was roaring towards Penelope.  He honked the AGV horn.  Penelope stopped on the road, turned and when she saw the smoking, rattling hulk of the AGV being driven pell-mell by Fred toward her, she waved.  She had mixed emotions.  Fred was, after all, a drug addled maniac who had a penchant for being as rude and crude as possible.  He also wanted to leave her to die on the Salt Flats a couple of days earlier.  But on the other hand, it was war, the enemy had just shot her and Sam out of the sky, she was lucky to be alive, and Fred was coming to the rescue.  Okay.  Fred.  Fine.  She waved.

"Get in, loser," he said as he skidded to a stop in front of her, "We're saving the world."

She smiled. Fred, in his own weird and obnoxious way, was still one of the good guys. She hopped into the airlock and they roared off, heading back west to the rendezvous point, and leaving a long trail of dust behind.  Once inside the cabin, Fred directed Penelope to climb up into the turret and so she began figuring out how to work the flamethrower. 

"We want to get the whole west side of the ridge on fire," he said. "We're gonna light this whole thing up, ok?"

"Sounds exciting," she answered enthusiastically as she studied the firing mechanism. She'd never seen an M32-A up close before, but she was a scientist, and a mechanic.  It only took her a few moments to assess how to operate it.

Fred drove the AGV hard, bouncing over obstacles and cutting corners wherever he could.  He watched on the Vizi-Screen as the forest fire crept forward, just behind Guns and Sam as they darted along the top of the ridge.  He was half-convinced that they might not get there in time.

"As soon as you can see Guns and Sam, use the flamethrower to lob a line over their position onto the woods on the west side of the ridge.  We need to provide them as much cover as possible," he shouted up the Perch ladder.

"Aye-Aye, sir," she said with a grin. This would be fun.

Sam, looking over Guns' shoulder, estimated the tanks to their west were approximately a quarter mile and closing fast.  To the east he watched the AGV kicking up dust in a ragged line along the desert floor.  

A small drone swarm was fanning out ahead of the tanks. There was no question they had already come into firing range, but Guns' dodging between boulders along the east side of the ridge seemed to be working.  It was likely that the tanks were not able to get a targeting bead on their position, as line of sight was constantly being broken.  If they were relying on computer targeting (which they were), then there was a good chance they couldn't acquire the target.  

Sam heard a loud "KRACK-Ka-BOOM!" as the second tank that had come around the spur fired its cannon.  The shell sailed due north.  It was aimed at Major Sekston's Rhino.  Fortunately, the shot missed its target as she darted the flying tank into a gully.  The explosion blasted a cloud of dirt into the air, but Sekston was already hundreds of feet away.

Fred contacted Guns by radio and requested his coordinates. 

"We're hugging the east side of the ridge," reported Guns.

"You ahead of the fire?"

"Yes, but it's slow going," reported Guns.

"Penelope is getting ready to light up the west side of the ridge," said Fred.

"Great," replied Guns with a mix of terror and enthusiasm, depending on which way his mind saw that playing out.

About thirty seconds passed as the Rhino dodged more tank fire, and itself returned fire while dodging among the rills.  Major Sekston was making her way eastward to try to get a good line of sight on the remaining tanks as they came around the spur.

When he got to the top of the ridge, Fred parked the AGV, and told Penelope to begin lighting up the western forest.  He jumped out of the AGV and ran over to where Guns and Sam were struggling forward.  There was a lot of smoke, and the fire was hopping along the bushes and undergrowth close behind them.  Overhead suddenly launched a long narrow stream of flames with black smoke pouring off of it.  Penelope yelled out loud, she was so excited.

"Woooo-Hhoooo!", she cried as she guided the flaming stream across the entire western ridge line.  Huge plumes of fire sprang up along the western side of the ridge.  Fred, Guns and Sam hustled into the AGV and slammed the airlock shut.  Sam laid himself down on the couch in the rear.  Penelope gave up her seat to Guns, and climbed down to help Sam.  He was not doing so well.  Fred checked to see if he still had control of his drone swarm, but unfortunately the cannon fire that hit the AGV earlier took out control system antenna.  So those drones were hovering up there on their own, and were effectively useless.  "Damnit," he muttered under his breath.

"Fred, why don't we take a shot at one of the tanks with the Plasma Cannon?" said Guns, with a tone of determination that suggested this was less a question than an order.

"I don't think that's a good idea," replied Fred.

"Why not?" asked Guns.

"We have a wall of fire between us.  If we shoot at them they'll notice us and start shooting back, don't you think?" answered Fred, his intonation more as a counter command than a question.

"Well, sure but..."

"Guns!" yelled Sam from his couch. "Don't listen to Fred. Fire up the Plasma Cannon and take the shot!"

As the AGV turned onto Dd Hollow Road bearing west Guns got a clear line of sight on the lead Delta-Z tank as it came into view.  He turned the targeting system off and eyed the tank.  Fred was going to stop the AGV to give Guns the best shot possible, but Guns would not have it.

"Don't even stop!" yelled Guns.

The tanks, which had been tracking the battlefield with their drones, took the first shots.  Four tanks fired their cannons.  The first one missed.  Two shots hit the Rhino as Major Sekston dodged between two rills on her way to rendezvous with the AGV.  One of those two shots glanced off her hull, but the other was a direct hit.  And a critical one.  The Rhino shuddered under the concussive impact of the explosion and spiraled down into a gully, smoke billowing from its side.  The third shot hit the AGV just as Guns was taking his shot. 

The Plasma Beam flickered out from the AGV's top turret.  Guns, despite being jolted and the targeting computer going off-line, aimed with cool handed precision.  The coruscating beam bored a neat basketball sized hole directly into the engine block of the lead tank, and punched its way through to the back.  It ground to a halt, thick black smoke billowing into the blazing blue sky.  Fortunately the tanks were not equipped with Plasma Shields.

The Rhino had crashed down on its side and slid about 40 yards down into the gully.  Major Sekston was badly wounded in the crash, but alive.  Inside the cab smoke and flames emerged from the control panels.  As the Rhino descended, Sekston assessed the situation through the shattered windshield.  Three tanks were still operational on the plain, and two were still moving north on route 89.  Fred skidded off-road and headed west toward the Rhino's position at 65 mph.

The tanks fired again.  One of the tanks was hit by friendly fire, ricocheting off its hull with a blaze of sparks.  However, two shells hit the AGV.  One of them square on.  The entire crew was hit with the shock wave as the last of the AGV's anti-tank armor was blown to smithereens.  Everyone was braced for the impact except Captain Samwise.  Having been so gravely wounded to begin with, this was an impact he could not take.  He was thrown to the floor of the AGV, his head impacting with the corner of a bench.  He fell unconscious.  Penelope leapt to his side and immediately began attempting to revive him.  It didn't look good.  She pulled him back onto the couch, and strapped him in with the seat buckles.

Just as the AGV was hit Guns fired another shot with the Plasma Cannon.  But the shot went high and that was that.  He watched in dismay as the scintillating orange beam vanished over the horizon.  "Damnit!" he muttered under his breath.

* * * 

Somewhere many miles to the north Pita scanned the horizon from within the cool confines of his Lemurian Steel helmet. The force field that covered his face shimmered slightly, though it was nearly invisible when put in transparency mode.  His Lemurian cloak also kept him cool.  The shimmering white sands of the salt flat surrounded them for as far as the eye could see.  With him was Vilar, his Lemurian guide.  They were at the start of a mission that would hopefully resolve the question that the Queen of Lemuria wished to have answered.  What was the cause of the mysterious vibrations coming from the south?  They had five days to investigate, and return to Lemuria with their findings. Returning was a matter of proving his loyalty to Linda.  He patted his horse on the neck and turned to look westward.

The yellow flowers of the Sacred Hawthorn Tree, mysteriously growing in the middle of the salt flat, waved in the slight breeze that was blowing across the desert from the north.  This was a tree that could grant visions and Pita had had his fair share.  He thought about the white haired mage who had handed him a calling card - a small black gem which he had said would summon him in case of dire need.  Pita had secreted it into an inner pocket and hoped he wouldn't need to use it.

Vilar had set his cloak to "Translucent Camouflaged", so at the moment he was nearly invisible, but then changed the coloration to metallic sand, and blended into the scenery.  Finally he decided to use the Camouflaged mode which blended automatically.  He recommended Pita do the same. 

Pita was thinking about which way to go.  They had a map, and it showed the region, and there was an "X" where the Queen's scientists believed the  strange vibrations were coming from.

Pita drew some circles and arrows on the upper portion of the map while he thought. The red circle is where the Sacred Hawthorn tree was located, and where they were currently.  The green arrow was the general location of the secret entrance to Lemuria, but where exactly it was Pita could not say because he did not know.  The purple arrow to the southwest was the direction of the "X".  Lastly there is the purple circle to the east which is where Pita and Linda had been instructed to leave their Rocket Bikes.  He wondered if there was an significance to the fact that the map divided the east and west regions of the salt flat on the exact line where the Sacred Hawthorn tree was located.  Other than the tree, and a few stones indicating that some structure had once stood there ages ago, there was nothing.  The desert looked indistinguishable from the ground.  At any rate, he presumed the Queen was good to her word, and that their Rocket Bikes had been faithfully guarded, even after all the time they had spent down in Lemuria.  As his first sight of open land in such a long time, Pita was inwardly thrilled.  Fresh air.  Open sky!  How grand and beautiful the upper world was! The bliss of it was enormous.  Could he really ever return to the dark underworld of the Lemurians?

But now it was time to decide which way to go.  He thought about the options.  They could head straight southwest across the salt flats directly towards the "X".  They could cross the desert to a range of brown hills on the western edge and follow those south.  This might provide some cover, but Vilar knew nothing of that area, having never ventured that way.  There were the hills to the east which Vilar knew well, and those could be followed south. However, these hills were hazardous to cross, due to the fact they harbored tribes of feral mutant tribes that dwelled in those hills, among other Upper World dangers.  Finally, Pita asked Vilar which way he would choose to go if it were up to him.

"The caves," replied Vilar.

"Of course," returned Pita.  "The caves. Naturally."

"We are a people of the deep earth.  It is our home."

"Do you know the caves that could bring us south to our destination?"

"Yes," replied Vilar.

"Have you gone this way before?"

"Once," answered Vilar.

"Once, huh," laughed Pita lightly. "Was there anything living down there, or was it pretty quiet?"

"There are things that live down there," said Vilar solemnly.  The word "things" in Mon'Tang (the language of the Lemurians) had many meanings, but in the context of the sentence Pita had the impression it meant "monsters of the deep").

"I see," replied Pita.  "Ok, sounds good.  To the caves it is then."  Pita checked his weapons.  He patted his trusty Lewiston Beam Pistol in its sleek leather holster.  He felt behind his shoulder for his Adaptive Combat Rifle.  Good.  He checked his belt for the scabbard of his broadsword, and then slid his hand to the satchel at his side in which were two Frag Grenades and two Pepper Grenades.  And lastly, he reached around to his rear belt-holster to check on his FN Browning 9mm.  Yep.  All good.  He felt a little better now. Monster Caves? Ok.  No problem.  He was ready.

They rode their horses along the faint but perfectly straight dirt road  across the salt flats due east.  As they came closer to the line of low brown hills they passed the secret Lemurian Watch Post that looked like a mere cluster of rocks and sage brush on a slight rise, just east of a long narrow prominence that crossed the pathway perpendicularly.  Beautiful, silent, secret eyes watched them as they passed, but Pita was unaware of this.  

Once they reached the hills they soon came upon the outcropping where the Lemurians had stationed a guard to watch over the Rocket Bikes.  Had the guard not stepped out from the comfortable shade of his hidden vestibule in the side of the low hanging cliff, they'd not have seen him at all.  Looking past the guard, Pita could see their Rocket Bikes positioned along a wall of the inner stone chamber, next to which was a small stone table with victuals, a chair, and in the far corner a cot.  The fellow had been faithfully watching over the bikes for quite some time, and seemed a bit eager to be relieved of this duty.  However, it was not to be.  Pita and Vilar saluted him, but rode past him toward the brown canyons ahead.  Pita took the time to indicate that he appreciated the man's dedication as they passed.  The guard saluted and soon the two of them had passed out of sight.  He signaled back to Lemuria by his broach radio, went back into the vestibule, closed the entrance, and took his place at the watch station.  His eyes peered to and fro across the salt flats. Nothing. It was a tedious job, but he was a dedicated Lemurian soldier who never failed to perform his duty, and he knew he was likely to be well compensated for his efforts by the Queen upon his return to Lemuria.

After an hour or so of riding along a narrow stream bed at the bottom of a narrow gully Vilar stopped.  The terrain ahead widened out where an ancient long-forgotten river once formed a small flood plane, now only dirt, a few small bushes, brambles and rocks.  He scanned the ground carefully with an experienced eye.  He got down off his horse, and went on one knee.

"Someone has passed this way, recently," he said pointing at some faint markings on the ground.  "They came to this point from the east," he said pointing up the canyon, "stopped here, and then turned around and returned the way they came."

"Could it be other guards, having come down this way?" asked Pita.

"No," replied Vilar.  "We come from opposite directions. It would be unlikely."  

"Do you think they may have been spying on the enclosure?" asked Pita, suddenly concerned about his Rocket Bikes.

"I do not know," replied Vilar tersely, though he thought this too was unlikely, as these footprints were an hour's ride east of the enclosure, and they stopped here.  It was possible they returned northeast to try another route, but as there was no evidence of that he simply raised an eyebrow and said, "It is strange though.  Do you want to go back and try another way?"

"I think perhaps we should follow the tracks and get further information.  What do you think of that idea?" inquired Pita.

"It is your decision," said Vilar.  He had been instructed by the Queen to follow whatever directions Pita might give, and he was as curious as she to see the measure of the man by his choices.

"Can you tell how long ago the tracks were made?" asked Pita.

"Within a day," replied Vilar.

"So they came, they stopped, and then went back. Hmmm...", said Pita.  "Let's continue to follow them as we are heading in the same direction."

And so they continued in silence another hour or so.  The ravine had widened into a flat sunken plain, walled in by cliffs on both sides.  The air in the canyon was hot and without a breeze.  The clopping of their horse's hooves echoed off the cliff walls as they went.  Up ahead the canyon forked.  One branch lead northeast, the other to the southeast.  They stopped.  Vilar surveyed the ground carefully. 

"They went northeast," he said. "Our path leads us this way," he concluded somberly, pointing to the southeast.

"Where does the northeast way lead to?" asked Pita, wondering whether they should pursue the mysterious tracks, or continue on their journey to the caves.

"We have not been there in a long time, but in that direction lie the Great Salt Flats.  We have scouts who ventured that far in the past, but not in recent years."

"Perhaps on the way back we will check that.  Let's stay with our first task, which is to find out about these vibrations."

"As you wish," replied Vilar as he hopped back up on his horse.

They continued for a half day until they came to a maze-like area in which crisscrossing gullies formed a dizzying pattern.  They led the horses on foot for a while as the gullies became more narrow and rocky, and then Vilar stopped below an overhanging cliff, where in ancient days there had been a waterfall that carved out a small grotto.  

"We must leave the horses here," he said.  At the base of the cliff there were green plants nestled around a spring that was burbling up from the ground.  Buzzing insects swished excitedly through the air. There was a pool of clear water about four feet wide and six feet long.  The horses drank as the men did likewise and filled their canteens.  Pita, looked around.  The gully at this point had cliff walls some fifteen feet high, so they could not be seen from the desert, nor would anyone have seen them enter in through the maze.  He felt satisfied that the horses would likely be safe there, provided no one happened upon them by chance.  Vilar was unconcerned, as he knew the Lemurians would come to pick up the horses if they became stranded.

They continued on foot, passing into a narrow ravine, and then making their way over rough, rocky ground, surrounded by tall cliffs.  Eventually, they arrived at a cave entrance in the side of the ravine that was hidden from above by an overhang.  It was now starting to get dark.  The air began to cool in the desert.  A wind picked up.  It would be a clear, cold night out on the salt flats.  Not a cloud in the sky.  The rippling river of iridescent radiation that was a remnant of the Ultra-War could be heard over head.  Other than that, all was quiet.

The opening to the cave was rather narrow.  About two feet wide, and four feet high, so it required a bit of crawling to get inside.  They crept forward and then the passage began to slope gently downward for about a hundred and fifty feet.  The tunnel turned a corner and widened.  They entered a grotto.  Tunnels led out in a dozen directions. At this point Vilar stopped and took a careful look around.  They could see by virtue of their helmets which provided them with Dark-Vision, despite the pitch blackness within the cave.

"This is the spot," said Vilar, pointing to one wall.  "Notice the striated green and yellow stone work over here."

Pita studied the wall carefully, and suddenly realized that they were striated with multicolored bands, which had green-and-yellow tinted striations.  In fact, they formed a consistent geometrical pattern for about six feet, though Pita felt sure that had Vilar not pointed it out he would never have noticed.  

"Do you see any stone here that is out of place?" asked Vilar.

Pita looked carefully.  He scanned every stone.  Nothing seemed out of place.  It was a cave, after all. There were stones and rocks, and sand everywhere.  However, Pita was a man with insane persistence.  He looked more carefully.  And then he noticed it.  A stalagmite was offset against the wall in a way that seemed every so slightly odd, though he couldn't have explained why if he were asked to.  There was just something "not quite exactly right" about it.

"Yes, that's it," said Vilar following his gaze.  "Turn it."

"Which way?  To the right, or to the left?" asked Pita, thinking that it might just make a difference.

"Good question.  To the left," answered Vilar approvingly.  Pita did so, and lo!  The green and yellow-tinted section of the grotto opened up soundlessly before them.  A five foot wide opening led into a long straight tunnel.  Although Pita did not know this, had he turned the stalagmite to the right it would have caused the door to seal from the inside, thus blocking their route, and released an odorless sleeping gas.  Lemurian guards would have then been alerted to assess the situation and take appropriate action.  This had occurred once over the past five hundred years, and the Indian who had triggered the event was released to the desert, never the wiser as to what had happened, and the man never returned to the spot, but instead warned his tribe to stay away from the "maze-ravines", which became taboo thereafter.

"This is the entranceway to the Deeper Earth," Vilar said as he led the way inside.  Once in, he turned another stalagmite, and the doorway silently closed.  The walls were smooth, but looked naturally formed, as if by an ancient underground river.  Along the walls on both sides were a line of one foot tall glyphs which ran on for about ten feet, and were etched into the rock

"Those are warnings," said Vilar solemnly.  They say "Do Not Trespass Here."

"Are we trespassing?" asked Pita, a bit alarmed.

"No. These are Lemurian tunnels.  It is a warning to others."

"I see," said Pita, much reassured.  He examined the writing and noted that it was written in Mon'Tang, and the meanings that reverberated from the words and their patterns of context made his head reel.  They spoke of dire eternal consequences, monsters, traps, and cosmic fury against those who disobeyed the warning.  He shuddered as he peered ahead down the long tunnel.

"I have been this way once.  You must be careful.  There are deadly things here."

Pita noticed that the meaning of the Mon-Tang word "things" in this case reflected more than creatures, but also hinted treacherous terrain, and even, possibly, traps of some sort.  He thought about his various Mentarian Powers, and decided to focus on his surroundings, and linked his center of focus to a point just over his head.  This Mind-Junction would track with him for some time, perhaps a few hours.  He focused and activated it.  It would, he expected, alert him if any living creature should come within ten feet of him, whether hidden or otherwise.  He didn't sense anything at the moment.  Vilar led them forward into the tunnel.

They came after some two hundred feet to an open dome shaped chamber at the center of which was a roughly circular fountain. Around the edged of the chamber were two foot tall alcoves in which sat stone statues of various shapes and sizes. The statues were crude, almost barbaric in nature.  They were, Pita thought, of people in meditative positions, but their expressions were anything but calm or peaceful.

"What is the fountain for?" asked Pita.

"It is for the profane," replied Vilar with finality.  "Whomever shall drink of this fountain will remain here forever," he said after a long pause.

"Ahhh... so I should not drink from the fountain?"

"No one should drink from the fountain.  Let us continue from this place." 

As they departed down one of the many side tunnels that separated the alcoves, Pita might have noticed that the statues were strangely deformed and stylized, grotesque each in its own way, and yet weirdly, faintly, realistic and somehow... all too human.  Faces frozen in terrifying realizations, long since worn down by the dripping waters and the sands of time.  However, Pita did not dwell on these things, but instead followed Vilar past them into one of the dark tunnels without further reflection.

"We Lemurians guard our pathways with great care. It is why we have never been discovered by the Upper Worlders.  We are a secret people.  There are penalties to those who uncover our secrets."

Pita cleared his throat a bit.  "I can tell," he replied finally.

"We have been here longer than all of the civilizations of the Upper World combined.  And yet, we still remain unknown to your people.  Because we are careful.  Remember it well," said Vilar with a tone of warning.

They continued down the pathway until they came to a place where the tunnel ahead appeared to open into a vast yawning chamber.  Vilar stopped and said, "We now will enter the 'Domain of Danger'.  You must be absolutely silent.  Follow in my exact footsteps.  Do not touch anything that I do not touch.  Make no noise."

"Okay, I will be careful," replied Pita.  He thought further about what powers he might employ in this circumstance.  He was already using Detect Presence, but he considered adding Heightened Reflexes.  This would make the odds of being surprised by any attack almost impossible and give him a better chance of walking and doing only and exactly what Vilar himself did. He summoned his mystic reserves and activated the power.  Suddenly he felt as light as a butterfly, and his senses seemed doubled in range and sensitivity.

For a hundred feet they slowly tiptoed, as quiet as mice, until they came to the opening. It was six feet high and four feet wide, and beyond it was a yawning crevasse that spanned a great distance ahead of them.  It was so far that even with his Lemurian Helmet he was unable to make out the far wall.  The bottom dropped down into unfathomable darkness from which a distant thunderous roar could be heard.  But the trail did not stop there.  It bent to the right and vanished out of view.  Only the narrow ledge at the trail's head could be seen from where Pita and Vilar were standing.

Vilar stopped there and turned to face Pita and put one finger to his lips.  It was clear what the intent was.  Pita made no sound. Vilar turned around and gingerly stepped onto the path, turned to the right and walked out of view.  Pita followed close behind.

They found themselves traversing a narrow ledge that clung to the cliff face, which continued to the right, finally vanishing into the vast, looming distance beyond.  The path was a mere three feet wide.  To their immediate right, ascending upward into cavernous darkness, was a jagged stony wall.  It seemed to be glinting in the dark ever so slightly.  Pita took a closer look and found it was covered in tiny white gossamer threads that fluttered and wavered in the slight breeze that was caused by his passing.  He looked up. The veil clung to the wall as high up as his eyes could see.  He did not like the look of that at all.

Pita followed his guide closely.  Vilar took pains to avoid touching the wall.  Pita studiously avoided touching the wall as well.  He stepped diligently into the exact footprints that the Lemurian made as he went.  If Vilar turned his shoulder to the left, so did Pita when he reached the same spot.  His focus never wavered as he strove to mimic every move his guide made.

After three hundred feet Vilar stopped and turned slowly and carefully around.  He again held a finger to his lips and then pointed ahead on the path.  There Pita could make out an opening in the wall ahead.  It was, he estimated, about twelve feet tall, and perhaps eight feet wide, and shaped like a rough hewn archway. It was impossibly dark within it, so he could make out nothing but the shape of the portal.  Above it there was a capstone at the top of the archway. On it was a single glyph, but it was neither Mon'Tang, nor English, nor any other language he recognized. They proceeded to inch along as quietly as possible.  

Pita followed Vilar's every step precisely.  As Vilar passed the portal, he did not do anything but tiptoe past, looking neither to the right side nor the left.  Pita, determined to do exactly likewise, kept his eyes on Vilar and Vilar alone.  As he passed the cave, he declined to even take a single peek inside.

However, his power of 'Sense Presence' began to prickle his skin and tingle along his right side.  There was something, something alive, inside the cave.  He was absolutely sure of it.  And not deep within, but perhaps ten feet or less.  He distinctly felt that someone, or something, was there in the darkness sitting on the floor next to the wall of the cave on the right side, although he did not look inside even for a moment.

As soon as he sensed that presence Pita whispered... "Vilar... there is something near..."

The whisper of Pita's voice echoed ever so faintly throughout the great cavern.  The veils covering the walls wavered with the vibration of those words.

* * * 

And that, my friends, is where we left things that night.

On the Use of Race or Species

Whether to use "Race" or "Species" as a term in Role Playing Games is a legitimate question. It's not an easy one to answer because there's been muddied waters on this for quite a long time. Tolkien used "Race" to describe dwarves and elves. Science fiction authors have also been known to do the same. For example Wookie, I believe, was termed as a race in Star Wars. You can kind of tell this if you compare the phrase "the dwarven race" with "the dwarven species"... which sounds more like something you'd read in a book or hear in a movie or at a gaming table? I would say "dwarven race" simply sounds better... for some reason. 

That reason may be that the word "race" has been used in this way in science fiction and fantasy for a long time, and we got used to it. This is despite the fact that technically it is not accurate. Dwarves would most likely be a distinct species, not a race, at least so far as the modern dictionary definition is concerned. However, we should keep in mind that Oxford dictionary, when Tolkien was writing (and was a scholar of language, btw), had it "race" was, apparently, 'A group of people, animals, or plants, connected by common descent or origin.' ... however I am unable at the moment to properly validate that assertion (found here: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/55606/is-race-a-synonym-of-species-or-is-just-a-common-mistake) as the link to which the responder references to Oxford English Dictionary is apparently dead now, unfortunately. 

At any rate, to my mind, "the race of dwarves" flows better off the tounge than "the species of dwarves". I would also say that for me this holds true much more for fantasy genre games than sci-fi, as I could also easily see a group of scientist-astronaut adventurers saying something like "we have landed on a planet upon which the predominant species are Elves and Dwarves" ... as scientific nomenclature this is both correct, and would make sense to hear in context of the game world. But for Fantasy, for me, not so much. I just can't quite imagine Aragorn or Gandalf saying "the dwarven species".  It simply doesn't sound right to me.

WoAF - Game Session 34

As the three cosmonauts from Federation Command stood in the bone chilling darkness of Tunnel C3-A beneath the moon-craters of Mare Frigoris, the entirety of the great and secret fortress of Eisenhelm shuddered; the ground rumbled, rocks and dust fell in long thin sheets from the tunnel walls and ceiling. Each tremor had seemed more violent than the last.  The technicians in their space suits were entirely sure they were all going to die quite soon.  They were resigned to it.  After all, nothing could stop the monstrous nuclear powered Robots of Plan Delta-Z.  The ten of them were at that moment boring enormous molten holes into the core of Eisenhelm with fiercely blazing nuclear powered plasma-beams from their eye slits.  And once they had melted the entire fortress down to molten slag they would detonate themselves with the full power of 5000 Megatons of Cobalt encased Nuclear bombs.  The Moon Nazis had this one last hand to play before their curtain came down finally and forever.  Fifty of the giant Nuclear Missile Robots were already space bound, heading at thousands of miles per hour toward the last remaining cities on earth.  Each one would not only obliterate a hundred and twenty mile area around its ground zero, but the Cobalt casings ensured that the nuclear fallout would spread over the entire world, irradiating it sufficiently to snuff out every last vestige of humanity, and exterminate whatever civilization might have survived the Ultra-War.  Such was the plan known as Delta-Z - the Ultimate Final Solution of the Third Reich.  Good-bye cruel world!

Our heroes were flattened up against the tunnel wall, hidden from the pillbox by the shallow bend of the tunnel.  At the base of the 50' ladder lay the crumpled and dead body of the Nazi soldier that Vallnam beguiled into a panic.  The poor doomed fellow had fled the pillbox, his mind entirely clouded by the force of Vallnam's Mental Imperative, having scrambled halfway down the ladder.  But that was the end for him - he was shot through the helmet by his commanding officer, Captain Helmund, who remained in the pillbox, cold, stoic and deadly.  The explosive decompression boiled the young officer's blood, crushed his his lungs flat, and froze his head solid.  The pool of blood that formed around his helmet as he lay on the tunnel floor quickly boiled off its oxygen and froze in place. Scowling fiercely, Captain Helmund had slammed the hatch shut and disappeared from view.  Only the red glow of the viewports revealed the pillbox's presence high up in the shadows of the trestlework at the tunnel's ceiling. 

Our heroes had three tasks at hand.  Ling needed to find a room designed C3-DZ-A1.  That room contained the controls of the Nuclear Missile Robot Fleet.  She had a code that would cause the fleet to Self-Destruct, but it had to be entered into the computer at the C3-DZ-A1 console.  She didn't know where the room was exactly other than that it would be found on Level C3 somewhere (though by this time she had completely forgotten how she had become privy to this information).  A second task was to gain access to Hanger B so that the technicians could commandeer a Nazi UFO, effect repairs however possible, and escape Eisenhelm before its final and immanent destruction.  Lastly, they needed to obtain four more space suits in order to rescue the remaining technicians who were still holed up in the workshop three stories beneath Hanger A at the western end of Tunnel C3-A.  The ground shuddered beneath their feet again as rocks and dust dislodged from the ceiling in slow-motion cascading sheets.  Somewhere behind them a disturbing red glow reflected off the far tunnel walls.

Vallnam took a quick peek eastward down the tunnel.  The pillbox was 50' up the side of the tunnel wall, and only accessible by a long metal ladder.  Beyond the pillbox the tunnel continued due east and vanished from view into hazy darkness at about six hundred feet or so.  In that direction lay Hanger B wherein the technicians reported were a number of derelict UFOs that, with some work, might be made operational.  In front of the pillbox was another tunnel that forked northward.  According to the map the Technicians pulled up on their infotablet, the north corridor led to a Staff Operations Center wherein there extra space suits were stored.  It would be guarded by Staff Officers, and whatever guards might be on duty.  And of course, there was a pillbox to deal with.  

"Do you guys have any idea who is up in that pillbox?" asked Vallnam of the lead technician. 

"Ja, let me check the schedule," said Hans as he pulled his infotablet up and began searching through the data.  The device was mechanical, and worked somewhat like an abacus with gears, and thin metal plates that stored and recorded data.  It was, in fact, quite a smart piece of craftmanship, though it did not have any of the conveniences of Earth computers in terms of wireless networkability.  They utilized a central computing system, which delivered the data plates on a carefully timed basis according to Eisenhelm's extremely precise and well-worn schedule system.  And in Eisenhelm, that was actually all that was ever required.  For their purposes the infotablets had worked perfectly well for the 90 years they had been in service.  If nothing else, the devices, being mechanical and expertly maintained, were both durable and reliable.

"Ja, that man on the ground there is Lieutenant Klaus Fritzinger.  Up in the box is Captain Helmund Schmitt!  He's a tough knucklehead, that one."

"Ha, but he's a good soldier," said the technician behind Hans.  "He's not stupid like the others.  He knows what to do, and he does it.  Hard."

"Ja," replied Hans, "that's true.  He's both intelligent and ruthless.  A real leader! He's the kind who's happy to 'die for the cause'."

Vallnam thought about what powers he might be able to employ against Helmund.  He had already used up a good portion of his mystic energy, and wasn't keen on attempting any more unless absolutely necessary.  And besides, Helmund had already proven his resistance to mental tricks and was not the kind to be easily dominated.

"Ah," said Hans.  "I found another map! This one has a higher security clearance, but I managed to guess the code.  The commanders tend to repeat them on a set cycle, I discovered, and their combinations are easy to guess after all.  They can't imagine any of us would ever guess it. Hah. Here it is." 

He showed the map to Jacob.  This map showed more information on Level C3 than the original one.  Jacob noticed that the pillbox was designated C3-A1.  He asked Ling what the name of the room she had to find was, and its name was C3-DZ-A1. 

"You know, I wonder if that C3-A1 is connected to C3-DZ-A1," said Jacob to no one in particular.  That seemed to him to be a reasonable guess and probably not unlikely.  He asked Hans what he thought.

"We wouldn't know," replied Hans.  "We're technicians, not architects.  We didn't build this facility, we only work here. Frankly, we have no idea what is hidden behind doors we're not authorized to enter, or if there's even entire areas of Eisenhelm we've never seen or heard of before.  It's entirely possible.  I've heard rumors. Of course, they'd likely not have a need for technicians in those areas, or if they do then they have other Technician Teams who operate on those sectors we're not privy to.  Ja, that would not be surprising to me.  Every faction has its own teams, and plenty of secrets.  Eisenhelm is a Fortress of Secrets after all, you know."

Jacob wanted to use the radio to communicate with Helmond.  The pillbox was on frequency 302.382.929.  Hans informed him that the base has specific pass-codes that are required in order to give and receive information by radio in accordance with official protocols.  They sent the pass-code which was a sequence of beeps.  Helmond responded with a response-code, another sequence of beeps.  Hans was a bit surprised that Jacob didn't seem to know about the protocols.  But he'd already accepted the notion that the purple suited strangers were from a secret Eisenhelm faction that he'd never heard of, and had only emerged due to the state of emergency, and this faction had little knowledge of the normal operations of the base.  This made sense to him. Given that Hans genuinely liked Jacob, who was the first person, other than his only real friend, Franz, to treat him like a human being in decades, and that Jacob had genuinely expressed remorse at the death of Franz, he accepted the peculiarities of Jacob's manner, his unfamiliar accent, and his seeming unfamiliarity with base protocols and design as simply "oddities" to be ignored.  Jacob's compassion had, in Franz's eyes, covered a multitude of sins.

Had Hans known, however, the secret communications among the Nazi Commanding Elite, he would have also known that one of the remaining serviceable UFOs had been commandeered from Hanger A by mysterious hijackers who subsequently fled the moon and were being chased by their top pilots in four other UFOs, and that the hijacked ship had subsequently returned half a day later, and had somehow ignited the Civil War among the top leadership of Eisenhelm.  Had Hans known these things, his view of Jacob and his purple team might have been quite different.  But the Nazis' Command Elite were secretive to the point of extreme paranoia, and given that Eisenhelm was a hive of Machiavellian intrigue under the best of circumstances, it should not surprise us that this information had not been shared with the rank and file.  Hence, Hans was indeed blissfully ignorant of these facts, and so treated Jacob and Team Purple as trusted members of the Elite Staff.

Hans explained to Jacob that the protocols were such that each transmission had to pass the pass-code test.

"Who is this?!" demanded Helmund harshly, once the connection had been made.

"This is Special Agent Grantmund!" responded Jacob with a terse diplomatic intonation.  The fact that Helmund had never heard of Special Agents was overridden by the fact of the circumstances of the base, which for all intents and purposes was both being destroyed by suicidal Delta-Z Nuclear Missile Robots, and being riven apart by a Civil War among the three factions of Nazis that had long been adversaries in Eisenhelm.  The Military, the Staff Officers and the Scientists had all long vied for supreme command, and now, at the end, they tore at each other's throats to quench their lust for power and give full vent to their sheer hatred of one another.  

"Fritz went mad.  I shot him.  The traitor is dead!", announced Helmund proudly.  

"A shame," responded Jacob, taken aback by Helmund's remorseless attitude.  "More and more people are losing the faith. We are losing too many men."

"Hardly! He was a FOOL!" exclaimed Helmund into the microphone passionately.

"Yes, he was," agreed Jacob realizing that arguing his humanitarian point was not going to result in anything useful.  "Well, at least it is good to know that a few good men like you are still around!" he said reassuringly.  He heard Helmund snap his boot heels and understood that he's just received a big old Nazi salute.  Jacob cringed at this thought.

"I hear your honor, sir," said Jacob at that. "Now pay attention.  We are bringing up a team of technicians who have to begin preparing for the final protocols.  But we need to know you have our backs."

"Yes SIR!" shouted Captain Helmund.  Given that his own chain of command had presumably already been killed (since they were no longer responding to his radio transmissions and had been under deadly fire a few minutes earlier), Helmund readily accepted that under the conditions of chaos he should attach himself to any superior military officer that happened along.  He mistook Jacob for one, and the rest was history, as they say.

"I'm going to come around the corner with my men in a few moments," said Jacob. He stepped out from the shallow of the tunnel wall and came into view.  He looked up at the distant pillbox, a few hundred feet to the east.  In the dim red light of the slit window he saw the silhouette of Helmund who gave him a salute.  He returned the salute in kind and said, "We will maintain contact as we proceed.  Keep us apprised of any changes. Over and out," he said as he cut the contact.

"Ja volt!" said Helmund as he strapped himself into the machine gunner's chair and began flicking switches to turn on various sensors and radar units.  Helmund had never liked his commander at any rate, and for some reason, Jacob struck him as decisive, and yet... in some strange way he could not consciously identify... human. In other words, the human being that was buried deep inside Helmund liked Jacob.

Jacob, Vallnam and Ling looked at each other.  

"What now?" asked Ling.  

"I wonder if the control room you're looking for, C3-DZ-A1, is somehow connected to the pillbox C3-A1," Jacob said, gesturing towards the ladder.  Ling gave him a wink and started heading in that direction.  Jacob had Hans open a channel to Helmund, and he apprised the Captain that he was sending another Special Agent up to the pillbox in order to relief Fritz.  This was taken without demur as Helmund prepared to receive the new officer. 

Meanwhile, Jacob would take Hans and another technician to Sector 4, at which they expected to find the Staff Operations Center.  Meanwhile, Vallnam would take the rest of the technicians east to Hanger B, and begin working on repairing any of the UFOs that might be serviceable there.  And so, having successfully split the party down to its most atomic units, they executed their plan.

As he strode off with the technicians, Jacob made a point of kicking Fritz's helmet, sending glass shards lofting through the darkness, and hailed a snappy Nazi Salute up to Helmund.  He could practically hear the Nazi Captain crack his helmet against the ceiling dashboard with his own responding salute.

And so off he went with two technicians into the dark tunnel to the north.  Vallnam was a bit surprised.  He didn't expect Jacob to actually follow through with trying to save the Nazi technicians they'd left in the workshop.  After all, it was at considerable risk given the timing and chaos of the situation.  But Jacob seemed genuinely resolute on that point, and off they went.  Vallnam reasoned to himself that it probably made some sense to save them as the technicians might serve a useful purpose as minions, possibly.  He shrugged and took his men east.  "Saving Nazis on the moon.  Heh.  You don't see that every day," thought Vallnam to himself as he walked into the darkness.

Ling had climbed the ladder up to the pillbox.  She received a pass-code from Hans by radio, and secured access to the interior.  There she met Helmund face to face, her Lewiston in her right hand.  He was waiting for her with his pistol drawn and pointing at her face as she entered.  He smiled. 

"Welcome to pillbox C3-A1," he said, his steely eyes unflinching.  

He was a rather large brute with frosty blue eyes and a waft of blond hair.  She entered the cramped interior, crowded with panels of radar and television screens (a third of which appeared to be out of service), blinking lights, switches, knobs and other artifacts of the weird retro-tech world of Eisenhelm.  To the rear was a dark area that appeared to be a short corridor ending in a flat dark gray wall.

Given that Helmund was a pretty smart monkey, Ling found no opportunity to take control of him with her Lewiston.  As long as she held her pistol he pointed his at her.  He said nothing about this, but his intent was clear as day.  He had the drop on her, and so her initial plan was not going to work.  She had no choice but to play along.  He offered her a seat to take the place of Fritz in the machine gun nest.  She tried a bit of diplomacy, but her skill at it was deficient, and Helmund's willpower quite strong.  He was not about to be pushed around by a female officer, no matter how beautiful, or rank.  He was a sexist pig, after all.  He insisted she take the seat by way of waving his pistol to indicate she should move to the machine gunner's chair.  She took a seat.  He was above and behind her.  This had not worked out at all as she had imagined while climbing the ladder.  She bit her lip as she settled in to the machine gunner's chair.

Ling used a bit of mysticism at this point to open a telepathic channel to Jacob and Vallnam and apprised them of her situation.  Not so great.  As she watched the radar scope, and targeting system, on which Jacob and Vallnam's teams were clearly visible, she thought hard about how to weasel information out of Helmund.  She wanted to know if Pillbox C3-A1 happened to have another exit... one that might lead to C3-DZ-A1, perhaps?  But how to phrase it so that his suspicions weren't aroused?  That was the question.

* * *

As Jacob and his team walked down the dark tunnel northward, they got to within six hundred feet of the pillbox at the Sector 4 intersection.  Jacob knew from his prior military experience that at about that distance he was between the optimal ranges of the pillbox behind them, and the pillbox ahead of them.  Vulnerable to both, but not optimal to either.  The marched forward.  The darkness was only broken by the lights coming from the Staff Operations Center far ahead of them.  Embedded in the wall was a camera station.  The camera trained on the three men, it's red light flashing.

From the speaker in his helmet radio he heard a word, in German, "Halt!"

He halted.  Hans gave him the passcode, 3-1-9.  

"What are you doing here?" barked a voice through the radio.

"I'm an adjunct of the Lieutenant General.  We are here to effect repairs."

"What? Lieutenant General who??  What are you talking about?"

This bullshit story was not believed.  The technicians were working the infotablet as fast as their little fingers could work them.  "Rudolf," whispered Hans into his mic.

"Lieutenant General Rudolf", said Jacob. "I'm sure you're a little busy down here, but we need some space suits.  Repairs."

"What's your name?" barked the voice over the speaker.

"Ron," said Jacob unconvincingly.  "Look we need your help.  Time is of the essence.  Preparations are being made for the Final Protocols.  We are all going to get out of this alive, but we need your cooperation."

This statement caught the attention of the solider who was at the front gate speaking into the mic.  Every Nazi in Eisenhelm at that point was entirely convinced that survival was not an option.  Everyone had steeled themselves to the idea of dying for the cause, though almost none of the Nazis had any joy in this prospect whatsoever.  So the idea of actually being able to escape made the soldier reconsider everything he had previously been thinking.  In fact his finger slipped off the trigger of his machine gun, and he thought he might just let some of the oddities of the situation slide, under the circumstances.  After all... General Rudolf was an important man.  Maybe repairs were necessary.

"We need to get to Hanger B," said Jacob.  "But we require the use of extra space suits for some of the technicians.  We will need you to head to Hanger A, by the northern route.  We will meet you there in two hours.  Ok?"

* * * 

As this was happening, Vallnam was on his way to Hanger B with his troop of technicians. 

"What can we expect in Hanger B?" asked Vallnam of one of the technicians in his group.

"There's flying saucers in the Hanger.  They have been slated for repairs, but frankly, for the past few years repairs have been sidelined due to 'scheduling conflicts'.  So we are going to find a lot of derelict space ships."

"So you think we can find enough working equipment there to effect repairs and come up with one good ship?" asked Vallnam pensively.

"That remains to be seen," relied the technician in a matter of fact tone that suggested nothing could be further from the truth.  "Also, you should know, Sector 8 also contains a Science Center and an abandoned Military Command Office.  The Command was abandoned years ago, but that doesn't mean there's no dangers there.  We avoid it."

Since the corridor was dark, and since the overhead lights had not responded to the motion sensors, the technicians surmised that the recent moonquakes had dislodged their power cables.  This meant that the heavy steel doors that sealed off Sector 8 from the tunnel were not going to open by the normal keypad method.  The technician, however, explained that there was a manual override, but would require a considerable amount of brute strength.  

As they arrived at the huge steel door Vallnam decided he would employ a bit more mystical energy into a Telekenetic Unlock, which could help to open the enormous door.  He give it a hurl, and with a heave of the manual override wheel the great doorway began to slowly slide open.  They soon had enough space to gain entrance.  They slid through the opening.  Inside was a gigantic black space of unknown dimensions (other than was was shown on the map).  Across the space, far to the north east, they saw lights coming through windows of a tall narrow building.

"What's that?" asked Vallnam.

"That's the Science Center," said a technician with a shudder.

"Well, we should rescue them, too, I guess," said Vallnam.

"Oh, no, no, no," uttered the technicians in unison.  

"No?  We should not rescue the scientists?" queried Vallnam to be sure of their meaning.  In fact they meant no, they should not rescue the scientists.  After a brief conversation, Vallnam got the impression that the scientists were feared and hated.  The technicians changed the subject.  They began discussing how to re-route the power cables from the Science Center into the Hanger B Power Supply Station which was housed in a small building just south of the Science Center.  This could be done by disconnecting the power couplings, and within thirty seconds they'd worked out exactly how to do so, what equipment they required, where to procure the appropriate tools, and how long it would take.  They would need about 15 minutes.  As they made their plan, the group maneuvered stealthily as possible the long way around to the far side of a set of buildings cluttered by crates and refuse that they could hide behind.  The tools they needed would be on shelves inside the building they'd just come to.

"This, of course, would plunge the Science Center into complete darkness," said one of the technicians with a slight hint of triumphalism.  

"Ja, Gunter, but you know... that's something that could cause serious problems," said one of the technicians.

"Well, ja, it will.  But look at it this way, Kurt... the scientists will have to deal with those problems first... ja?"

"Ahh. Hah.  You are right, Gunter.  That's quite amusing, really."  There was a bit of smirking among the technicians.

"I have a 2600 Lumen flashlight", said Vallanm.

"No, no, no!" snapped Gunter.  "Don't use it.  If you do they will see us immediately and we'll be done for. Better to crawl than expose ourselves at this point."

They had night vision scopes.  They handed one to Vallnam.  With it he saw that the Power Supply Station had two guards who were equipped with night vision googles on their space suit helmets.  The guards appeared to be arguing with one another and didn't notice the team had slid into the cavernous Sector 8 and made their way to the supply depot.  Vallnam used the scope to look around.  The cavern itself was enormous.  It could have covered ten square blocks of Manhattan. The scope was sensitive enough to give him a view of the entire chamber by the light coming from the Science Center windows.  To the south he could see the abandoned military base.  The doors were ajar and all the windows were broken.  

"What's in there?" he asked, gesturing to the abandoned base.

"Not much anymore.  If you want to scrounge for armor or weapons, there might be some there, though my guess is that whatever's there is likely broken, empty, or useless.  Still though, after the Battle of Wolf-Brigade, no one has dared to venture there due to boobytraps.  I heard a rumor a while ago that a team went in, but never came out.  I'm not sure it's worth the risk, really," explained Gunter.

Meanwhile Vallnam had continued his scan of Sector 8. There was an enormously long flat wall due east in which was a huge vault-like door.  There was a small cluster of buildings along the wall to the south, adjacent from the Military Command Center, but they also had broken windows, and seemed abandoned. 

Vallnam changed the angle of his view and peered at the Science Center. It was a tall narrow building that appeared to have a a large circular disk two stories high as its base.  There were no windows on the base at all.  It seemed there was a single elevator that could be used to ascend into the building proper from within the disk.  Looking a little more carefully he spotted the front portal.  It was lined with a ribbon of dark material, perhaps iron, but he wasn't sure.  It formed an archway that framed a pair of double doors.  Outside the doors he could barely make out two soldiers standing at attention in the darkness, their machine guns in their hands.  They were quite far away, so he had no fear that they would spot his group.  It was the two other guards near the Power Supply Station that were the problem.  Though arguing with each other, they could potentially see the team as they approached if they were not careful.

Vallnam studied the topography of the cavernous chamber.  The walls were smooth and rippled, but there were no stalactites or stalagmites, since, he reasoned, there was no water on the moon to cause them to be formed.  He surmised that the chambers and tunnels had been formed as lava tubes a billion years ago.  And so, there was nothing from above that he could see to rain down on his foes guarding the Power Station.  Too bad.  Vallnam felt tremors in the ground again and watched as a hail of dust and small rocks poured down in long sheets from the ceiling.  This was the most violent rumble thus far.  He wondered how Jacob was faring, and began to plot out his next move.

* * * 

While Vallnam was considering his options, Jacob and company had continued walking down the tunnel northward.  They came to the intersection of Sector 4, above which, to the right, was another Pillbox.  However, there were no lights in the box, and Jacob surmised that it was unoccupied.  They entered the tunnel that lead into Sector 4 proper.  It was also a cavernous chamber, much like Sector 8, carved out by lava countless ages ago.  This chamber had lights on the ceiling, though they were noticeably flickering.  There was a tower in the middle with an octangular shape.  There they could see a three-story building, hoisted up on giant steel struts such that the lowest level was some thirty feet above the tunnel floor.  There was at the base an airlock and a shaft that ascended the thirty feet to the base of the building.  Other than that he could see nothing of the interior.  He would have to rely on Hans to guide them to the storage room that had extra space suits  once they got inside.  

As they approached Jacob took note of the two guards in green armored space suits standing on either side of the doorway that led into the airlock at the base of the shaft.  One looked like a brawler, big and hulking, and the other far less so, who appeared to be fidgeting with his gun belt in a way that suggested this was a soldier new to the profession, perhaps, and not particularly capable. He looked decidedly nervous.  As another wave of rumbling passed through the chamber the young Nazi guard looked around with a panic stricken expression.

On a private channel, Jacob asked Hans how they were to get the suits.  Hans explained that it would be tricky.  Staff Operations has technicians come to do routine maintenance on a set schedule.  Their unexpected arrival would raise eyebrows, and probably has already done so.  In fact, they didn't know it, but they had already been extremely lucky that General Rudolf was already a victim of the Civil War and quite dead by that time.  

"The Staff Operations Center usually has six to eight officers, armed with Lugers typically, and several machine gun toting guards who stalk the hallways," said Hans.  Jacob checked his weapons.  He had an Adaptive Combat Rifle over his back, a Lewiston Beam Pistol in his holster, and a machete attached to his belt.  The technicians were both unarmed and unarmored, as per normal.  

The hulking soldier was standing at attention.  The smaller soldier was still glancing around the chamber nervously.  As the three walked towards the guards Hans mentioned that protocols would be required.  This would be a problem insofar as they were not scheduled to be there at this time, and there were no protocols for today to offer.  Hence a communications link was problematic.

Jacob asked Hans for the protocol from yesterday's maintenance schedule.  Hans gave him the code.  Jacob sent the protocols which beeped an incorrect sequence, as he walked up to the guards, stopped short, and gave a crisp salute.  The brawler returned a brisk salute, but the other guard half saluted while he fumbled with his infotablet and began to scan it.  The protocols had not registered properly.  He was confused.

"Time is of the essence, you know," said Jacob.  "We don't have a lot of time here," he reminded them.  

"You're not on the schedule," said the weakling nervously, "hold on, I'm checking." 

"We're on a special assignment," said Jacob.

The bruiser pulled up his machine gun and pointed it at the three men.  "I will have to check upstairs.... ", he said.  There was a squawk on the radio.  "Sir, two technicians and a man claiming to be on a special assignment are here off schedule.  They want admittance.  Yes, sir.  Switching frequency now."

There was a short pause while he conversed outside of their hearing.  At most three sentences were transferred.  Jacob tried but could not lip read through the guard's helmet.

"Ja volt!" said the Guard.  That Jacob could lip-read.

At this exact moment, in his mind Jacob (and Vallnam), heard Ling's voice.  "I have problems over here, guys," she said.  "Helmund is behaving ... strangely.  I think I'm going to have a problem with him soon."

Jacob said in his mind, "I thought you said you can handle him."

"I thought I could," said Ling.  "But now ... I don't know.  He's not as dumb as he looks.  I think I'm going to need help soon."

"Do your best, and we'll get back to you soon," said Jacob, as he stared down the hulking guard with the machine gun leveled in his direction.  The Guard appeared to be tensing up for action.

And then, without another word the Guard, under direct orders from the Staff Office, pulled the trigger.  He happened to be pointing at Hans at that moment. But due to an incredible fluke of bad luck, the guard fumbled at that precise moment.  It was not even an ordinary miss, but an incredibly unlucky fumble.  The bullets not only missed Hans, but ricocheted off a boulder that happened to be behind the lucky technician, and, incredibly, one bullet hit the guard and punctured his armored space suit at a vulnerable spot in the shoulder.  The folds of the suit suddenly imploded inward and the guard seemed frozen in time for a few seconds as inside the suit the explosive decompression took its horrific toll.

The other guard began fumbling with his gun belt trying to pull his machine gun into play.  But Jacob wasn't having any of it.  He flashed his machete out with one hand and shoved the bruiser into the other guard.  Jacob slashed his machete efficiently and decisively at the smaller soldier who had been knocked backwards.  A thin crack across the surface of the faceplate formed suddenly. The man's face went pale, a look of horror in his eyes. Suddenly the faceplate shattered  inwardly with explosive force.  And that was the end of that. 

Hans gained access to the airlock using a bit of technical trickery.  Jacob told the younger technician to break the airlock as he and Hans proceeded inside, which he did by short circuiting it.  They ran up the stairs one story to the first floor on which the storage rooms were located. 

Inside there was a flight of stairs and a short corridor and two doors.  Hans directed them to the door, and they pushed their way inside. The corridor they entered was pitch black.  Once through the door Jacob turned on his XL-2600 flashlight.  He found lying on the floor of the corridor a body in a pool of blood.  There was another door at the far end.  Hans pointed to the door.  Jacob stepped over the dead body, and made his way to the end of the corridor, followed closely by Hans.  

At this point Jacob decided it would be wise to expend a bit of mystic energy to see if he could 'sense' any presence on the other side of the door.  He didn't sense anything.  But he just wasn't sure.  Something seemed wrong.  Why was there a dead body on the floor?  He took a look.  The man had been shot through the chest with a single shot, suggesting a Lugar.  It had happened recently.  The blood was still wet. Someone had murdered a Staff Sargent and he felt sure whomever it was had not gone far.

He looked around at the layout of the corridor and decided it would be wise to take some precaution.  There were two doors in the corridor, the one they came through on the south side, and the one they needed to get through on the north.  He unhitched his Smart Net from the utility kit on his belt and let it expand.  He gave it the following instructions:  "Go to the door on the south of this corridor and cover it completely.  If anyone or anything comes through then wrap yourself around it and contain it so that it can not move.  Alert me immediately if this happens."  The Smart Net followed his instructions and with its tiny motorized network of servo-controls the diamond-steel mesh made its way to the south door and covered it completely by attaching itself to the sides and top of the door frame.  It was nearly invisible.  But nothing was likely to get past it, as Smart Nets were strong.  And smart.

And with that we left things there while Jacob considered what might be behind the door that led into the storage room where the space suits were to be found.

WoAF - Game Session 33

At this time, about a mile south of Panguitch, Good Captain Samwise was pointing his machinegun down the hole of the turret into the darkness waiting for the bellowing and infuriated Lizardman to pop his head into view.  Down the cliff behind and below him were Fred and Guns, hair and clothes singed and smoking.  They were suffering from the shockwave after-effects of multiple hits on their Armored Ground Vehicle, but were still alive, if barely.  Fortunately, Gun's entirely sensible application of the M32-A Flamethrower had ignited a forest fire on the top of the ridge where the enemy tanks had been firing from, causing them to retreat, and so they were safe inside the AGV for the moment.  Not terribly far away to the north of Panguitch, Captain Bruin Hilda had made it past the worm mounds with the refugees and so the convoy was able to make its way north on Route 89.  Slowly the band of refugees walked northward beneath the desert sun.  As this was taking place, Pita and Linda had taken up residence in the secret underground city of Lemuria at the invitation of the Queen of that astonishing realm.  Lastly, very far away on the moon, Princess Ling (Linda's twin sister) had made it to Eisenhelm on her Rocket Bike and managed to find Vallnam, Jacob and the technicians on Level C3, just below Guard Post C3-PB-A1 as all hell was breaking lose in that dreadful Nazi fortress.  

* * *

Bruin Hilda wiped the gritty sweat from her forehead.  It was hot and the dust from the jeeps rose behind them in a dirty brown cloud.  They'd been traveling for a few hours at this point. The caravan was composed of seven jeeps, a variety of small buses, carts, and a large number of refugees walking north along Route 89.  To the south they could see dark clouds of smoke rising from the town of Panguitch, and occasionally they could hear the explosions of heavy artillery.  They were about five miles north of the besieged township.  Something caught Bruin Hilda's eye.  A bright gleam of light out in the desert to the north west, about a quarter mile away.  Bruin Hilda asked Lieutenant Kerrington to take a look with the binoculars.  They were at the intersection of 3600 N, and 89.  Kerrington focused in on the source of the light and said "hmmmm".

"Hmmm?" asked Bruin Hilda.

"Well, it looks like there's a pillar out there reflecting a beam of sunlight from the top.  I think you better take a look at this Ma'am."

Bruin Hilda stopped the jeep, accepted the binoculars from Kerrington, and took a  long and careful look. She followed the line of sight up the pillar.  The measurements that showed up as amber characters in the binoculars' HUD indicated the pillar was about 2000 feet north west, and was 120 feet tall, and 6,624 feet above sea level.  The top of the pillar had a perfect diamond shape and appeared to be a highly polished slightly parabolic surface that was focusing  a beam of sunlight on the caravan.  She scanned around the mound, and saw no indication of buildings or structures, nor did she see any roads or paths that led to the pillar.  Just ordinary looking desert with cactus, brambles and dirt.  

"Let's keep going north.  I want to get out of the line of the sunbeam," she said.  And so they continued north.  After a hundred yards the sunbeam from the pillar was no longer aimed at them, and Kerrington, who was still looking it over with the binoculars, commented that the pillar appeared to be an artificial construct of some sort. 

"Doesn't look natural to me," she replied as she slowed the jeep down to allow Kerrington another detailed look.  "Unless we find a secure place to hold up, I don't want to leave the refugees alone while we explore a mysterious pillar out in the desert."

"Understood, Ma'am," replied Kerrington, as he scanned the horizon.  "Ma'am, I see a number of pillars out there.  They are at regular intervals in a semicircle around the road, as far as I can tell."

As Kerrington was speaking the beam of light from the original pillar began to shine on them again.  And in addition another one of the pillars was also beaming onto their location.

"They're tracking us?" asked Bruin Hilda.  

"Yes, that seems to be case," answered Kerrington.  "I'm not absolutely sure, but it seems the top of the pillars are on some sort of pivot, and they are slowly turning towards us as we move.  Now that we have slowed down they are able to synchronize on our position."

"I do not like the looks of this," said Bruin Hilda, as she shielded her eyes with her hand to gaze out towards the pillar.  She wanted to see if there was any cover that would shield them from the beams, but the desert in this area was rather flat and she saw nothing that would provide the kind of cover she was hoping for.  A third beam of light focused on their position, and now she could feel the heat of the combined beams on her skin. 

"Lieutenant, radio back to the caravan and apprise them of the situation and tell them to stop while we investigate," she ordered.   As she did so she sped up and roared down 89 at 70 mph.  The jeep quickly escaped the sunbeams.  After five hundred feet or so she slowed down.  By the dust in the air, at the angle at which the jeep had stopped, she could see the beams of light from several of the pillars.  Some of them were aligning with the jeep.  Others were aligning onto the road where the caravan had stopped.  Bruin Hilda turned the jeep towards the closest pillar and told Kerrington to warn the caravan of the attack.

As the jeep rode roughshod over the desert towards the closest pillar she began to see the others as she now knew what to look for.  There were a large number of them, and they appeared to form a large semicircle of three rings around the road.  She estimated there were probably around fifty of them, with a circumference of a mile or so.  Slowly but surely all of the beams of light were now centering on the caravan. 

She had Kerrington radio an order to the caravan telling them to retreat back down Route 89.  The caravan began a slow march south.  But as they did so the fifty sunbeams inexorably concentrated on the retreating crowd.  Meanwhile, Bruin Hilda drove the jeep to within 1000 feet of the first pillar.  On the ground surrounding the pillar they could see what looked like a softly undulating brown sheet.  It might have been muddy water, but it moved too slowly for that.  Bruin Hilda stopped the jeep so Kerrington could get a good look with the binoculars.  

"You better take a look at this," he said.  She took the binoculars.  They were set at 50x optical zoom so they required a steady hand. At first she couldn't tell what she was looking at, but after a few moments she realized that there was a river of brown ants out there.  Millions of them.  Perhaps hundreds of millions.  The carpet of ants extended around the base of the pillar for about two hundred feet.

Bruin Hilda reviewed her inventory of weapons in the jeep.  A plasma rifle, fully charged.  A machine gun with 4000 rounds.  A Wasp-58 rocket launcher, with three rockets.

"Alright Kerrington, how good a shot are you with the Rocket Launcher?"

"Not too bad, Ma'am," he replied coolly.  

"How close do you need to be to hit the reflector up there?" she asked.

"Hmm... with a target that size?  I'd say about 300 feet ought to do." answered Kerrington.

"Ok we're going to drive past the ants at fifty feet and see how they react.  Then we'll decide."

She drove to the right of the pillar careful to keep a 50 foot gap between the jeep and the carpet of ants.  As she approached she could see the ants mounting up into what looked like a wave about three feet high to her left that formed a low wall, the highest point of which was where the jeep happened to be closest; thus, the wall undulated along with them as they drove.  As her focus was actually on the utterly bizarre sight, she hit a bump.  The jeep had hit a trench in the desert floor.  When the jeep hit the trench the sand that had been covering it gave way due to the impact and so the trench line was unveiled.  It was one foot wide and one foot deep, and vanished into the carpet of ants in the direction of the pillar.  The jeep gave an enormous jolt and the front left tire was knocked out of alignment.  Out from the trench began pouring waves of ants.  

Bruin Hilda reached to the jeep's dashboard and flipped a small green switch, which turned on the Jeep-Mounted Acoustic Anti-Insect Shell.  The shell formed a high intensity sonic sphere around the jeep extending about 10 feet.  Meanwhile ants on the inside of the shell began climbing up the tires.  Bruin Hilda then reached down to her belt and flipped the switch on her Personal Anti Insect Shell.  She advised Kerrington to do the same, which he immediately did.  So there were now three sonic shells.  A large one surrounding the jeep, and two smaller ones inside of it.  The effect of the shells upon the ants was utterly lethal.  They shattered as soon as they came in contact with the sonic wall.  By moving around carefully inside the jeep the two of them eliminated all the ants that had been on the inside of the outer shell.  This took about five minutes in total.  

On the outside of the outer shell the ants had surrounded the jeep entirely, forming an undulating three foot tall circular carpet.  Some 250 feet to the west the pillar stood starkly against the bright blue sky, the reflector gleaming its powerful sunbeam towards the refugees on the road.

"Kerrington, can we repair the jeep?"

"I'm a pretty good mechanic, and I got my tools in the back.  Might be able to repair it.  If so it might take 15 minutes or so."

"Ok," said Bruin Hilda, "but before you start, I want you to take a shot at the top of the pillar."

"Yes, Ma'am," he said as he picked up the Wasp 58, loaded the rocket, stood up in the rear of the jeep, and with Bruin Hilda safely to his left side, he launched the rocket.

Ka-PhooooOOOM!  

The top of the pillar was obliterated completely.  Pellets of dirt and sand came raining down from the cloud of smoke that hung in the air.  As the smoke cleared they could see the pillar was now reduced to seventy feet, and the reflective surface had been destroyed.  Lieutenant Kerrington began working on fixing the jeep.  Bruin Hilda took a look at the other pillars with the binoculars.  To her dismay their attack did not cause them to alter the trajectory of their beams, which were still focused on the caravan.  Even from a distance the brightness of the concentrated sunbeams was considerable.  The jeeps had been backing down the road as the refugees fled in front of them to the south down 89.  As the last set of reflector beams aligned on the crowd she could see that the situation there had become desparate.

"Lieutenant Radford, come in. Lieutenant Radford, come in.  Over," barked Bruin Hilda.

"Lieutenant Radford here, Ma'am!"

"What's going on down there?"

"Those sunbeams are getting mighty bright, Ma'am... and it's getting a bit hot over here.  A number of refugees have been blinded and we're carrying them as best we can.  There's nowhere to hide," reported Radford, sounding beleaguered and exhausted.

"Any sign of insects down there?"

"I'm not even looking for insects!  Let me see!" said Radford excitedly.  "I don't see any!  Do you think insects are coming?  Insects from the mound, Ma'am??"

"No, I don't see any indication of that.  I think what might be best is for the caravan to disperse and spread out so that they can't focus on the group as a whole.  Get off the road and don't bunch up in one spot."

"Yes, Ma'am!" responded Radford, and he began barking orders for the people to disperse off the road.  And so the refugees began dashing off in different directions into the desert.

Bruin Hilda wondered if she could move unnoticed by the ants if she used her Mentarian Powers, one of which being a power named "Blending" (which she learned from the Modroni, but had completely forgotten its source by that time).  She wondered if Blending would actually conceal her movements from the ants, or if they would still detect her movements by their chemical senses.  Something told her she wouldn't find out unless she tried it.

* * *

Meanwhile, 24,000 feet below the surface of the Earth in the secret city of Lemuria, Pita and Linda overlooked the beauty of the city from their balcony.  They'd been there for over a month at this point, living a life of luxurious indolence.  At the moment, Linda was practicing her Lemurian by inscribing Lemurian letters (not our English alphabet, but glyphs that looked more Egyptian than anything) and the few words she had learned thus far on a small silver rimmed chalk board which she held in her lap.  She was puzzling over the complexity of the Lemurian alphabet, which was named Mon'Tang.  

Each letter Mon'Tang had a meaning, but the meaning depended entirely on the  context of the letters surrounding it.  So the Lemurian "A", meant "Animal" or "Animated", or "Animal Ferocity", but only if it was before a specific set other letters.  If it was before "Z", for example, it meant "Dying Spirit", or if it was before "C" it might mean either "Cold Spirit" or "Unhappy".  And so on.  Thus each word had a plethora of meanings that composed it.  In addition, they had found out, each letter was not only a number, but also a mathematical principal,  accompanied by a set of "Proofs", as well as a mathematical function.  

And so, they were informed by their elderly and long suffering teacher, Sir Ratheror, but did not comprehend very well at all, that each word in Lemurian was a mathematical formula, as well as a composite of many meanings that could only be truly understood in context to the totality of the sentence, paragraph, chapter and book in which it was written.  

Thus the word "Alahu", for example, could mean "Bird of Prey who fills the sky", or "Brilliant hero who discovers Earth" or "Pure science that saves the Gods", or "Ferocious Warrior-Priest-King who brings destruction in the third generation".  One word, many possible meanings, depending entirely on the position of the world in the sentence and the letter-meanings of the words surrounding it.  In addition "Alahu" represented a specific number, but more importantly was also used as a mathematical function to help plot the movement of magnetic forces within the earth's core, or the electromagnetic interactions with super heated ion-plasma fields.  Most of this was lost on both Linda and Pita, try as Sir Ratheror might to get them to understand the intricacies of the Mon'Tang language.  

As a consequence, they could only pick up isolated factual meanings of sentences in the most primitive sense, and so could only understand statements of plain obtuse fact, such as "This is a chair", and "We will dine after the 9th Bell".  Which after one month, frankly, was quite an achievement, actually.  Mon'Tang is far from easy to learn!  

That said, there was something about Mon'Tang that neither she nor Pita could explain, but allowed them to pick it up more quickly than they felt should have been possible.  Whenever she looked at a Mon'Tang word, she somehow "knew" at some deep level, and very generally, but essentially, what the world meant.  If the word was a food like "potato", she had the impression of potato when she looked at it.  If it was an animal, somehow she knew which one.  For many words it wasn't necessarily easy to catch these glimmers of instant comprehension, but for quite a few it was immediate and visceral.  They "knew" what the words meant without being told. This, she later came to understand, was because Mon'Tang was the root language of all human languages, dating back to an age far earlier Sumeria.  Far earlier than Arrata even.  As such, it's roots were deep in the subconscious of every person alive, and encountering it brought forth reflections from the deepest parts of the mind where thoughts themselves originate. Hence, although one might never have encountered it before, upon see it the words would convey an impression of their meaning. They would give one a feeling that they "got the gist" of the thing, even though consciously they had no idea what they were looking at.

Pita was staring absently down into the dark chasm at the frothing cascade of waterfalls a thousand feet below the balcony. He was thinking about the vision he had witnessed before they had entered Lemuria when he had joined Linda in "the sacred space".  There, he recalled, he had seen the hawthorn tree whose branches rose far up into the heavens and roots encompassed the depths of the earth, both enormous and microscopic in scale at the same time.  He remembered the great black raven descending from the stars, and then the strange teardrop shaped jet-black spaceship that had vanished but was now hovering over the luridly bright desert floor.  This brought to mind the stranger from the spaceship they'd met in the desert before the Thunder Riders had arrived.  Zord'Iak, he had called himself.  Tall, lean, with long platinum colored hair, and the strange dark-glowing gem in his forehead.  Pita was particularly interested in the spaceship.  He hoped to find out, somehow, if it had been of Lemurian design, or was something from the ancient past, or the distant future, or something else entirely.  Its design was so peculiar he was sure it was not anything that could have been produced by his own civilization, even with the help of Alt-X.  Of that he was quite certain.  It may have been the only thing he felt absolutely certain about.  He was trying to figure out how he could find out more about the spaceship, and so he planned to ask the Queen about this at the evening dinner, if he could manage it.

There was a knock on the door.  Linda put down her writing board with a sigh and went to answer it.  In shuffled the elderly professor, Sir Ratheror, wearing his dark blue scholar's robe, with his long white hair and beard neatly trimmed and tied in fashionable Lemurian Braids.  He was in a slightly cantankerous mood, but otherwise polite as always, and even projected a slight sense of warmth towards the two Upper Worlders as he gave them their morning lessons.  Linda, having been quite determined to learn Lemurian to the best of her ability, had spent more time studying than Pita, and so she had become the apple of Ratheror's eye, so to say.  Towards Pita he displayed a polite, but slightly less friendly disposition.

The lessons consisted of learning Mon'Tang, as well as Lemurian customs, laws, history, and traditions, along with a smattering of basic Lemurian Mathematics and Science, most of which was quite over their heads.  

As for Lemurian culture, it was fairly simple.  The Queen was above all the Absolute and sole Monarch of the realm, to whom everyone owed allegiance, and whose word was Law.  Beneath her were a handful of high ranking nobles, the chief of which was the Prime Minister, Lord Argo. In summary, the laws, customs and traditions all tended to align on the Divine Right of her Suzerainty, and served as guidelines for all of Lemurian conduct and artistry.  The Queen of Lemuria was often referred to as "the Golden Orb of All Good, Truth and Beauty", and so she was in the eyes of the Lemurian people.  

As for the laws, they could be summarized as "Obey your superiors, vandalize nothing, be truthful and productive, and willingly recompense anyone whom you might harm accidentally in full, plus one half.  Willful harm is punishable by fines, loss of status, or even death at the Queen's or the Prime Minister's discretion."  Of course the legal code itself, written in stone on the walls of the Great Hall of Queens, was quite long and filled with details, but this summary should suffice as a general guideline towards the law's overall meaning and effect.  But to give some sense of the particulars, a few of the laws read as follows:  "The Avenue of Lazuli may be traversed by the Priests of Vrilmana Northward only when the Light of the Silver Temple points to the North Node and Southward only when the Light of the Silver Temple points to the South Node", "The Penalty for breaking a Vase or Statuary on the Causeway of the Upper Golden Jade Pavilion is 1000 Penkara", "The Penalty for Disobedience to the Queen in any form is Death at the Queen's sole discretion".  And so on.  The laws are as ornate and particular as the entire beautiful maze-like city of Lemuria. 

Pita's overall impression of the legal system was that it acted as a kind of logistical and social traffic system, by which the different classes of the Lemurian hierarchy were guided, and the deviation from which was penalized by loss of wealth, status, or in the worst case, one's life.  It seemed highly technical in nature, and he was informed by Sir Ratheror that there were no incongruities of conflicting laws in their system of governance, "... unlike those of your own, late, civilization," he added with a slight twist of triumphalism and wry smile.  

It would be a long time before the young couple could master Lemurian scholarship!

The lesson lasted a few hours, and by the end, Pita and Linda both felt mentally exhausted.  They even broke a sweat as the endeavor of learning was so arduous.  Afterwards, Sir Ratheror left them to their ruminations, leaving behind a pile of homework, as usual.  

Pita and Linda napped for a while, until it was time to get dressed for dinner.  After dressing suitably in their luxuriant robes and jewelry, they left their apartment and were guided by two guards up to the Queen's Hall where the dinners were held.  Different groups of Nobles, according to their clans and status, had been invited to each of the sumptuous affairs, and over the course of several weeks, Pita and Linda had been introduced to a great number of the most powerful people in Lemuria.  As they were the Queen's apparent favorites, being invited every night to sit at her own table, no one dared but speak as politely as possible to the two Upper Worlders.  That said, it was not entirely possible for every one of them to hide their surprise and sometimes shock at the fact that the Queen appeared to dote on Linda so openly.  Even Pita, no expert on Lemurian Social Customs, noticed these expressions several times, usually when the Queen had expressed some particular amusement at something that Linda had said.  Was the Queen slighting the Nobility in this fashion?  What was behind her interest in this pair of Upper Worlders?  None could say. Least of all Pita.

As Pita sipped blue mushroom wine from his crystal goblet he observed the nobles in all their finery.  What a splendid sight it all was.  The refinement of Lemurians had no equal, and one had the impression that theirs was the most stable, cultured, and civilized society that might have ever existed on Earth.  Quite possibly it was.  He turned to gaze on the beautiful queen.  He did not know her personal name as she was referred to always as "Your Majesty" by everyone, including the Prime Minister.  She had an amazing range of expressions, and sometimes he felt that she had warmed up to him, and perhaps even liked him.  At other times she seemed to distain him with a mockery of such withering proportion that he'd have rather crawled into some dark recess below the caverns and starved himself than endure another moment of it.  She was most certainly a very remarkable woman.  Up until this evening the Queen had asked the two of them hundreds of questions about the surface world.  What cities remained, what food supplies were available, and how it was being produced, what armies existed, and in what numbers, what mutations had arisen, what the weather was like, whether or not the atmosphere had been polluted with radiation, and how strong, who the leaders were, their names and personalities, and many questions of a purely tactical, technical and clinical nature.  This was the first night that Pita noticed a change in the tone of the questioning.

"Tell me of your family," she was asking Linda.  "I am curious to hear about your life in the upper world."

"I grew up in a single parent home as an army brat," she replied.

"An army brat?  What is this?" asked the Queen, with an expression of deep curiosity.

"My father is a Lieutenant in the military, and so we travelled a lot.  My sister and I spent most of our childhood on military bases.  I never knew my mother," she finished with a faint disappointment in her voice.

"What of your father? Tell me about him," said the Queen with her keen blue eyes engaged the young woman with a peculiar intensity.  "What is he like?"

Linda answered her questions sincerely and honestly, but without a great amount of detail.  And so the Queen pursued this line of questioning with a series of follow ups.  "What does he do?"  "How does he like his life in the military?"  "Was he a good father to you?"

To this last question, Linda answered emphatically.  "I can't imagine anyone being a better father to me and my sister than he.  He was always so kind to us, so thoughtful, and protective, and encouraging.  He made us believe that we can be whatever in this world we wish, so long as we are willing to work hard, be honest, and pursue our goals with all of our might.  Which is what we've done, and I feel my sister and I have been very blessed, your Majesty."

The Queen seemed sincerely touched by this, and in fact, Pita almost thought for a moment that the Queen was nearly on the verge of shedding a tear when she heard these words.  But the moment past swiftly, and she was then on to her next line of questions.  

The Queen then turned her attention to Pita.

"What is your relationship with Linda?" the Queen asked, and then stared at him with her cool blue eyes intently watching his every movement.  There was a silence as his mind furiously considered what the meaning of this question could imply.  He laughed awkwardly for a moment as he tried to gage her expression.  He could see her intensity, but the underlying intent was completely concealed. 

He glanced over at Linda, who was looking at him with a bemused expression.

"At the moment we are colleagues, but I have always... hoped for more," he said.

There was a short pause.  The Queen stroked her chin.  "Hoped for more, is it?"

"In my heart of hearts," he replied.  He noticed the Queen's sense of mockery had arisen once again.  "Unless your highness has other plans," he added.

"Other plans?" she asked, one eyebrow raised by this comment.  "What kind of 'other plans' would I have?" she pursued.

"It would not be my place to speak for you, the Queen," replied Pita coolly.  "Your plans are your own.  I'm just saying that if you have them, I don't know what else to think."

She wrinkled her eyebrows and looked disatisfied.

"What can I do to make your highness happy?" Pita asked.

"Tell me the truth," she said.

"I did tell you the truth," he replied. 

"It wasn't entirely satisfactory.  I feel you are holding out on me," she said leaning in towards him and pushing her index finger to the table.

"Well as I've said, I've always wanted to have more of a relationship with Linda," he answered hesitantly.  "To be intimate with her," he added.

They had just crossed some pretty personal lines, and Pita had no idea where this line of questioning was leading or why, or what Linda's reaction to this might be.  Not to mention that there was a room full of nobles who were listening in on the conversation, though in fact, he knew that very few of them spoke English.  Nevertheless, he also was well aware that by later in the evening all of them would have heard an exact translation of all that was said.  He was trying to thread the needle of being forthright without causing anyone one embarrassment, and most of all Linda.  After all, he really didn't know how she felt about him in this sense at all.  They'd never discussed it.

"I want to be a part of her life, beyond just our military association. I feel connected, and attracted to her," he said as he glanced over to see Linda's reaction. He noted that her bemused expression had not changed, and he didn't think any of this was coming as a surprise to her.  She seemed to be enjoying herself. 

"Do you have a sense of loyalty to her?" 

"Of course I do," said Pita sincerely,

"Good.  I believe you," replied the Queen with a bright smile.  "As well you should.  She's a fine young lady," she said enthusiastically.  "... for an Upper Worlder," she added at the end after a pause, and with a certain bravado that Pita felt was more a play to the audience than from the Queen's heart.

"How would I test this loyalty of yours," she asked of Pita while looking at Linda. 

"Um... I couldn't even begin to imagine how such a test could be conducted, short of you threating her life and me having to protect her," he replied, "Which I don't think you would do."

"No, I wouldn't," she agreed. "But what if I told you that your stay here in Lemuria was dependent on that Loyalty?  What would you say?"

"On the loyalty I have for Linda?"

"Yes," said the Queen.

"And how true it is?"

"Yes", said the Queen.

"Then I would say there is no issue, as it is as true as can be," he said.

"If I let you leave Lemuria would you come back?"

"If we leave on good terms, then yes, so long as I'm welcome," he answered.

"I mean would you come back for Linda?" asked the Queen.

"Of course," he said.  "I wouldn't leave without her."

"What if I asked you to leave without her?" queried the Queen, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

"I, I... eh...," the young hero stammered briefly. "I'd have to ask her if she'd be ok with that," he concluded.

"I see," said the Queen.  "Well, as it happens, I do want to ask you to leave the city without her.  But I want you to return when you are finished."

"Ok," said Pita, puzzled as could be.

"You see, we are having some trouble on the surface... which we are unclear about. And because of the nature of this disturbance, I think you would be the ideal person to investigate," she said.  "I should then like you to return and tell us the results."

"Ok, I willing to do that," he said.

"But I do not want Linda to leave," said the Queen, looking over at the girl.

"Well, I mean as long as she is not being held prisoner,"

"No, far be it from me to make Linda a prisoner," said the Queen emphatically.  "But I want her to stay here with me," she said with a great deal of warmth and affection.  Linda, who was honored and appreciative, was nonetheless puzzled by this.  She never assumed that she was so special as to merit this kind of affection from a foreign Queen whom she scarcely had known for a month.  And yet, somehow, it seemed all so natural to her.  She returned the queen's smile.

"I don't sense there is any objection from Linda, and so as a hero, I am ready to step up to the challenge," stated Pita with his chest out.

"I want you to go to the south.  To the desert.  We have been receiving ... vibrations - "

"Are they good vibrations?" quipped Pita.

"I don't know," the Queen replied. "That's what I want you to find out.  And then I want you to return.  Will you do that?"

"I will," said Pita.

"Good.  If you do not return -"

"If I do not return it is because I am dead," said Pita with finality.

"What about your Federation?" asked the Queen.

"What about my Federation?" 

"Wouldn't you wish to seek them out?  To return to them?" asked the Queen, her eyes scanning him carefully.  "It is your duty, after all, is it not?"

"It is my duty," he answered, "but my heart overrules my duty when Linda is involved," he said.  "And being the fact that the head of the Federation is Linda's father, I don't think there would be any problem with that."

"Her father is the head of the Federation, you say?", asked the Queen, now quite surprised.

"Yes," replied Pita.

"I thought he was a mere Lieutenant," responded the Queen.

"Well speaking metaphysically," he answered.  As it happened, there was a good deal of mystery around Linda's father, Lieutenant Roger Brisbane, that they had discovered along the way.  For one thing, there was the photograph they'd seen of him as a Lieutenant during World War II.  One that made him roughly 125 years old.  And yet Lieutenant Brisbane appeared to be no older than 35, or 40 at the oldest.  He was spry, athletic, capable, sharp as a whip, and altogether youthful in every way.  It was seemingly impossible for him to be that old.  And yet the photograph had the same scar, and the same mole on the upper left cheek, and this was a photograph that had been found by Ling and Linda when they had been exploring some of their father's old boxes which he had hidden away among this things.  While the twins thought it could have been their grandfather, perhaps, but there was no family record of that, and the scar and mole would have to have been ... exactly the same on both.  And that didn't make sense.  In fact, when the twins had asked their father how that was possible he reprimanded them in the harshest terms for disobeying his orders never to go through his private papers, and he never did answer their question. It was one of the several mysteries of the Brisbanes' that had never been resolved.  

"So is he the head of the Federation, or not?" asked the Queen.

Pita thought about this. In all of his interactions with the Federation it seemed to him that Lieutenant Brisbane acted in the capacity of Commander in Chief.  He never seemed to confer with any higher authority, and every decision that was made was done so at his behest, and upon no other input than what those in the room had provided him.  It suddenly struck Pita as a bit odd.  Where, in fact, was Command and Control?  Where was the Federation hierarchy in all of this.  Now granted, the Federation was far away from Tuscon to the East, and radio communications had been more or less destroyed by the radiation effects in the atmosphere that had been caused by the Ultra-War.  So communications was in fact rather difficult.  But even so... why was Tuscon, and Kitt Peak, under the command of a Lieutenant, and not a General?  And yet, no one questioned this at all, and everyone treated Lt. Brisbane as if he had every right and authority to lead, and make executive decisions on his own.  Pita now wondered why he had never noticed this before, nor anyone else for that matter.

As Pita seemed unable to answer, the Queen posed the question, "Is your loyalty to Linda greater than your loyalty to the head of the Federation?"

There was a pause.

"I would have to say yes.  Not only am I loyal to her as a fellow soldier and colleague of the Federation, but I am also loyal to her because my heart makes me feel so," he answered.

The Queen nodded approvingly at these words.

"I will give you a horse, provisions, and a guide... and five days."

She drew an X on a map, and said "This is where I want you to go.  Please do not disappoint us."

"I will endeavor not to," said Pita.

"You will leave in the morning.  I will see that a guide shall meet you then," she said.

Pita bowed, and said, "Thank you, my Queen."

Now it should be noted that Pita used this phrase, "my Queen", on impulse, automatically.  It represented a sharp departure from what he would have hitherto considered his normal frame of mind.  Now that Linda was "with the Queen", and his emotional ties to the Federation slackened, his sense of loyalty had shifted.  He told himself that this was simply a matter of expediency on his part... but was it really?

As he and Linda left the hall, the nobles at various tables gave him nods of approval, and spoke a simple Lemurian phrase which can be translated as "Good luck on your journey".

Pita bid them "Thank you", in his best Lemurian.  There were smiles and more nods of approval.  

In the morning the guide, a short wiry man with hawkish facial features, arrived at the apartment and introduced himself as Vilar.  He led Pita up the long elevator to the surface.   Halfway to the surface Pita removed his helmet (after quite a long time, during with the helmet has become hardly noticeable to him) while the Guide put his on.  Once at the surface they obtained two horses from the underground stables, and rode through the dark tunnel until suddenly, and inexplicably, they were in the desert once again.  It was bright, and the sun was terribly hot on the salt flat when they surfaced.  A hot wind was blowing, but to Pita the sense of fresh air was wonderful.  Any breeze was now a remarkable thing.  He relished his sense of the open air, and nearly beat his chest he was so happy to be above ground again.

Not far away he saw the stone plaza, next to which there was the hawthorn tree, still covered with yellow flower blossoms.  He had his helmet with him, and a cape, and other accoutrements that the guide had provided for him, including a radio broach.  The helmet he noted, was well worth wearing even if he didn't need the breathing apparatus.  The helmet controlled the cloak, and provided different kinds of optical effects through the vizor. The cloak had interesting properties as well, as it could muffle sound, or increase its volume, make them nearly invisible, or be made highly reflective. The helmet also provided protection for his head, and Pita, as a military hero, had no objections to that.

The guide didn't speak English very well at all.  Just a few key words.  Meanwhile Pita's Lemurian was good enough so that between the two of them they managed to make each other understood.

The guide pointed to the south and said "This is the way."  And with that the two men spurred their horses and began heading south over the hard white sands of the salt flat.  They passed the plaza, and Pita gazed at the hawthorn tree.   Suddenly he remembered that he had wanted to ask the Queen about the teardrop shaped spaceship, but his conversation with her was so distracting he had completely forgotten.  But now he remembered it as if he saw it in a dream just a moment before.

"Vilar," said Pita as he stopped by the hawthorn tree. "Do you know anything about the black teardrop shaped spaceship?"

"I know nothing of such things.  Perhaps it is in the sacred book.  Perhaps I saw an image of a teardrop shape in one of the temples, but I know not which one."

Pita rode to the hawthorn tree. He recalled that he was told to never touch the sacred tree.  He was careful not to do so.  But he sat on the horse's back, and concentrated his mind.  He focused his mystic energy on the tree.  Within a few moments he felt a strange sensation, and then he slid back into the bizarre realm of the Sacred World.  The hawthorn tree once again seemed to spread out across the universe, or farther.  Above it, or below, or around, perhaps, was hovering the great raven.  Out over the desert he spotted the teardrop shaped ebony spaceship. He focused on the ship.  He felt suddenly very close to it, and it landed next to him, and the door opened.  Out stepped Zord'iak,  his long platinum colored hair flowing down over his shoulders, and the black gem in his forehead pulsating dimly with a dark light.  He looked down at Pita with a deep calm, and unearthly serenity.  

"So we meet again," said Zord'Iak.

"So we do," said Pita.  "What is this place?"

"The borderlands of Ain Sof", said Zord'Iak.

"Is this an alternate dimension, or an alternate reality of some kind?"

"You can look at it that way.  Or you can look at it like this is the ultimate reality, and the one you normally occupy is merely a diminution of this," answered Zord'Iak gesturing with one arm towards the entirety of the whole.  "It all depends on your point of view."

"True, true."

"How are you faring?  Things in the underworld went well for you?"

"I'm doing well.  We were welcomed into their arms and the Queen has sent me on a quest of which I'm not sure what it's about... but when we get there I will find out.  The underworld was not as terrible as we originally imagined."

"She sent you on a question, did she?"

"Yes.  To an 'X' on the map."

"If you need my help..."

"What type of help could you offer?"

"That depends.  Here.  Take this gem with you", he said passing Pita a small black gem.  "If you need my help, you may call my name into the gem, and I will do what I can."

"Well thank you," said Pita. "I hope I don't need your help but if I do it's good to know I can call on you."

And with that the vision faded and Pita found himself standing in the desert next to the hawthorn tree.  Vilar was next to him looking at him with a concerned expression.

"Well?" asked Vilar.

"I made it to the other side, and I got a few answers."

He tried to explain to Vilar, but the man's mind was not attuned to the mystical realm, and he could not begin to understand.  At this point Pita felt compelled to get moving.  He did not wish to disappoint the queen.

* * * 

Having successfully split the party even further, this is where we left things that game.