WttSS 43: 'Two Fires on a Black Wall'
General Summary
In legend, the City of Brass was seen in the distance as a black wall bearing two fires, something Murad, Khalil and Masruq potentially now overlooked. Across a chasm some half a kilometre wide, in the shape of a perfect hexagonal prism, they saw an archway at the bottom of the far wall. The rim of the archway bore the swirled patterns that may well be a language of the Portal Builders. Beyond the arch lay a tunnel, darker than even the evening Ghodar sun should make it but with that, showing emanations from two lights - two fires in the dark.
The Great Caravan meanwhile, remained at the edge of the desert those twelve hours or so after its arrival. Kerman and Zarzur noticed they were being spied upon by a Fleet Legionary but he was relatively easily captured: Jumping from a shuttle, silhouette lit by the fireworks of an aurora from above, Kerman disarmed the injured Legionary and secured his surrender. The Legionary bore two critical injuries but was handed over to the Xinghur to keep alive, his damaged exo suit kept for later use.
GM note: the Legionary was identified as Lieutenant Haidar Akalay, 5th Wing of the Harir.
The party shared information on what the other half had been doing, so everyone knew everything. As the images of the potential Portal-Builder archway were sent, a distant thunder rolled across the mountain range, as if some greater will objected...
The Great Caravan moves
Kerman and Zarzur fear that the other members of their captured Legionary's strike team will come after him and decide it probably best to move the Great Caravan on past at least the mountain's first choice of passageways. They approach the caravan's leaders, who are preparing for evening prayer and it is decided that Kerman should address the caravan himself after the prayer, as he and Zarzur seem to be some of the few able to resist the cloud of forgetfulness that the mountain range has dropped across the Xinghur tribes. Kerman is selected as his slightly trepidatious reply still shows more confidence than Zarzur's motion to hide behind him.
Evening prayer is given quietly by the caravan's khawaja over short-range radio to the cabs and speakers in the assembled crawlers, buggies and shuttles. Though the Legion already knows the caravan's location, no-one wants to risk a full-voiced call to prayer echoing out across the peaks, just in case there's another enemy yet to awaken. The khawaja requests the blessing of the Star Singer for the final leg of the journey still to come and then hands a microphone over to Kerman.
Although we are close to our goal, the obstacles set in place by those who came before us are not cleared but we have enemies at our back and must press on to our final destination. But those tactics that confound us will confound our enemies as well. We will move forward, past the trickery at the first junction. Trust in your leaders who understand the magic up ahead. Keep to the right path. Those who falter, who are deceived, I will remind you of your path.
I know the Xinghur live by instinct but the ancients have tried to use these against us. You will know the right path: trust us and your leaders to take you to the City.
Zarzur takes the lead in the Caliban Crow, marmosets up with her on the bridge so she might benefit from their focused ability - even need - to take the correct path. With Kerman's words of inspiration and the encouragement of the marmosets she leads the way without concern.
(GM note: critical success resisting the mountain's defences.) In fact, Kerman's speech has gone so deep into the hearts of the Xinghur too, that they clear not only the labyrinth's first choice of ways but continue on for a quarter of the journey (about 3 hours travel by grav bike but it takes 4 in the slower crawlers).
Along the journey, Kerman has to spend time checking the other paths for Xinghur that the mountain has persuaded to take the wrong routes. When reminded by the celebrity figure whose very speech got them moving on again though, they are all successfully herded back to the main group. His inspiration allows two-thirds of the caravan to follow Caliban's lead and the remaining third retreats into its vehicles to get through the experience under the protection of prayer.
Only as the star of Ghodar finally begins to set beyond the high mountain peaks does the caravan have to stop, for fear of the more natural dangers of mountain travel in a growing darkness.
Sleeper lost
As the Great Caravan makes a new camp, at the far end of the passageways, Murad, Masruq and Khalil arrange some of the shale around them to provide a shelter and to obscure sight of themselves from people approaching from either direction. They set watches, allowing one of them to sleep whilst the other two keep guard.
Khalil keeps himself awake with coffee and measurements - measurements of any interesting spike in energy, any new sight and any new sound from the area around him. As the night progresses, his movements become gradually more excited until Murad intervenes to stop Khalil's exaggerated pacing up and down. Brought back to focus, Khalil describes feeling the heartbeat of the mountain itself, reverberating within his own chest. His attention drawn to it, Murad then hears something too: a low thrum in the air, as if a column of it were being pushed up and down with increasing frequency.
Khalil wants to investigate but Murad holds him back, fearful of the mountain's effects. The heartbeat builds for a short time more but then the energy becomes free and a burst of lightning tears across the sky from above the chasm up front to hit the mountain peaks somewhere down the path from the camp. Rocks explode at a height and rain down, thankfully too far to cause the party trouble, and reveal the source of the shale rocks. Khalil reasons that this cannot be the first time the event has happened, as it explains the build-up of the shale rock.
Though Masruq is then woken by the lightning strike, he is quickly able to get back to sleep, as the energy discharge does not happen again. Zarzur is not so lucky with her sleep however, as during the night she is disturbed by dreams. Not nightmares, they don't wake her up but they fill her with an anxiety, though one not her own.
The presence she has previously felt across the mountain range returns in her sleep but this time its feelings are her own in the dream. She walks the mountains alone, searching for something but unable to find it. She looks in the places of the Great Caravan, of the Legion and the party's small vanguard but she finds nothing. She searches in vain for the reason the mountains ring with lightning when the skies and rocks should be calm but finds nothing, just a shadow dancing across the surfaces of the places that are now wrong.
Archway
Murad, Masruq and Khalil venture down to see the archway the following morning before the Great Caravan has had a chance to consider moving further on. Crossing the hexagonal chamber, they feel the presence of an energy that disturbs even Murad, so far immune to the mountain's stresses. All three shake off any ill effects however.
Approaching the archway, they see into the dark tunnel and an opening of natural rock again the other side. The far opening is also a chamber, one littered with stalagmites and leading to a black far wall. But to get there they need to tackle the tunnel and first, the archway. The arch has a five metre rim, decorated with an engraved pattern of swirls, equally possibly a decoration and a language, if only they knew more of the engravers.
The pattern is comprised of a series of interconnected of swirls. Each swirl in the continuous series spins out from a single point. The main arms of the swirls rotate outwards creating curving lines like those of a snail's shell or a rotating sprinkler sending water in a seeming curve as the metal spins. The central points of each pattern are connected via one arm to the centre of some of its neighbouring points, allowing you to trace a roaming path along the surface from swirl to swirl.
There are then also three layers to each swirl. The main arms rotating out from the centres form the main pattern. Branches then extend from those arms, curling out like branches of a tree, curling on either side of the arms to different degrees and in different directions. Each branch bears leaves of lines, arcs and even enclosed circles, again as either fine decoration or adding the complexity of language.
As Masruq and Khalil begin taking a tracing of one patterned swirls they notice some interference to the archway. (They don't dare risk more video footage in case that really did upset the mountain last time.) At its bases, a small amount of black rock, like that of the kharatuk obelisks, traces a square path in the floor, surrounding the archway as it penetrates the ground. Though they can only see two sides of the archway embedded into the rock face, the rim of black rock seems to angle back into the mountainside such as it might form a five metre by five metre square collar around the archway's stone.
Further, they see that the archway rim is split into eight concentric segments like that split up as do the colours of a rainbow and between each of the layers again lies the black rock. This time the obelisk rock forms a seam between each separate rainbow arc. At a distance, the thin seams don't interfere with the swirling engravings but close up they divide them into separate, layered archways resting upon one another.
Overload
Knowing that the Legion are still likely out there nearby despite having moved the caravan on, Zarzur scans for them and manages to detect three gunships following along the path the caravan took the evening before but remaining some half an hour back, trying not to be detected. Somehow, they seem able to follow the caravan, despite its vehicles using stealth technology to block both normal and life-sign scanning.
With so many families present, an assault on the Legion ships seems too risky and Masruq suggests moving on again, leaving a false trail or a trap for the Legion to stumble into. The false trail for two-hundred vehicles seeming too difficult to conjure, the party devises a trap. Under Khalil's guidance and using the technical skill of the Xinghur, the party disassembles Khalil's 'lightning cannon' from the Caliban Crow and reassembles it upon the back of three harnessed drones.
Encouraging the Xinghur further along with a song about overcoming a greater foe who underestimates you, Kerman and Zarzur leads the caravan on and away from the drones, simply sent directly upwards over the path the caravan has left behind. In a turn of events, Kerman and Zarzur both sing.
Legion gunships soon appear on the path. As they come into view of the drones, Zarzur sees that they are using personal gliders to allow individual Legionaries to fly up and scout the caravan by eye. This information is relayed back to the three gunships and also a ground-assault craft and a troop transport. She lets the gunships move passed the location of the drones, as they are too spaced to all be hit together but then signals Kerman once the assault ship is below the drones.
Firing up the lightning cannon and driving the drones higher into the sky, the assembly gets the attention of the mountains that target things getting too high. Energy builds in the air around the drones but more than Khalil's calculations would have thought. The damage that Zarzur dreamed about last night takes physical form as lightning comes out of the higher peaks, shattering stones as it passes, and tears across the sky from all directions above.
Coalescing on the drone assembly, the lightning is still gathered by Khalil's cannon, despite the greater than expected magnitude, and Kerman elects to keep the drones in place to fire the full blast down on the assault ship. Though the assembly is torn apart in the process, a series of strikes tears open even the assault ship's heavy armour and then detonates the ship from the inside, much has the Abouelkassem canon did to such a Legion craft once before.
But the lightning didn't stop channelling there. Whatever system controlled the energy it was cleared damaged now and more strikes blast the passageways from Great Caravan to Legion locations alike. Rocks and shale fall in landslides, forcing people to drive or fly on and dodge for their lives.
As the lightning rages it has a further effect: some burst of the energy carries through the mountains and strikes at the minds of all the mystics there: Masruq is left dazed, staring into space; Khalil fares worse, falling and grasping his head; Zarzur is worst affected, knocked unconscious at the helm of the Caliban Crow.
Fortunately, Kerman has been channelling himself of late, inspired by the great action holo-dramas he vaults across the bridge, activates the accident safety-belt procedure that holds an otherwise falling Zarzur in her seat and flies the Caliban Crow from over her shoulder. He even manages to use the hull of the ship to protect some of Xinghur crawlers below.
Murad too, is forced to defend his fellows. As the last effect of the energy overload is on the rings around the archway, which start to spin, some clockwise, some anticlockwise but all building in power until the start to make a noise reminiscent of the song of the Crossroads. He pulls Masruq and Khalil back, reaching safety as the rings harmonise and the air of the archway takes on a look of shattered light as might remind someone of a portal and, with a small pop, the sound ceases. As the rings stabilise a somewhat pink air washes into archway space from the sides of the rings.
