Conan vs Sticky Notes

The dawn was a thin red smear on the horizon, like hot blood wiped across a steel blade. Towers of glass and concrete rose on either side, their windows catching the first light giving the impression the city watched him with a thousand unblinking crimson eyes.  Once again, due to circumstances beyond his control, Conan was late for work.

He took the on-ramp as if it were the narrow causeway to a besieged keep, fast, wheels squealing, engine coughing and wheezing. The highway yawned before him, six wide rivers of asphalt, each one choked with cars and trucks that moved faster than his pickup could manage, each guided by men and women who trusted in the painted lines as if they were runes of protection, nearly oblivious to the dangers whizzing around them.

Conan’s pickup grumbled, faithful as an old worn out warhorse. He gripped the worn leather wheel until his knuckles blanched. In his ear, a small voice from the dashboard whispered directions in a ridiculously pleasant tone, like a sorcerer’s charm meant to lull the wary.  Not few were the crashes that occurred because that sweetly intoned voice periodically gave false directions. Conan ignored it.  There was no time to pay attention to Judy, his name for the dear machine.  The roads were littered with the results of her occasional hallucinations.

A gap opened in the far lane. Conan signaled, and began to merge. The traffic surged and hissed around him, like a herd of wild beasts, with horns blaring, and tires screeching. And then, as if conjured by the spite of the road, the youth appeared.

He was scarcely more than a boy, beard still patchy, cap backwards like some tribal mark. His machine was low, bright, and absurdly loud.  He came darting through the lanes, cutting between the sedans with the arrogance of a high prince who believed himself immortal. The boy’s face was lit by the pale glow of a screen, his eyes not on the road but on the tiny world in his palm.

Conan’s nostrils flared. He felt the old instinct in his bones, older than cities, older than law. Not quite mysticism, perhaps, but close.  Danger, it warned out of the corner of his mind.

The boy swerved, too late, too sharp. His car clipped the rear corner of a lumbering van. The van fishtailed like a wounded ox. A chain of horns erupted, red lights flaring across the spectrum, a cacophony of outrage and fear. Tires screamed. Metal struck metal with a sound like shields splitting.

The van spun. A smaller car struck it and crumpled, folding and cracking as if made of plastic. A black sedan lurched across the lanes, sliding into the side of a jeep. Cars began crisscrossing lanes in a panic. The herd stampeded.  

Conan did not pray. He did not panic. He glanced to the left and right for a brief calculating moment, and then moved.

He wrenched the wheel, not with the delicate corrections of a timid driver, but with the brutal certainty of a man steering a stallion through a battlefield. He watched the angles, the momentum, the blind spots where death hid. His foot hammered the brake, then eased up, and then hammered again, as if he were taming a beast with heel and rein.

A sedan slid sideways in front of him, its driver’s eyes wide and empty, mouth shaping a sound that never became a word. Conan slipped behind it by inches, the way a knife hisses as it slices the air without hitting the flesh. A puff of smoke curled from someone’s tires like incense from a brazier.  To almost everyone the scene was a blur.  Everyone except Conan.  

For one heartbeat, the world narrowed to the width of a spear-shaft. Conan’s truck shuddered as something heavy struck the road behind him; debris, perhaps, or only the echo of a disaster further down the line. Then the space opened, and he was through and surged away from the wreckage behind him.

In his mirror, the boy’s bright car skittered to a stop, unharmed, as if the gods favored fools. The boy raised his hands in outrage at the ruins around him, as though the carnage were an inconvenience inflicted upon him by lesser men.  He was furious at all those damn stupid cows that made this happen.

Conan growled low in his throat, a sound that might have been laughter if it contained any mirth.  It didn't.

“Civilization,” he muttered. “Aye. A fine gleaming civilization you have here.  Well done.”

He drove on. He was late and needed to make up for lost time.

The steel-and-glass fortress of his employment rose from the city like a polished tomb. Conan parked his pickup among the other vehicles.  There were rows upon rows of them, packed so tightly that a man could scarcely squeeze between their flanks. Jeremy Williams and Tod Roberts were rolling in too, both carrying their satchels like men shouldering shields, faces already drawn with the weariness of an endless siege.

Inside, the air was bone-chilling cold.  It was summer, so that was expected. Conan grit his teeth as he passed the security gate.  He presented his badge and entered the gray maze of cubicles. The walls were low, the ceilings high, a landscape designed to make a man feel both exposed and insignificant at the same time.  The decor was bleak with gray artwork and fluorescent bulbs.

He reached his own cell and stopped.

His cubicle wall had been… adorned.  Again.  As usual.

Bright square sticky notes in a dozen colors clung to the fabric like exotic fungi. Some were scrawled with imperatives: ASAP, blocker, urgent!!! Others bore strange commands: “Circle back,” “quick win,” “ship it.” A few had been slapped on at odd angles, overlapping, as if the scribe had been drunk or possessed.

And pinned at the center, like a trophy taken from a dead enemy, was a printed notice:

“Wrike Project Management System is being decommissioned as of this morning.  Please refer to management for project details.”

Conan stared at the words, feeling a coldness in his gut that no air-conditioning could explain.

Jeremy leaned over the cubicle wall, eyes hollow. “They killed it,” he said. “Upper management. Said the system was ‘too complex’, but we can translate that to 'too expensive', most likely.”

Tod appeared behind him, clutching a coffee like a man clinging to the last warm ember in winter. “They want us to do the project off the wall,” he whispered, as if speaking too loudly might summon something.

Conan touched a sticky note. It peeled away too easily, like dead skin.

“A council of imbeciles,” Conan said slowly, “who throw away the map in the midst of war.”

Jeremy gave a humorless laugh. “They said it promotes collaboration.”

Conan looked at the wall again. The notes fluttered faintly in the draft from a vent above, shifting, trembling, as if alive. He felt the faintest prickling at the back of his neck, the same sensation he’d felt on the highway a moment before steel began to fly. It was absurd, of course. A man could not be wounded by a mere piece of paper.  Could he?

And yet…

He imagined, with sudden clarity, how the day would go: a note falling unseen to the floor; a task forgotten; a deadline missed; an executive’s wrath descending like an axe. He imagined the project, a mission-critical enterprise system, collapsing under its own weight, not from lack of skill, but from lack of order, like an army routed because its generals preferred feasting to strategizing.

He sat down heavily into his creaking swivel chair.  Screens glowed to life, vomiting fresh plagues: servers buckling, permissions stripped, programs gone mad. The ticketing system, the new Task Master of this age, spat demands at him in endless succession.

And now, above it all, the sticky-note wall loomed like a crude shrine.  In between putting out technical fires, he was to work on Project Mohawk's absurdly complicated infrastructure based on whatever he could surmise from the sticky-note parade.  Great.  

Conan fought as he always fought. He did not wince or complain. He did not plead. He hunted the miscreant code through tangled lines, strangled it, and threw its corpse to the void. He patched one breach only to see three more open. He spoke calmly into meetings where management argued about feelings instead of outcomes.  His tone never wavered.  And when his advice was ignored, as ever it was, he went back to his desk and kept up the slog.

At midday, sent out on a simple errand for provisions, Conan stepped into the parking lot and found another combat zone.

The sun beat down on black asphalt that shimmered in the heat. Vehicles prowled the lanes between rows, moving with the stealth of predators. Some did not roar at all but were silent machines that glided without warning, like ghosts.  The electric car. Silent and dangerous, like a viper of glass and steel. He paused for an instant.

A woman backed her massive SUV out of a space without looking, trusting her tiny screen and a beeping charm to save her. The beast surged toward him with a sudden lurch.

Conan sprang aside, boots scraping gravel, and slapped a palm against the vehicle’s rear quarter with the casual force of a man stopping a door. The driver’s eyes widened with surprise.

“Sorry!” she mouthed, though her lips formed it as an afterthought, and the word was forgotten as soon as it was formed. 

Then, a low-wheeled shopping cart, loose and rattling, slipped out of the grasp of an aged shopper and began rolling downhill with malicious purpose toward a row of parked cars next to Conan. Without a thought he lunged, caught it by the handle, and wrenched it around before it could strike. The cart shuddered, resisting, as if it possessed a will of its own. Conan cursed it, and rattled it with two hands until it stopped moving.  The elder came and took the cart from the giant's paws, muttered a minuscule gratitude and continued his rattling journey down the lot.

A gust of wind swirled grit and plastic wrappers across the asphalt in a spiraling dance. Conan watched the trash whirl like a tiny storm and felt again that faint prickle, that hint of something watching from the beyond the edges of ordinary things. Perhaps it was only exhaustion. Perhaps it was the city’s way of speaking.  He glanced in the direction but saw nothing but shimmering cars, trash, and... wait.  A crow.  When he spotted it, the crow lifted itself into the air with a single 'Caw' and flew between two cars and vanished.  He raised an eyebrow, grumbled and made his way to the box-store to get the office supplies he needed.

He returned to the fortress with his provisions intact. The sticky notes had shifted.

Had someone moved them? Had the vent done it? Had his mind, worn thin by some strange sorcery, invented the change?

Conan did not know. He only knew that one note, reading "deploy at 4", now hung by a single corner, trembling like a man on the edge of a cliff ready to jump.

He pressed it flat with two fingers and secured it firmly to the cubical with a thumb tack. Then he went back to war.

By the time the sun sank and shadows crawled once more through the canyons of the electronic city, Conan was exhausted. His eyes burned. His throat was hoarse. His hands shook with the after-tremor of a hundred small battles. He rose from his chair like an old soldier rising bloody and broken from mud, and trudged out into the hot twilight. His trusty pickup waited patiently, and grumbled as usual when he started her up.

The neon glow of Ma’s Carbuncle called to him like a hearth-light. The smell of black bread and mystery meat lifted his spirits as he pushed through the front door.

Within the all-hours joint, the air was thick with fumes from iron skillets and bubbling cauldrons. At one booth a grim-faced truck master was speaking of “routes” as if they were raids into hostile territory, and barked orders at the grime covered men sitting with him. At the counter, weary analysts were sniffing at smoky potables.  One was muttering something about an upcoming tax audit.  The others ignored him and were stuffing their churlish faces.

And there she was.  Sonya the server.  She moved through it all with the sharp grace of a blade dancer, ever bright and filled with sardonic vitality. Her copper hair was just catching a ray of crimson sunset, as her bright and amused eyes, like emeralds, settled on Conan as he made his way past the baboons.

He took his regular perch. Sonya arrived as if summoned, sliding a plate before him piled high with dark steaming meat on dry black bread. His favorite. She set down a cup of blackwater that steamed like a cauldron of witch’s brew.  He gazed at it with bemusement.

“Your favorite,” she said, brows flat, lids half lifted. “Let me guess.  Rough day at the office.”

Conan grunted, and tore into the meal as if it had insulted his ancestors. “Technology is but the blade. It is the hands that wield it that doom us.”

Sonya leaned closer, just enough that Conan caught the faint scent of perfume behind the coffee and fryer oil. “What did they do to you this time?”

Conan swallowed, then jerked his head toward an invisible wall only he could see. “They cast away the great ledger of our tasks,” he said. “The one that tracked our battles and our burdens and informs us of where the next battle is to take place. Instead, they are pasting scraps of colored paper on the walls like children making offerings to a rain god.  We're expected to maintain the same level of productivity.  Most cannot.”

Sonya’s lips twitched. “Sticky notes.”

“Aye,” said Conan darkly. “the paper ghosts of productivity lost.”

She laughed, quick, sharp, and controlled, like a woman who would not give the world too much satisfaction. “And you survived, yet again.  Wonderful.”

“I survive,” Conan said. “That is what I do.”

Sonya refilled his blackwater with the casual authority of a queen granting mercy. "You're still my hero, Conan," she said.

“Your words make the darkness a mite brighter,” Conan replied, almost grudgingly, as if the compliment were a coin he did not often spend, and a slight concern that the spirits of malice might hear them and do mischief.

Sonya’s eyes narrowed with practiced suspicion, but the corners of her mouth rose despite herself. “Careful, Conan,” she said. “Talk like that and I might start giving you free refills.”

Conan snorted. “Do not insult me.”

Her whiplike tongue had found its mark, as always. She drifted away to tend to the crowd of miscreants, and fend off some accountants who had mistaken her patience for interest.

Conan ate until the shaking in his hands eased. Outside, the traffic howled and screeched its everlasting cacophony, and the city’s lights flickered awake, filling the skyline with the only stars it knew.

When he finally rose, his body felt heavy with fatigue, his shirt splattered with dark meat-sauce and coffee. He stepped out into the night. The air was cooler now, but it did not feel refreshing.  The drones above buzzed incessantly with their night deliveries, occasionally whirling into buildings and crashing to the ground, or showering sparks for unknown reasons.

He drove home down the lanes of peril, wary as any man crossing a haunted wood. He thought of the boy on the highway, unharmed amid wreckage, mocking the crowd of people whose lives he disrupted, and it made him clench his jaw with righteous indignation.  He thought of the sticky notes trembling on his wall like nervous omens. He thought of the parking lot’s silent chariots and rolling traps.

Perhaps there were mystic powers governing this world. Perhaps there were none. In the end, it mattered little. The danger was real either way.

Conan the Programmer / Analyst arrived at his tiny dwelling-hole gritty and tired, and as he shut the door behind him, he could not help but feel that tomorrow the city would awaken hungry again.  By Crom… it always did.

Outside a crow caw'd in the distance.

WoAF - Game Session 64

Mutagenic Entity

The Shadow Hawk heroes sat in the Medical Bay, under the protection of Ling's Mind Shield, telepathically debating what to do about the terrible Mutagenic Entity lurking in the ruins of Eisenhelm. They reviewed the situation again.  As far as they knew, there was one and only one Shard remaining, and it was imprisoned inside the Hermit Jar on Shadow Hawk.  A far more dangerous Entity existed, or perhaps many, prowling the ruins of the the once-mighty Eisenhelm.  Jacob had learned that the Entity had been created with a genetic cocktail derived from the DNA of invulnerable tardigrades, and an assortment of other creatures, such as octopi, crocodiles, chimpanzees, cobras, fire ants, giant wasps, king crabs, snails, slugs, tarantulas, and certain plants such as Joshua tree, hawthorn, and kudzu vines.  The samples for these they "liberated" from Earth over time using their UFOs in stealth-mode.  Hanna, in fact, had been an avid participant in those stealthy operations. The scientists' choices were based on the creature's survival, combat, and intellectual capabilities. They bombarded the DNA cocktail with low-level gamma radiation, and gave it a hyper-growth mutagenic compound which they had invented for the purpose of creating "the ultimate life form". This resulted in the Mutagenic Entity, which escaped from Science Center 7 during the Nazi Civil War, and immediately began its campaign of terror and conquest of Eisenhelm.  Upon escape it fused itself with at least three humans, the chief Scientist who created the creature, whose name can and will be stricken from the record, and two unfortunate lead technicians Hans and Nick whose curiosity got the better of them, and became their doom.  

The Mutagenic Entity has a single goal: like all insane megalomaniacs, it desired to conquer and subject all things to its will.  Soon it had spread to other helpless victims via thorny darts which it hurled into its prey using its tentacles.  Jacob had deduced that the Entity itself must have an array of psychic powers, such as Telepathy, Telekinesis, Insidious Persuasion, Compulsion, and Psychic Shock, which Vallnam had found extremely painful. That incident was the clue Jacob needed to surmise the creature's true nature. 

What to do?

"We need to make the destruction of the Entity our top priority," said Jacob.  He was lying on the infirmary bed, with his hands behind his head looking up at the scorched ceiling, communicating to Ling and Vallnam telepathically.  They were under Ling's Mind Shield at this point, so they could speak freely, and make their plans without fear of being overheard by the Entity or the Shard, or anything else for that matter.

"Let's go over the problem again," said Ling. "There is the main Entity on the moon.  There's a Shard in the Hermit Jar on our ship. The other Shard we vaporized earlier with the plasma beam.  As far as we know there are no other Shards, or Shadow Hawk would have detected them by now.  However, there is at least one technician that the Entity has some sort of psychic influence over, we think.  So, we need to separate the three groups to prevent the Entity from communicating at all while we make our move.  Otherwise, if tipped off, it could decide to use whichever technician is in its thrall to trigger the detonation of the missing nuclear device outside our spaceships.  And that would be the end of that."

She paused.  There was a lot to consider.  Their plan had to be meticulous and timed perfectly, or they would not only all wind up dead, but they would likely doom the Earth to one of two hells; either a radioactive extinction level event of the course of a few years, or an alien invasion by the Mutagenic Entity, whose primary objective appeared to be to reach Earth and spread its dominion.  If the Entity could not achieve its goal, then it would destroy the world in revenge. Truly the Entity was a creature after The Furor's own heart.  Evil to the core of its being.

"The only way I can see us doing this," Ling continued, "is by effectively and precisely overlapping our Mind Shields.  We need Shadow Hawk to use her Mind Shield, which has a radius of a thousand feet, to separate both Shadow Hawk and the UFOs from the Entity on the moon.  Vallnam needs to use his personal Mind Shield with it's radius of 21 feet to envelope Shard in the Hermit Jar so that it is disconnected from the Technicians on the UFOs."

She paused in thought.

"Then the last piece," she went on, "is to protect Vallnam from the Shard inside the Jar, which can be done if am within Vallnam's Mind Shield and then project my own Mind Shield around the two of us with a narrow enough diameter to block the two of us from the Shard.  This way all of the Entity's forces will be disconnected from each another."  

"That sounds solid," said Jacob as he sat up, "and while you're blocking them from communicating, that should give me the time I need to haul the Cobalt Bomb to the moon using my Shadow Hawk Armor.  Since the suits glide on the magnetic waves of the solar system and can obtain near light speed, I can get to to Eisenhelm with the bomb in tow, I'm estimating, in perhaps ten to twenty seconds given that I'll need to overcome the bomb's inertia to pick up speed.  But I don't think the bomb's mass will present any significant problem as the bomb's casing is made of steel.  Heck, I could probably haul the entire Giant Nuclear Missile Robot if necessary and it wouldn't take more than a second or two longer.  It's the magnetic fields that will be doing the work, not me.  In any case, we still need to get to the bomb itself. I'm sure Shadow Hawk can locate the missing bomb by its radiation signature and teleport me to it.  It should stand out to her like a sore thumb. My guess is that it's still inside one of the robots," he said as he cracked his knuckles, "or we would have already seen it as a stray.  You two have been keeping a careful eye on things, so I don't think it's likely they would have chosen to simply push it off into space hoping nobody would notice."  

Ling and Vallnam nodded in agreement.

"Assuming the Entity is at least as smart as we are," Jacob went on, "I'm guessing the technician under their influence is probably holding a failsafe switch of some kind.  Probably a detonator, just in case their plans should go awry.  I think we can count on the Entity to be as evil as possible.  Silencing all their lines of communications in the same instant is going to leave them blind and it will take time for them to even begin wondering if anything unusual is happening.  After all, they'd have to already be in Telepathic rapport with someone here to notice that the line had been cut.  And I doubt they're keeping a constant connection open. It seems to me their modus operendi is one of stealthy infiltration, and they'd not likely want to take on the risk that we'd detect a Telepathic Link in progress.  So I think that all buys us a little time.  Hopefully enough for me to get to the moon and detonate the Cobalt Bomb on top of their heads and eradicate them completely."

"And what about Hanna?" asked Vallnam, wondering if Jacob could possibly nuke his girlfriend, despite their estrangement.

"I'm gong to set a timer on the bomb for five minutes, and go down into Eisenhelm to find her.  I feel like I have to try.  I owe it to her," he said as he thrummed his fingers on his arm.  This was not an easy decision for Jacob to make.  He was risking everything on a romantic gamble.

"I don't know what you see in her," said Ling.  "Clearly she was fully on board with the Nazis.  And only when the command structure was destroyed did she show any sign of deviating from her routine behavior.  Once you rescue her, she might just go back to her old ways."

"Eh, it's definitely possible.  I know this is going to sound corny, and maybe I'm just being affected by the fact that she's such a damn beautiful woman, and the fact that she did seem to kind of almost actually 'like' me for a few minutes there... I think she really did like me for a few minutes... but it isn't that.  Actually, it's the fact that she was going through all of that extra effort and risk to bring that prisoner along. That really made me think there must be something more to Hanna than meets the eye."

He gazed at Ling, but he could see she was unconvinced. 

"Okay, well think about it," he went on. "She risked her life to go to the military outpost to rescue the old guy, when we knew at that point that the Entity from the science center had already blown out windows and was escaping into the cavern, and she makes sure he's safe.  Then when all hell is breaking loose, she takes him with us.  I mean look, Eisenhelm was in total chaos, and the place was being melted down and destroyed by the Obliterators, while the Civil War was raging all around us.  And what does she do?  She rescues a prisoner, and constantly looks out for him to ensure he's safe.  And who does it turn out the prisoner is?  We don't know, but the last we saw of her, she was with him, and I know it's going to sound nuts but I honestly thought I caught a flash of golden light radiating from his eyes at one point. I'm positive he had some form of mystical power.  And being a prisoner of the Nazis, well, come on, seriously -- he was a good guy.  And there she was, rescuing him, of all people.  The Nazi prisoner.  Why?  So taking those two things together... one, that I think she actually, um, liked me for a few minutes, and two, that she's risking her life to rescue the Good Guy... makes me believe that deep down inside, Hanna is not a bad person. Maybe she was just born into a bad situation with a bunch of ruthless evil Nazi bastards, and so of course she had learned to be ruthless to stay alive in that environment.  But really, she could have left the prisoner behind without batting an eye.  After all, Eisenhelm command structure was obliterated.  Why should she care if some military prisoner dies in the conflict?  But no, she wanted to save that guy?  I think it's because she's a good person."

"Maybe," suggested Vallnam, "or maybe he had information in his head that she still needed?"

"Maybe," replied Jacob, "maybe that's true. Who knows?  But the fact is, this is a gamble. I'm gambling on a hunch.  I admit it. Maybe I'm just being affected by how beautiful she is, and all that.  But I feel like, you know, there's something about her... I think deep down.  Way, way, way, way deep down, I feel she's a good person at heart."

Ling chuckled at this.  Who knew Jacob was such a romantic?

"And then, also," Jacob went on, "to your earlier point, Vallnam, it feels kind of like flying back to Eisenhelm and blowing her to kingdom come without even trying to see if I'm right... well, it just feels raw, and brutal, and wrong.  Of course, it's going to be horrible if there's survivors down there, because they're all going to fry, and I'm equipped to only rescue one person, if I can even do that.  So this isn't like it's going to absolve me of all of that, but, I don't think there's any choice. So, anyway, that's how I feel about it.  Five minutes should give me enough time to swoop in, find her, get close enough to form a Telepathic Link with her on the inside of my Mind Shield, so sixty feet, and find out if she's possessed by the Entity, and if not, rescue her if I can.  There's just something about Hanna that makes me believe she's worth rescuing.  So five minutes.  No more.  No less.  No matter what happens you're going to see a huge white flash of light on the top of the moon, and if I don't come back, you'll know the rescue didn't work out."  

"Alright," murmured Vallnam, blown away by Jacob's resolve to save Hanna, or die trying.

"Well, Jacob," said Ling, deeply impressed by his romantic impulse, "God's speed to you."

"Thank you," he replied quietly.  He knew this was probably a suicide mission, but he had to try.  And no matter what, the Entity had to be destroyed, and the 500 megaton Cobalt Bomb was the only way to be absolutely sure.

"Shadow Hawk," said Jacob as he sealed his Armor, "locate the missing bomb by its radiation signature and teleport me to it!"

With that Jacob donned his Mind Shield, shimmered in a cloud of scintillating orange-yellow light and vanished.  

"Shadow Hawk," said Ling, "please teleport me and Vallnam to the chamber where the Hermit Jar is.  As soon as we appear, initiate your maximum range Mind Shield to encompass the two UFOs, and do so at the same moment that Vallnam initiates his Mind Shield around the Shard.  You need to time this perfectly, as we can't allow any telepathic communications between the Shard and the technicians."

Shadow Hawk teleported them to a spot within twenty feet of the Hermit Jar, and initiated her Mind Shield with a radius of one thousand feet, enveloping both UFOs inside its shell just as Vallnam initiated his to surround the Shard.  As this happened Ling hugged Vallnam tightly and initiated her own Mind Shield around herself and Vallnam, keeping the diameter of hers at ten feet.  This put the Shard between Vallnam's outer shell, and her inner shell, so it was blocked from committing any psychic operations against them, try as it might.  

And it most certainly did try.  As soon as it realized that the humans had launched an attack the vile Shard lanced out with psychic probes to see what the two were up to, but they bounced off Ling's Mind Shield.  It then attempted to fry the two of them to cinders with a massive blast of Scarlet Lightning, but this too blazed uselessly against her shell.  Locked in a psychic prison, It raged in derision, unable to do anything against them.  It launched a telepathic emergency alert to the Entity on the moon, but that too bounced.  How furious it was, its tendrils lashing on the inside of the jar frantically! In a last desperate attempt, it sought to transmit a single final telepathic command to Johan, bidding him depress the small blue button on the object in his pocket. Doing so would have activated the immensely powerful nuclear weapon floating nearby, and instantly incinerated him and all within its blast radius. This would have triggered a reaction propagating along the lengthy chain of similar doomsday devices, resulting in a series of colossal explosions from which would have loosed a radioactive cloud so gigantic and lethal that, drawn by the force of gravity, it soon would have descending into Earth's atmosphere and destroyed all signs of life on the surface of the world. Unable to issue this final command, the Shard throbbed and convulsed violently within the unbreakable Hermit Jar, overwhelmed by insane hatred and impotence at its failure.

None of the technicians inside the UFOs were any the wiser, as at that moment there was no direct telepathic link being sustained by the Shard, or the Entity on the moon, with any of them.  As Jacob had guessed, their methods were based on insidious infiltration, and so they had influenced only Johan with subtle post-hypnotic suggestions via Telepathy as few times and as sparingly as possible in order to reduce the risk that the heroes and their mysterious ship might inadvertently detect their communications. It was a covert operation, and one that had stood a very good chance of success once the Entity had tricked the heroes into allowing Dietrich to contact Johan via radio. This single communication provided the Entity with the bridge it had needed to establish Telepathic contact with Johan. From that moment on, the Entity's plans were set in motion.  And yet, despite all it's cunning plans, Johan was busily working on a routine electrical task under the UFO's navigation console, and had no inkling that a massive Mind Shield had gone up around them all, nor did the Entity on the moon sense that anything unusual had happened.  After all, it only connected to Johan in his sleep, and then for only a few precious moments at a time.

Ling and Vallnam peered through the green-tinted diamond-glass of the Hermit Jar.  Inside they saw the Shard had grown from a tiny thorn they could barely see into a monstrous network of tendrils, branches, roots and glinting red thorns, taking up almost the entire two feet of the jar's interior, and it was lashing its tendrils with fury, unable to escape.  A transparent green eye appeared within the tangled mass, malevolent as it was harmless. They shuddered and hugged each other tighter.  

After vanishing from the medical bay, Jacob appeared in a shimmering cloud near one of the Giant Nuclear Missile Robots.  He scanned it with his vizor's radiation sensor.  Sure enough, the telltale glow outlined in orange on the screen indicated that the bomb was indeed inside the robot as he expected.  Perhaps he had dreamt it was there in one of the nightmares he had suffered over the past few days. He had no time to waste, so he flew in a graceful arc over to the robot and tethered a cable from his suit to a thick metal bar on its right shoulder.  The robot was thirty feet tall, well over five times Jacob's height, but he had no concern about hauling the entire mass.  Not a problem.  The magnetic fields that the suit used would glide him and his lethal cargo swiftly across the intervening space between his position near Earth to the moon at nearly the same near-light speed whether he towed the bomb alone, or carried it within the giant robot.  It was only a few seconds slower, but would save him from having spend the time to extricate the bomb from the interior of the robot. Gripping the metal behemoth by a bar on the other side of its neck, he activated the Helio-Drive.  At first progress felt very slow, and he began to worry that he had calculated incorrectly.  But within a few seconds the robot's inertia was being overcome and it began to glide smoothly and swiftly towards the moon.  He had a bit of difficulty navigating the magnetic fields with such a heavy load, but got the hang of it quickly.  They began to accelerate at an exponential rate. The journey normally would only take him a second or two at most, since the suit could move at near light speed anywhere within the solar system, but with the robot in tow it took him a full twenty seconds.  He wasn't worried. With his Mind Shield up, and no chance that the Entity had any idea of what the Shadow Hawk Heroes' plans were, he expected to guide the bomb along the exact trajectory necessary to land the colossal weapon directly on top of the secret Nazi fortress.  Shadow Hawk's vizor screen was showing him the calibrations and path-lines required, and he glided along effortlessly towards his target.

Jacob had learned a trick or two from the Modroni, though he no longer remembered how or where he had picked these things up.  But the power he used was called Blending, and was one of the most effective camouflage capabilities in the galaxy.  Without the slightest hesitation he positioned the robot so that no reflective surfaces directed light towards Eisenhelm, and he chose a spot in the sky along which no stars might be occulted by his sudden appearance.  He cast the robot into a vibrational pattern that would delicately disrupt any form of radar, or in fact any known detection system.  Once that was done, he maneuvered himself along the robot's outer hull, and making his way to the back of the upper torso, he opened the exterior hatch.  Stepping inside, he walked along the corridor that led to the bomb bay.  There he found the bomb, silently awaiting its destiny.  It was still encased in its heavy duty nuclear bomb rack, all indicator lights blinking green.  

Jacob was a technician by trade.  During the Ultra-War he had been a bomber pilot, and knew the mechanics involved as well as anyone.  He also knew that the bomb itself could be set with a timer, as he had spent his time while they waited for the technicians to complete their work doing research on such matters. He didn't bother releasing the bomb from the rack.  No need.  At the current distance, and trajectory, the robot itself would land on top of Eisenhelm in seven minutes and thirteen seconds.  He set the bomb's timer, giving himself five minutes before the explosion.  While there was no reason to believe the Entity, or Entities more likely, would detect his presence, or spot the incoming projectile of doom, he was certain that there was nevertheless a slim statistical chance that detection could occur simply out of blind bad luck. Therefore he wanted to keep the risk window as narrow as possible.  Five minutes should do.  He flipped the switch and the clock began its diabolical countdown. Three hundred seconds and counting.

Jacob opened the outer bay doors and flew out into space.  Within his Mind Shield he had no concern that his thoughts could possibly betray him.  And so he flitted down to the lunar surface at near light speed, directly towards Mare Frigoris, and then into the shadows of the crater that concealed the now devastated moon-fortress.

Above him the Giant Nuclear Missile Robot's trajectory was making its descent onto that exact spot.

Four minutes, fifty-three seconds. 

He entered in through the eviscerated doors of Hanger A. The giant Nazi Eagle emblem had been all but melted into slag by the Obliterator Robot they had encountered during their initial assault on the base. The eagle's metallic left wing was poking out of the ground at an angle, the door having melted all around it.  

"Shit," said Jacob to himself, "I forgot something."  

He suddenly realized that he needed to take a single, gigantic risk.  For one moment he needed to turn his Mind Shield off, and activate his Clairvoyance power so that he could locate Hanna, and see if she was actually alive.  Why hadn't he thought of this before?  Ah well, it wouldn't have mattered. It had been five days since they'd abandoned Hanna to her fate in Eisenhelm.  In fact, the odds that she survived were slim at best.  But he had to check. He had to know for sure.  And so he dropped his Mind Shield.

Fortunately for him, as it happened, nothing happened.  He was not suddenly bombarded by psychic blasts, insidious commands, or anything of the kind. It was more than probable, in fact, that the Entity was occupied with other matters, and not in any way attuned to the unexpected visitor from space.  And it was also likely that no telepathic bridge had ever been formed between himself and the Entity on the moon, though of that he was less certain.  But even if it were, the Entity would have to be actively reaching out to him to form a telepathic link, or attack.  The simple act of lowering his Mind Shield would not necessarily trigger any kind of alert or reaction. And besides, it was only going to be for one moment.

He emanated Clairvoyance towards Hanna, the woman whom he refused to admit he loved.  Wherever in the universe she was, he would find her.  And lo!  Her beautiful face, icy blue eyes, and golden locks of hair came into view!  He knew her exact location.  Up went the Mind Shield!

"Shadow Hawk," he said, "here's her coordinates.  You're familiar with Eisenhelm's architectural layout.  Can you map me a path to get me through the ruins to her position?"

Four minutes, thirty-seven seconds.

The map schema appeared on his inner vizor screen.  In an instant he was through the melted hanger doors, across the devastated UFO bay, through a set of unhinged metal doors, down a flight of stairs, out into a cavern filled with the bodies of dead Nazi soldiers, down a smoking tunnel covered with debris and fallen rocks, past an immobilized Obliterator Robot, up a metal ladder, and into Hertling's Robot Command Center, now utterly destroyed.  Something was moving but he ignored it and flitted past, through a barracks in which clumps of flesh were fibrillating on a medical table, several were in the act of falling to the glassy floor, stained with blood, also ignored, and down a long dark corridor.  He flew past Gortaurus at a speed the Centurion could not possibly react to, and came to an area of shattered corridors and a warren of interconnected chambers.  His map showed an unobstructed path to a spot within thirty feet of where she was. 

Three minutes, eleven seconds.

As soon as he got within thirty feet of her, on the other side of a wall, she came within the radius of his Mind Shield.  He activated Mind Reading, and was lucky enough to tune into her perfectly.  He was comfortably listening to every thought without hindrance.  He instantly knew that she was not under the thrall of the Entity, but hell-bent on fighting against it.  He also immediately discovered the reason for her protection of the prisoner.  

As it turned out, Hanna had come to the laboratory of Karl Capek with the prisoner, and together they barricaded themselves inside a set of workshops and rooms that had been built within a large hollow metal ball known to Karl as "The Duridium Shell".  The roboticist was the person who created the Giant Nuclear Missile Robot force known as The Phalanx. It was he who designed the 500 megaton Cobalt Bombs.  He knew perfectly well how much of a danger they posed.  He was a man of deep insight, and he had prepared for many decades for many possible contingencies.  The shell, he had told Hanna, was the only place in Eisenhelm where it would be possible to ward off the Entities that had been spreading their thorn-zombies throughout the ranks of the Nazis throughout the fortress.  Her prisoner was, as Jacob suspected, held tremendous mystic power, and was filled with radiant light, and it was he who had been defending their enclave from the Entities' psychic onslaught for the past five days.  He was nearly exhausted of all his energy, barely able to move.  And yet, his counter attacks went on, silently, invisibly, and the Entity and its forces were held at bay in the last of the outer corridors.  Most of the Nazis in the base had already been turned, but within Capek's fortified lab there were thirty stalwarts holding out for dear life.  The best and the brightest of Eisenhelm prepared to make their last stand.

As it turned out, Hanna loved the prisoner.  He had been mentoring her for most of her young life, and was like a father to her.  He was good, and kind, and a veritable genius who had architected the vast majority of Eisenhelm, as well as many of its most advanced systems of operation.  The metallic tape computers were of his design, for example, as well as the design of the Red-Mercury Plasma Vortex Engines that powered the UFO Fleet. A true genius, he had nurtured in Hanna a love of learning, technology, and especially space flight.  Under his tutelage she had become the premier space pilot of Eisenhelm's UFO fleet.  She was in fact a better pilot than Melitta had been, by far, though Ludendorf refused to acknowledge it.  In an instant Jacob learned that the prisoner had originally been at the top of the Eisenhelm hierarchy, just below Ludendorf himself, but he despised the ruthless Nazi command, was an insubordinate subordinate, crafty and cagey.  Then, one day when Shadow Hawk had been discovered by a crew of tunnel miners, he outright refused to infiltrate its computer systems, or help them to learn anything about it.  They had immediately decided to use the astounding spaceship to conquer Earth, and with it gain control of the Galaxy, the pathetic fools.  Therefore, on the advice of Karl Capek, his archrival, Ludendorf and Hertling imprisoned him, and had been attempting to punish him into submission. 

Two minutes, forty-six seconds.

"Hanna," said Jacob as he bridged the Telepathic link to her mind. "This is Jacob.  I've come to rescue you."

"Who?" asked Hanna in her mind, "How'd you---?  I thought you ran away," she responded curtly.

"Well there's not a lot of time to talk about this," said Jacob, "I'm about to drop a nuclear bomb on Eisenhlem, and I've come to rescue you before it goes off.  Do you want to come with me?"

"You have a way out of here?" she asked, incredulous.

"I do. For you. I can get us out of here."

One minute, fifty-seven seconds.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked.

"Ok, great!" he shouted, and using Shadow Hawk Amor's short range Teleporter he beamed into the chamber where she was standing.

"You still have your Duridium suit, I see," said Jacob.  "Good.  You'll need it."

"Yes," she said.

"But this is not about me," she replied, "We need to get him out of here," she said, pointing to the prisoner who had been leaning against a cabinet, but now struggled to stand up.  She went to his side and helped him by the arm.

"That's a spacesuit he's wearing, right?  I remember when we left the Military Prison through the tunnels. He can go into space with it, right?"

"Yes," she replied, "Let me help him put on his helmet," she said as she took the yellow helmet and lowered it over the old man's head.

"What about Karl?" asked the prisoner as she sealed his helmet and set the suit's oxygen level.

"Karl?" asked Jacob, "what about Karl?"

Karl was standing at a large console turning dials, and setting switches, seemingly oblivious to Jacob's appearance, or the conversation.  Beyond him Jacob could see a line of robotic forms assembling in a line.  Among them was a small crowd of people, men and women, who were adjusting the robots, and handling equipment, and gearing up for war.  On went the helmets, the metal vests, brandishing their Nazi regalia proudly one last time. 

Hanna looked at them.  They were the last survivors of Eisenhelm. Those who had managed to make it to Capek's Robotics Complex and hold out against all odds for five long tortuous days.  Only thirty remained alive.  The rest of the thousands of Nazis of Eisenhelm had either perished in the beams of the Obliterators, died battling one another in the Civil War, or had been converted into thralls of The Entity.  These last few survivors were gearing up with guns, grenades, hatchets, pick axes, and anything else they could lay their hands on that might serve as weapons.

"As we stand here," said the prisoner, "they are preparing a last stand against the Entity, who is boring its way through the sealed entrance now, attempting to breach the complex and complete its conquest. This is the last redoubt."

"All spaceships were destroyed," said Hanna, "except for a handful of derelict UFOs in Hanger D.  How much time do we have?"

"Forty-seven seconds," said Jacob.

"Not enough time to even send the survivors there," she said biting her lip.  Jacob took her by the shoulders and looked into her piercing blue eyes.

"Jacob, I can't run away and leave my people to die alone," said Hanna.  

Jacob was confused.  What did she mean?  He didn't understand her words.  He could only see her face, her sweet dear lips moving, her blue eyes melting his heart.

"You need to save him," she said, pointing to the prisoner.  "I care about one person.  Him.  If you can't save us all, then you must save him, and go."

"Oh man," said Jacob. "What?"

"My name is Nikola," said the prisoner.

"Hanna, you have to come with me," said Jacob frantically.  "You can't save everybody.  It's impossible.  Please, Hanna, come with me.  I came here to rescue you.  I can't leave without you!"

She looked Jacob in his eyes, deeply and sincerely.  She looked at the thirty men and women prepared to make their last stand and die together as proudly as they had lived.  She looked back at Jacob and touched his face with her hand.

"I can't come.  I can't leave my people to face the terror alone.  I am their leader," she said.  "Take him and go."

"I can't leave you, Hanna.  I can't do it.  I left you once, and I'm never going to leave you again.  Come with me, or we all die together."

"You came here to save me," she said in a tone both compassionate and determined, "and the only way to save me, is to save him.  That is where my heart is.  If you want to do something for me, save Nikola.  Please."

And with this, she used one of her few mystic skills, Hypnotic Suggestion Major.  She was fast and focused, and beat Jacob to the punch, just a fraction of second before he could apply his own mystic power "Indominable Will" to overcome her and save her life.  In a flash he found himself unable to resist her command.  He had lost, and she had won.

"Grab him," commanded Hanna with an intonation so persuasive it was utterly impossible to resist, "and take him as far away from this place as you can.  Don't look back."

Seven seconds.

Jacob, unable to do otherwise, took Nikola by the arm and teleported one thousand feet above the moon's surface with him.  The glinting hull of the Giant Nuclear Missile Robot could be seen descending at high speed from above directly towards Eisenhelm.  

Three seconds.

Now in space, Jacob ordered his Shadow Hawk Armor to flit away at Near-Light-Speed towards Earth, hovering above the moon's horizon like a blue and white marble.  His eyes were streaming with tears. 

Behind him there was an enormous flash of blue-white light.  He was flying at 99.97% the speed of light, yet the suit's Modroni Stasis Field covering both himself and his passenger so that they felt nothing unusual at all.  The problem of accelerating matter to relativistic speeds had been solved ages ago by Modroni scientists on a distant world.  And so Jacob and Nikola were not destroyed by the speed of their flight, nor was anything around them so much as disturbed. They moved within a small temporal bubble, inside of which everything felt quite normal.  Around the bubble space-time bent, and curved, swallowing time into the fifth dimension, allowing the magnetic lines of force in the solar system to accelerate them to near light speed.  They sped away from the unbearably brilliant blast of the 500 megaton Cobalt Bomb.  The glow lasted for a long time.  On the surface of the moon where Eisenhelm once stood, there was a radioactive crater of magma so brilliant it was impossible to look into, about ten miles in diameter.  Slowly the crater cooled into giant lake of molten radioactive slag, yellow, then orange, then red. At the bottom was a single lump of rock, the final remains of Eisenhelm, and all else was frothing magma, broiling and bubbling for the span of several hours, and nothing more.  And so ended the existence of the once great and mighty Eisenhelm.  The secret Nazi fortress had been utterly obliterated by its own weapon.

Ling and Vallnam watched Shadow Hawk's vizi-screen, holding on to each other as they waited for a sign that Jacob's mission had been completed.  They watched the moon pensively.  A several minutes had gone by.  Then the three hundredth second came, and suddenly, at the moon's north pole, a brilliant blue-white light, like an exploding star, blazed forth and caused the entire screen to go white.  At that moment Jacob came flying into view, holding a figure in a bright yellow spacesuit by the shoulder.  Ling and Vallnam believed it was Hanna.  Jacob stopped some ten miles away from Shadow Hawk. They could barely see them against the white glow of the background radiation, but it was clear enough that two had returned from the moon.  He established a Telepathic link between himself, and the others, including Nikola.  And so the elder genius revealed his story as the white glow of the moon slowly dimmed behind them.

As it turned out, the prisoner was "the father of Alternating Current, Electrical Engineering, Radio, and modern physics."  In 1943, Nikola Tesla supposedly died alone and impoverished in NYC, but in fact, the Nazis in 1941 had made him an offer he couldn't refuse.  He was to become the Chief Science Officer of the future Eisenhelm Moon-Fleet under Admiral Ludendorf.  He protested, and refused, of course, but it was to no avail.  The Nazis in 1941 were not taking "no" for an answer.  Having been wrecked financially by the conniving tactics of Edison and JP Morgan, and under dreadful duress, and with offers of resources he could never obtain on Earth, he had capitulated.  He began work on the Red-Mercury Plasma Vortex Engine in 1941, created Die Gloke as a first experimental model, and finally in 1943, they whisked him away to the moon, where he remained, helping to establish Eisenhelm and bring it to life.

Early on in his career on the moon, however, seeing the raw and visceral malice and stupidity that truly characterized the Nazi regime, Nikola converted to Christianity.  When Shadow Hawk had been discovered, instead of helping with the analysis as ordered, as a act of defiance against their evil ways, he spent his time secretly building an eighteen-foot-tall Crucifix, replete with a statue of hanging Jesus on it, outside in the shadows beneath Hanger B.  It was at that point that Ludendorf and Hertling had had enough, and upon discovering the crucifix, they imprisoned him in the Wolf Brigade Military Prison where the treated him quite poorly.  He was unphased by this, and no amount of privation or torture would dissuade him from refusing to aid the Nazis ever again.  As it happened, Hanna, he explained, had secretly also converted to Christianity, along with Lieutenant Wagner, and the two of them had sworn to protect him as best they could.  She was his disciple, and she prevented the Nazi's from killing him.  Lieutenant Wagner, unfortunately, had been shot by Melitta in a fit of spite on her way to escape Eisenhelm with General Hertling and Admiral Ludendorf, before Vallnam and Jacob had inadvertently killed all three.

And now, after all these years, Nikola Tesla was finally returning to Earth.  He was elated with anticipation. 

"Elon Musk," said Vallnam upon hearing his story, "is going to be very nervous."

"That's an interesting point," commented Jacob dryly.

"So, your mission was successful, Jacob," said Ling, looking out at the glow at the top of the moon.

"No," he replied gravely. "Well, yes.  But no."

"What happened?" she asked.

"It's unbelievable," he replied. "I will never be able to explain it.  Hanna remained behind to stay with her people.  She refused to abandon them."

"Oh my god," said Ling. 

"There's nothing to say," he replied.  "We are here, and now we need to finish this."

"Right," she replied. "Well, you better not stay out there all day.  Why don't you teleport into one of the UFOs?"

"Good idea," replied Jacob, as they did not wish to reveal Shadow Hawk to their guest, given that their mandate was to keep Shadow Hawk a perpetual secret.

As soon as they materialized inside the lead UFO, Jacob stepped briskly past the surprised technicians and took a position at the weapons console.  Nikola stood nearby in silence, keenly observing Jacob's actions.  

"Ok, let's finish this," said Jacob to Ling.

"Yes, let's do that that," she replied firmly. "Shadow Hawk, teleport the Shard from the Hermit Jar into space one mile in the direction of an empty region."

The Shard, the last of its kind, shimmered briefly, and vanished from the Hermit Jar.  One mile away, it materialized in empty space, crinkled into a frozen mass of twigs, roots and thorns, and died outwardly. Inwardly, however, the tardigrade DNA kicked into activity, and with its genes at the ready, it congealed into a mass of hibernating wood-like tendrils.  It would float that way indefinitely until it came into contact with a favorable environment, and then revive.

Jacob spotted it immediately on the UFO's sensor screen as a small red blip, set the targeting controls, and pressed the Plasma Cannon trigger button.  A crimson-orange beam that lanced across space and vaporized the Shard.  And that was the end of the Entity that the Nazi scientists had made.  

"Do we teleport all of the technicians out into space now?" asked Vallnam.

"What?" asked Ling, raising an eyebrow.

"Then Jacob can blast them with the Plasma Cannon.  It'll be quick and painless," finished Vallnam.

"So you're thinking we should annihilate them all, the guilty and the innocent together, is that it?" Ling inquired.

"Well, let's face it," he replied coolly, "they'd all band together against us if push came to shove.  I mean they were all really on board with the Entity slipping a nuke past us, weren't they?  I don't think we can trust them."

"Well, no," said Ling.  "I'm not okay with us just killing them all outright! After all, it has become apparent that whomever was responsible among them was probably under a Compulsion from the Entity.  We can't just execute them for something that was outside their control, especially those who were completely innocent."

"Okay," replied Vallnam. "So now that we've killed the Entity, and the Shard, they should no longer be under control.  Right?"

"Correct," replied Ling.

"Good," said Vallnam, "then we can Mind Read them, and find out what they're thinking now.  If they were under Mind Control before, then they should have nice, happy, clean, pro-Earth thoughts now.  And if we find any that are thinking that when they get to Earth they can take over the world, or reprogram the robots to listen to them only, anything of the kind, now would be the best time to, um, handle it... send them out into space, and obliterate them. You know, as an example to the others.  We can tell them, 'You're either happy on Earth, or you die.'  How's that?"

There was a pause as Ling and Jacob tried to digest this idea.  It sounded odd, coming from Vallnam.  This was the kind of thinking Ling might have expected from Jacob, but for Vallnam to say it came as a shock.  Jacob, for his part, found himself largely in agreement with Vallnam's point, and was nodding affirmatively.

"You've become very brutal," said Ling. "What happened to our kindhearted hero?"

"I've gotten to the point," he replied, "where I find myself a little angry with everything that's happened.  The Nazis, and the deceit, and the insidious Mind invasions... some people are just not able to be saved, I guess.  We need to protect the Earth.  And what are we going to do if they turn out to be just another problem we bring down to Earth? Federation has enough trouble on its hands without us dragging in another boatload, don't you think?"

"Yep," said Jacob.  "Don't take the chance. That sounds about right."

"Wait," said Ling, aghast.  "Didn't you just try to rescue one of them, Jacob, and now you showed up with another one who you just brought on board?"

"Who, Nikola?  Nah, he's not one of them," replied Jacob.  "He's one of the good guys.  I have it on good authority."

"And what good authority would that be?" asked Ling.

"Well," replied Jacob, "I know this is probably going to sound a bit corny again, but... Hanna told me he's a good guy.  And I believe her."

"I see," said Ling and decided to leave it there.  She could tell that Jacob was holding back a lot of emotion at the moment.  "Ok well," she said, "I can agree that we Mind Read the lot of them, but I think we can neutralize any of them who are no good without killing them."

"I could turn them into vegetables," offered Vallnam.

They stared at him.  

"They'd still be alive, technically," said Vallnam.  "I could give them basically a lobotomy with my psychic powers.  I could do it so that they can feed themselves, do basic stuff, and even enjoy themselves, but they'd simply have no higher mental function.  Would keep them out of trouble, so to say."

They decided to wait on a decision until after the reading of the minds.  To his credit, Vallnam did wish to be fair about it, but he also wanted to make dead sure that none of them wanted to do anything nefarious.  If they wanted to live peaceably on Earth and join the Federation and help Earth, then he was perfectly ok with letting them do so.  But any who had a mindset otherwise, he felt should be immediately destroyed.

"Okay Vallnam," said Ling, "why don't you read each of their minds and let us know what they're thinking?"

And so he did.  He lowered his Mind Shield and activated his Level 10 "Mind Reading Major" ability and had at it.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to any of them, there was a cloud of black vapors in the shape of a sphinx floating not terribly far off.  It's plans had been utterly ruined and it was positively fuming with hatred for Vallnam and his friends.  All of the Entities, and Eisenhelm itself, had been vaporized. While it did offer up an rather delightful feast of souls, decades of careful planning and insidious infiltrations had been completely wrecked by the trio of heroes.  Worst of all, they'd freed Nikola Tesla from captivity on the moon and were about to return him to Earth!  This was utterly outrageous!  The Being of the Void was beside itself with consternation.  It focused its livid attention on Vallnam's mental vibration.

[Gamemaster's note:  this was all rolled as per usual, and Charles, Vallnam's player, fumbled, and so the Dark-Sphinx was determined to be the surreptitious cause.]

One by one Vallnam read every mind on each of the UFOs.  All eighteen men had thoughts as pure as the driven snow.  They wanted nothing more than to land on Earth and run through meadows with flowers in their hair, sipping lemonade, watching clouds float by, and all the things that most of them had never had the slightest chance of doing on the moon, but had grown up hearing all about life on Earth as fairytale stories in their youth.  Not a single one among them had the slightest negative thought at all.  

Outside in the depths of blackest space, the creature of the Void smirked ruthlessly. The humans were such simple-minded creatures!  So easy to deceive!  So easy to manipulate!  If the creature could have drooled with delight, it would have, lusting after Vallnam's demise as it did.

"Okay," said Vallnam once he had completed Mind Reading of the technicians.  "They're all clean and good to go to Earth and pursue their happy lives.  Glad to see it, to be honest."

"That's a relief," replied Ling, much appreciating the fact that they didn't need to deliberate any further about what to do with any of the technicians who might have turned out less than pristine.  She smiled, and patted Vallnam on the back.  "Good job," she chirped happily.

"My only regret," said Vallnam, "is that we didn't get the Duridium suit from Hanna."

"Maybe she's still alive," offered Ling.

They gazed out the window at the moon. The north pole was glowing a fierce red color, and a gigantic plume of massively radioactive dirt was spreading out across the lunar surface in a gigantic series of concentric rings.

"Nahhh," they said in unison.

And that is where we left it that evening.

What is a Homebrew RPG?

There I was enjoying a nice warm cup of java the other morning when the topic of Homebrew came up in conversation, as it often does. Some people were saying that they homebrewed their game by altering the rules of a popular RPG. After spewing some java out my nose, I let out an anguished cry. How can that be what you mean by Homebrew?! I asked incredulously. I was offered a few quips in reply, but nothing that was said assuaged my feeling that this really was not the right word for what they meant. So I'd like to clarify what I mean when I say "Homebrew" in relation to RPGs.

I started GMing in 1978 with my first World, and first rules system, both going by the name of Elthos RPG. The rules I created after a skim-reading of "Men & Magic", the first volume of the original three (and highly magical) D&D booklets. My rules system had a couple of design goals. One was to eliminate the odd zig-zag math used by OD&D. I wanted even charts with easy to remember values. The second goal was to centralize (what later became known as) Conflict Resolution. I created one centralized chart that pits Difficulty Level vs Skill Level for all possible skills. In this way I wanted to avoid the need for endless additional charts for all of the doodads I might want to add to Elthos over time. The goal was to create a Homebrew system that I could rely on to only change in ways that make sense for me as the GM, and to avoid being tethered to rules systems that would inevitably alter the nature of the world itself. Thus I would be able to maintain my world for a long time exactly the way I envision it, and my world's history would not be subject to the whims of TSR's rules editions over time.

These two design decisions resulted in a system that has served me well for 40+ years.

The second leg of Homebrew is the Setting. My world is my own creation. Sure, of course I borrow ideas from many sources, historical and literary, but there is no tether that is tied to any of them. As such my world's only cannon is it's own history. The reason I wanted it this way is to keep my players from being "in the know" about things in the world that would be much more entertaining as surprises, than facts they encountered elsewhere. To me this is much more fun for everyone.

So for me, the word "Homebrew" suggests a creation from more or less whole cloth by the Gamemaster. Filled with surprises and idiosyncrasies that make sense to their creators, and are not beholden or tied to some corporate behemoth. It is the freedom and versatility of Homebrew that attracts my ardor. I think from a creativity perspective Homebrew is definitely the way to go.

As for what I think the correct word for what was mentioned by my buddy online the other morning is "House Rule". Homebrew and House Rule are two different things. There is some overlap, of course, but they are really quite distinct in my mind.

What do you think? Am I right about this? What's your definition of Homebrew?

Chaos and Horror in the World of Impius Malum

So last week I found myself assaulting the mortal world with three posts in which I described my ghastly idea of the World of Death starting with a post titled The Rays of Un-Life. Mostly what you can take away from those three posts is that the World of Death is unrelenting, all-destroying, and without the least bit of joy, or sorrow, fun, or in fact any emotion at all, with the sole exception being ... a horrible and insatiable hunger to devour all life. The World of Death Incarnate. There's nothing fun in that world at all. It is pure unadulterated horror. An infinite dried up dusty darkness centered and powered by the Remorseless Will-of-Death.

So, this week I want to make up for that bit of moroseness by discussing something much more fun! The Chaos and Horror of the World of Impius Malum. Of course I should probably preface this post with some sort of caveat about how this is Fantasy, and not a reflection at all of my views of reality in any way whatsoever, least my friends and neighbors begin to worry about about the state of my mind. But that should, naturally, go without saying, so I'll just breeze on down the road, and leave it at that.

Compared with the World of Death, the World of Impius Malum is sheer Wicked-Evil Joy. And horror. And perpetually entangling, agonizing, soul-shattering Chaos. But lots of fun... Depending, of course, on who you are. Unlike the World of Death where it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever at all, the World of Impius Malum as all about who you are.

If who you are happens to be Diabolically Evil, and you've gained status and power among the demons of the infernal World, why then you, too, can have lots of fun in the World of Impius Malum! Provided, of course, that your sanity lasts more than half a second, and you manage to maintain your (infinitely precarious) position of Power. And that you manage to avoid running into anyone who happens to be even the slightest bit more powerful than you. Which of course, isn't very likely at all... or even possible. Impius Malum just doesn't work that way, you see. Once there, it's almost a guarantee that while you can horrendously lord yourself over the Pathetic Miserables beneath your august and magnificent self, and as heinously as you can possibly imagine to the absolute nth degree, ... you will never be able to escape the same horrific fate from those monstrous devils above you. You'll see. It is the Wheel of Fortune Incarnate!

And of course, if you don't happen to be a Noteworthy Person of Power, and are merely one of the countless souls who dragged yourself through life as a poor miserable schlub, an ordinary human being who might be only modestly evil, or pretty damn evil, but not quite Exquisitely Horrendously Evil enough... well, then the World of Impius Malum really isn't ever so much fun for you at all. Such people are only the playthings of those wicked Powers that wildly dance, frolic, cavort, shrilly laughing, and gorging their bellies to bursting in riotous feasts, those who spend themselves indulging in every sensual pleasure imaginable... all while the Miserati loathsomely groan and suffer, endlessly humiliated, tricked, bedazzled, and terrified out of their wits Forever! Actually, for the vast majority of people, Impius Malum is a tremendous drag. A non-stop and wild-eyed game of deadly, horrifying, agonizing and humiliating tricks and traps, one after the other in a constant, incessant, ceaseless, and relentless progression. Every trick is unique, every trap shocking and disturbing, every combination mind-blistering in its terrifically ingenious terror! It's a World designed to entertain and delight those who are Truly Diabolically Evil via the mechanism of ceaseless torture and soul-searing terror. It is a Pandemonium of Evil Chaos. So fun! Well, compared with the World of Death, it definitely is. No seriously. Compared with that, it's a joy.

Welcome to the Wondrous World of Impius Malum!

The Wondrous World of Impius Malum

The Bosch painting above gives a wonderful depiction of a tiny little itty bitty speck of a spot within the greater World of Impius Malum... which happens to be just like this across its entire infinite domain, though every inch of it is completely, mind-warpingly, unique. No two horrors are the same, and every single nightmare is tailored specifically to accentuate and focus the mind on the specific and peculiar sins, fears, foibles, and once-upon-a-time hopes and dreams of the damned souls who happen to wind up trapped there. It is an incredibly personal place!  Very unlike the World of Death, it is. Indeed.  Let's take a quick jaunt through the insanity, shall we?

Above you will find... a green suited monster with tree-twig hands fondling a despairing, yet beautiful naked blond women with some sort of black toad-like thing on her chest, reclining limply next to a grinning black mule. Above and behind her a Bird-headed man-thing wearing green jars on his feet and a large copper kettle on his head, sitting on a tall golden toilet while devouring a bird-and-fire farting Miserati whole, from the head down. Beneath this bizarre yet elegant and beautiful looking creature is a large blue bubble-droplet of toilet water into which a man is descending from the bum of the Bird-man, while another man, already trapped in the hideous droplet, is half immersed from the groin up and dangling over an open pit in the ground, into which a grey skinned nun is forcing one man to vomit brown turds while another person poops white blobs from the shadows. Meanwhile, the languishing woman is staring listlessly over at horn blowing, and rather adorable looking, sado-rabbit who happens to be carrying half a man upside-down on a pole-arm over his shoulder, while the woman next to him, another naked and beautiful blond, is furtively reaching for a weasel faced monster's sword with one hand while incongruously holding both a burning candle and a white vase in her other hand. By the contortions of her face you can see her mind has entirely snapped. Before her is a gambling table that has been overturned by a riot of hapless humans being violently mauled by a variety of animal and insect devils. AND SO ON! IT IS ENDLESS!

Such is the World of Impius Malus. A place of perpetual delights and terrors.

Fortunately for those Characters that dwell in the normal World of Elthos, the World of Impius Malum is very, very far away, and quite imaginary, like a dreadful bit of fairy tale designed to terrorize little children into behaving themselves when the adults aren't watching them. One quip about Impius Malum is enough to set most children of Elthos straight in an instant! In fact, actually, most Player Characters in Elthos really have no idea at all that there even is such a place as Impius Malum. Not the faintest idea. They never even heard of the place. This is because we usually breeze over their Character's childhood, and so I never go into what Elthosian Fairytales are like.  Ha ha... they have no clue.  Seriously. I have only once alluded to it in the 40+ years or so I've been playing the World of Elthos. Impius Malum a very far off land, indeed!

Which isn't to say that it isn't real. Oh it's definitely real alright. In fact, the Player Characters recently (well, not so recently anymore, but in the last major Elthos Campaign) brushed up against a distant reflection of Impius Malum when they came to the township of Whitewode. I describe that place in some detail (and very little of it, in fact!) in a previous post titled "The Overly Ambitious Campaign Design!", so I won't go into it again in this post. That one was long enough on that topic! But I will say that if you read that post, and get an inkling of the endless convolutions and intrigues among the Witches of Whitewode, you'll have some idea of what the World of Impius Malum is like. Now I should say that the Witches of Whitewode were absolute amateurs at the game of Impius Malum, though they believed with a dreadful certainty otherwise. Scarparelli, I'd like to mention, knew exactly what tremendous fools Sylvia, Jennifer, Johnathan, Muttmaw and the rest of their coven were, and he never let on for a single second, nor did his demonic minion Nicholas Blair. They strung the jolly bunch along for centuries before allowing them to haplessly fall into the Horrors of Doom that they had spent so long crafting for themselves. This is what the World of Impius Malum is like. Only, incredibly, far worse than that!

The World of Impius Malum is on the far side of the axis of Evil. Whereas Death is Lawful Evil, Impius Malum is Chaotic Evil. And as such they share that one trait in common ... they are really, seriously, Evil.

Who rules Impius Malum? Some say it's the Devil himself. But this is actually not correct. The Devil rules over Hell. And Impius Malum isn't actually Hell. It is its own place. So who? Some say it is The Elkron of War, Mars, or his Celestial Sire, Ares, the Lord of All Evil Chaos. And that would be correct. If you are aware of the Elthos Tarot Deck, then at this point you'd realize that Death is Ruled by Pluto, or his Celestial Sire, Scorpio. You can check that on the Elthos Tarot Deck Backface card here...

So the World of Death and the World of Impius Malum are the two extremes of Evil along the Metaphysical Axis of the Celestial Island Cosmological Map.  If you want to find the World of Death, head East, and veer slightly South, and keep going.  If you want to find the World of Impius Malum, head West, and veer slightly South, and keep going.  You'll find them.  They're there. Very, very far away ... but there.

Such is the backdrop of the World of Elthos.

Maybe at some point I'll chat a bit about other, lighter and happier realms of the Celestial Island.  Perhaps.

To learn more about my Elthos Project, please visit my site at Elthos.com. And if you're feeling generous, please make a contribution. Thanks!

Tolkienian Magic

I was on Imzy today browsing around and OculusWriter asked a question which got me thinking...

"Discovering how magic systems work can be the most geek-worthy part of reading fantasy stories. Do you enjoy one detailed magic system, or many interlocking ones? Let's spark some awesome! Share your favorite magic system moments!"

Here's my reply:

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My preference is for Tolkienian Magic ... as discussed here ...http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/lordoftherings/magic/principles.html

While I have yet to work out exactly how I wish to implement this in my World via The Mythos Machine (http://elthos.com) I do plan to do so sometime within the next ... oh ... eon or so. Hopefully. At any rate, that's the style I would like my system to embody for at least one of my Worlds.

The hard part is divorcing from the standard, which is this kind of awful focus on Weaponized Spells, such as Fire Ball and Lightning Bolt. Really overt Kill-Magic. Nothing could be less magical, in my mind, than a "Magic User" standing there and casting a Fire Ball from his fingers. Magic should be cloaked, mysterious, unfathomable, even while adhering to it's own occult laws.

How to get there from here is my challenge. I accept. Just don't expect me to work it out quickly. I don't do anything quickly, it seems. Ah well... I must learn to accept this and keep plodding. Maybe my totem animal is the tortoise.

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Of course one of the biggest problems with implementing Tolkienian Magic is that Wizards are extremely rare, and are in fact celestial avatars named Istari, and manifest in the world for the specific purpose of fulfilling Illuvitar's Almighty Vision. There are only five of them in Arda. So ... that kind of puts a damper on the whole "I wanna play a magic user!" kind of thing, if I develop my system based on Tolkien's vision of Magic. For Tolkien's Arda it makes perfect sense, and goes a long way to making magic balance in his world.

The problem with the standard RPG model is that were a world like that to actually exist, it would very likely get torn apart by competing magical forces and factions, and would rapidly devolve into chaos and insanity. Read OD&D's magic list and think. What would our world be like if during the medieval era something like 20% of people had access to this list of spells? And magic items? In my mind I see a world of fire and ice, and endless intrigues and destruction untold. My guess is that if you toss in mythical monsters, and powerful evil forces... yeah... I kind of think we'd not have a world for long. It would be overrun by monsters, and the last straw to seal the deal would be human pride, greed and lust of power. So as I see it, magic as D&D posits it is only workable because GMs curtail what the evil forces of the world would actually do with it. Otherwise, we'd not have a game for very long. And that's the only reason magic of this sort works in RPGs.

So the first thing to tackle would be to figure out how to have a world of very rare magic, and very rare magic users, and not unbalance the game to the point where the players feel like they can't have all the fun they want. After all, at least 20% of my players want to play Magic Users.

So ... how to get there from here ... It's a puzzler. But this would be the first step at least in the process of working out how to turn Tolkienian Magic into an RPG system. So catch me in an eon or two and I think I'll have worked it out by then, possibly. In the meantime, any thoughts you may have are quite welcome! :)

Thoughts on Literary RPG Stories

I've for some years now had the idea that literary stories, ones that map to literary conventions and that are satisfying in their own right as stories, are possible to produce through Role Playing Games (I'm thinking of the Pencil & Paper version). Some RPG designs purport to facilitate or enforce this idea, which collectively may be called "Story Games".

However, despite the enthusiasm in some circles for Story Games, I will not be discussing those because my intention is to think about this in relation to my own game, which is Elthos RPG. My game is what people now'days would probably call a "retro-clone" of OD&D (I would be inclined to dispute this, however).  The point is that I'm interested in using what might be called a Traditional RPG to produce Literary Stories.

First I should like to clarify what I mean by satisfying Literary Story. What I mean by this is that the resulting story has literary merit, follows in a general sense literary conventions such has having a story arc with a beginning, middle and end, shows a degree of character development, and by and large uncovers larger truths about life and the universe in which we live. In the end, when transcribed or told verbatim the story would entertain, and perhaps even enlighten the reader in some way.

When an author writes a story they have control over the Characters actions in the story in a way that the author of an RPG story does not. The Players control the various Characters in the RPG, and those Players typically will do unexpected things that the Gamemaster has not anticipated. This forces the game to adopt a strongly improvisational stance. When you add the fact of luck through dice rolling into the mix, it positively ensures that game per game, the Gamemaster has little or no control over the outcome of each episode. As a game this works perfectly. But as a story creation tool, well, like I said, the traditional RPG presents challenges.  One never knows if the Player Characters will even live or die in any given game. And yet, the goal is to achieve a satisfying story that stands on its own merits and can be read from end to end and be enjoyed purely as a story in its own right.

Can RPG play result in such stories? I believe so. Does it require a special set of rules mechanics to do so by attempting to enforce "story"? I don't think so. What it requires is is a Gamemaster and Players who understand the nature of Story, and a willingness to achieve it through excellence of role play. That is all. Yet though this sounds simple enough, it is not easy. In the same way that Micheal Angelo was able to paint a masterpiece with relatively simple tools and following a standard formula of putting paint on a brush and applying it to a canvas, so too could true GameMasters (ie - Masters of the art) produce this kind of Story.   The tools available are not nearly as important as the mind of the artist.

I have created over the years a number of examples of this kind of play and have published them on my blog. There are currently two primary examples, both based on the actual play of my test games between 2009 and 2014. You can read those stories via this page: http://elthosrpg.blogspot.com/p/elthos-rpg-play-tests.html.

I won't claim that they perfectly achieve the Ideal to which I aspire, but I believe they may suffice as examples of the direction I wish to go.  Each entry is a Chapter that represents a single game session and they could be read in a ad hoc manner to get the idea, if you wish.  However, the examples are rather long (totaling over 260,000 words  for the 2011 - 2013 game) , and so I wouldn't expect to read them through in a single sitting.

What I would like to do now is discuss, and open a dialog about, the challenges involved with this objective.

One challenge is that of combining the chance involved in a dice game with the development of a coherent and satisfying plot line.

A related challenge is the 'Cat Herding' required to get Players to stay on Story Target.  In other words many players have a tendency to completely forget their character's goals or interests as they encounter things in the world, and hence may wind up chasing after every detail presented by the GM.  Learning as GM how to build a Campaign so that it leads to good story is one of the arts of the thing that is not easily explained, nor easily learned except by trial and error, and an excellent understanding and appreciation of what makes a good Story to begin with.

Another challenge is in the portrayal of a World that does not inhibit the game aspect, but at the same time effectively conveys the sense of the world, the scene and the characters involved.

I'm not going to try to tackle all of these challenges in this post, as it would turn out too long to read for many people. I'll just ruminate some, and leave it at that, and then continue posting on this topic with "- Part 1, 2, 3, etc" as new thoughts come to me.

So here I will talk a bit about the first challenge. That of Dice vs Story. It's probably the most commonly understood challenge, or at least the one I've seen most often discussed so far. It basically comes down to this: how can you create a coherent story when at any time the Heroes of the story can get themselves killed by an unlucky roll of the dice? Well, yes, this is a challenge indeed.

When reading a story it would be hard to swallow "And then Prince Valiant slipped while fighting the lone Goblin, and accidentally chopped off his own head" due to a Fumble roll that went horribly wrong. That is something that could happen in an RPG because we are dealing with the luck of the dice, and one never knows just how bad things will go when dice are involved.

So what's the answer to this? I can see a few possibilities. One, the Gamemaster might provide a buffer against such outcomes by including a "knock out" option for primary PCs. So instead of dying, they will knock themselves out. Yes, this is a mechanical modification, and a bit of a cheat in a way. But a modest one, and given it's utility for the purpose I wouldn't balk at including it as a house rule for my game.

Another answer to this problem might be to ensure that in the event a major PC does happen to get killed, that in some way it turns out to be meaningful. This might be done by causing a kind of domino effect where in the end the fact that the hero perishes does something to the remainder of the story that causes lose ends to tie up a certain way, and thus still provides a satisfying story. In other words, you wouldn't say "And then Prince Valiant accidentally chopped his own head off. The end." You would instead finesse it. "And then Prince Valiant accidentally chopped his own head off... which resulted in Queen Illana marching with her army on Castle Frostguard in order to secure her sovereignty there, and this began the War of the Ladies and resulted in the Coronation of Prince Varin as King of Palamir."  In other words, a Character death if handled with a bit of Story teller's magic can be the beginning of a new story, rather than The End.

Another similar way to handle it, at least for some kinds of Worlds, would be to not have it that Death is The End of the Character, but a significant event instead... as in one case in my world where a Character died and found themselves on the way to Hades, and had an adventure there (one that allegorically reflected what was going on in the campaign).  He was subsequently rescued from Hades as a result of a Quest on the part of the other players.  So Death of a Character from bad luck can and should be incorporated in a way that makes the bad luck something that blends in and works for the whole of the Story.  Who knows?  Perhaps the Character obtained some secret knowledge in Hades, or found a treasure there and was able to bring it back... thus turning bad luck into good luck ere the end.

Another way to handle this kind of thing would be for the GM to carefully ensure that no challenges are of sufficient difficulty to make it probable that the Player Characters will die. I'm not especially in favor of this approach because it runs counter some of my other goals as a GM, but for some it might suffice as a strategy.  Simply lower the odds of a Bad Luck outcome.

Lastly, the Players themselves might try their best to play smarter, not harder. That means playing Characters intelligently enough to ensure that they don't get themselves into situations where their odds are poor, and endeavoring to maximize their chances of success. This, however, may also be a kind of cheat, as Players should be expected to Role Play, and it is quite possible that their Characters are actually not that smart. I have a Character in the Whitewode Campaign who is only of average intelligence, and he often makes plans that are poorly thought through. And that's fine, as the player is playing true to the Character.  The results are often comical, in fact.

In any case, the issue of Dice vs. Story is one of those things that Literary RPG enthusiasts ruminate over, and there's quite a bit written about it out there if you poke around. The principal underlying the dilemma is that it seems difficult for one to play a game based on luck and still somehow derive an interesting and meaningful story out of it. I propose that it is certainly possible, and desirable.  But it takes quite a bit of skill to pull it off, on the part of the GM and the Players alike.  Yet, it is a worthwhile objective and I encourage people to try.

I'll be ruminating about this further on, most likely. But for now I wanted to jot down these thoughts. I hope you will forgive me for the rambling nature of this post.