WttSS session 29: 'To Trust a Voice in the Dark?'

Session report - Whispers to the Star Singer campaign

Written by Doctor Weather

General Summary

Kerman and Khalil smash open the doors to the Abouelkassem containment room, revealing beyond them a chamber hidden from the Icons. Though a little functionally designed, lacking the decorative elegance seen elsewhere in the Horizon, the floors above Lower-3 all showed a respect for the Icons; but here there are no murals, statues or symbols of any kind, with attention paid even to remove dedicated spaces from which the Faceless One might peer. Instead, the room is laid out along the random lines of nature, hoping to avoid the gaze of Icons and Darkness alike.

Containment chamber

As the party moves to enter, the voice of the supposed guardian booms out once more to demand they "wait, there are things we must still discuss!", the voice carried on thunder that echoes down the corridor, and which is strong enough to knock Khalil, Zarzur and Masruq against the walls. Though the sound echoes in Kerman and Murad's ears they are able to push on, to face what danger lurks within.
Upon a series of 23 duralite columns, each just reaching Kerman's waist height, sit hand-sized crystals made of the same spirit-attracting crystal the party has seen throughout their adventures on Ghodar. Five crystals are empty but the rest appear to Kerman like the magic mirrors from the stories he tells his grandchildren, seeming to show another place held within.
WIthin another five, cloying shadows drift across the view, dancing at first but then quickly darting out towards Kerman as he comes closer, though prevented from escaping by the walls of the crystal prison. Twelve more contain an ever-falling sand, resembling the workings of ancient timers. The sand of eight of those twelve retain a bright, golden colour that glints in the lights of Kerman's exo-suit and of lines of electrical energy coming down from the ceiling, continuously absorbed into the crystals. The remaining four sand crystals are not connected to an energy stream and their sand has browned, here and there turning to wisps of shadow. The final crystal stands unique, holding a bright, dancing flame that also follows Kerman's movements.
Murad watches Kerman walk amongst the crystals. Both still hear the plaintive cries of people desperate for aid but Kerman now sees they come directly from the crystals themselves, those containing sand. Though clearly rapt by the cries, for now Kerman makes no hasty move and the rest of the party recovers to enter the room.
On seeing the crytals, the meaning of their contents is immediately clear to Masruq: humans are born of the earth, the djinn of flame and the shadow is that of the children of the Dark. His recent ventures in exorcism also let him sense that each of the filled crystals contains a trapped spirit.
Khalil's technical experience with Abouelkassem science tells him that the energy beams, though looking like electricity, are of the energies he's seen before and are likely sustaining the spirits within the crystals; those unsustained falling into Darkness. Lining up the direction the energies that travel across the ceiling before they drop down to the crystals, he deduces that their collective origin, passed the walls of the room, must be the experiment chamber that would be reached from the other corridor choice at the crossroads from whence the party has just come. He also quickly counts up the crystals: nine are now sustained by energies and nine have fallen, or are falling, into Darkness. The room set up to hide from Icon view has now, by chance, fallen into a pattern that the Icons might see - perhaps enough to draw the Icons' attention and have them send the party here to investigate.
Zarzur's third eye lets her know that the trapped flame is most definitely watching them.

Negotiations with a djinn

As the party gathers their information, the voice of the guardian keeps trying to get their attention, but now changing to that of a mature woman. The voice still carries a certain power however, with each word seemingly made through a smile, but nonetheless the woman always speaks of making a deal with the party. They question her, asking after her purpose and identity. First they assume she might be the final Abouelkassem sorcerer, Ofira, but she takes offence at this, claiming that she wants everything about the Abouelkassem destroyed and wiped from history.
After a little back and forth the party realise that the voice belongs to a djinn, in fact the very being trapped as a flame within one of the crystals. The deal wanted, it seems, is not as she offered as the guardian to simply destroy evil in return for knowledge of the Portal Builders but rather that destruction of the experiment chamber would free her and the human spirits trapped within the crytals. If only the party might destroy the experiment chamber the crystals would be free of the energies and could be safely opened.
Kerman considers the stories of old, recalling what happens to people trapped within magic mirrors if those mirrors are simply smashed. In the stories it is always a matter of faith: the faithful escape unharmed but the weak-spirited come out altered, the darkest spirits the most cruelly changed. By Khalil's estimate, smashing the crystals without energy streams maintaining them would give the spirit within only a fifty-fifty chance of being unharmed; those with the energy streams attached even less.
As he continues to walk amongst the crystals, Kerman begins to make out individual voices: one crystal contains a young woman, another an older man, a third a boy. All still call to him for aid, lost and confused. He calms one of the crystal's voices, saying they are soon to be safe, it'll just be a moment now until they are all free.
But as the party continues debating back and forth with the djinn, her frustration grows. Mistaken for a human, indeed a mere sorceror - and a hated Abouelkassem one at that - she feels the loss of time as the party pushes her for answers instead of helping her escape. Demanding recognition and the restitution she feels she is due, she proudly declares her name: Jihan, granddaughter of the great Irides, the Wondrous One, she of the Shining River. So long trapped in here, not even Masruq knows of her from story and legend, but he considers it wise not to let on to a being whose people are known for their ego.
Jihan's patience grows thin and she begins to let insults drop in with her words, demanding the party makes a deal with her that would give her freedom in return for some favour. As the negotiation turns sour though, it occurs to Kerman that the party has the upper hand, for the djinn is trapped, and they could just leave her here. He tells her so, and suggests she should be trying instead to help them and be grateful for anything they chose to give her in return.
(The GM considers this to be 'fighting talk'.)

A deal is struck

A bolt of lightning surges down the corridor, turning to strike Kerman as it enters the room. Remembering his stories once more, and so knowing how djinn think, Kerman chooses not to dodge the blast, trusting to his exo-suit and his hardy Xinghur skin to defend him from natural damage. The blast does him considerable harm but he retains his standing, shrugs off the stun and laughs in the face of it. Striding confidently towards the flame, as if completely uninjured, he plays the djinn at her own game: He looms tall over the crystal and weilds his mace, showing the full power of humanity in the face of the Darkness and how little of that power he would have to use to send Jihan back to her otherworld forever.
GM's note: Kerman becomes at this point probably one of few humans in history to have intimidated a djinn into submission. He forces the deal: Jihan will help them free the trapped humans in return for solving one of her declared problems, that she has been in the lab computers for so long, with no other stimulation. He promises to take her crystal somewhere 'more interesting'.
Masruq steps up to seal this deal with poetry. It was suggested by Ian in our group that Kerman might be capable of coming up with the following limerick to make the deal binding:

"There once was a djinn named Jihan
Enslaved by a sorcerous clan
Kerman waved a mace
Right up in her face
And she swiftly agreed to our plan!"

...but the GM ruled that, however delightful, the nature of civilised society called for poetry a little more sophisticated to make a proper deal, meaning Masruq's skills were needed. Masruq achieved 5 successes on a roll: spending 1 on the base deal and a second on protecting the party from reprisals from Jihan whenever she should gain her freedom, leaving 3 favours left to be called in later.

Experimentation chamber

A deal agreed, pressure starts to build to get moving: Jihan states that she really can't hold the darkbound at bay for much longer and Zarzur gets another message from the Foundation science team in charge of investigating the Abouelkassem facility; they still think the party is another science team sent to help out, and they're not happy at the suggestion they're not capable of working alone. The message reads, "we're here; where are you?" The party does not reply.
Racing out of containment, the party tears down the corridor back to the three-way junction. As they pass through, they look down towards the way out and see darkbound gathering in the corridor. Masruq takes a mental note that some of them are kneeling before the lift doors, as if in prayer; can the creatures of the Darkness gain assistance from the Dark Between the Stars as humans do from the Icons? Others are dropping down from the blast hole the party left in the corridor ceiling. They see the humans go flying past.

Breach, breach, breach

Undaunted, the party heads towards the experimentation room. As they approach, they see that the doors flicker strangely in the light, seemingly suffering from the same spacial distortion as the lift; but Kerman decides on the simple route nonetheless and barrels straight through the doors. His world shifts and changes. To him the warping makes it seem like his body is bent through ninety degree and his brain interprets along as up for a short time. However, he takes it totally in his stride (5 successes again) and slides across the floor like a surfer on a calm ocean. Coming to a safe halt, he withdraws his explosives and starts setting their timers in a fluid motion that would make Ahlam's Temple masters sit up and take notice.
As the doors fall away off their hinges, there is the sound of a hundred and one people making a unified intake of breath as the shadows of the room withdraw from Kerman's presence to hug the walls. As Khalil, Masruq and Zarzur enter, the shadows gain courage again however, and send tendrils out into the room to investigate the intruders.
Entering the room quickly feels like a high dive into cold water and makes for a heavy strike on a person's chest, so the next three characters entering do so more slowly, taking in the layout of the room as they do. A computer station with computational power stronger than most computer banks on Coriolis sits in a previously-protected area of the room. This protection was a spirit-crystal wall, designed to protect the scientists at the computers but Kerman has made short work of one of the panels already.
Beyond that safer space the room contains a projection array that seems capable of firing a laser of sorts into a large spirit-crystal chamber hanging from the ceiling. This in turn lies above an antenna array of a type Khalil has seen many times before in Abouelkassem science. This experimental apparatus is supported by robot arms that can bring the two types of mirror crystals in from containment through gaps that must open in the walls. More of the crystals lie shattered on the floor. Around the room there are tables to bear various items including golden chests with symbology that matches that on the walls of the 'Crossroads' meeting place of the desert tribes; and on the walls there are hand-held devices that Khalil assumes can open the spirit-crystal prisons.

Let's do this

As Kerman lays explosive charges around the room, Khalil and Masruq manoeuvre their way across to try and grab some of the hand-held devices. Each of them suffers attacks by the tendrils of shadow as they go and Murad has to make a choice from the doorway.
Four hands filled with guns and spirit rays, Murad spins and shoots alternately down the corridor at appearing darkbound and into the room at shadow tendrils. Twice he keeps Kerman and Masruq safe from shadow strikes. Twice he keeps darkbound at bay at the corridor junction, first by ripping pieces from a small darkbound, forcing it to retreat, and second by setting the blast of thermal pistol near the eyes of a greater darkbound, getting it to involuntarily lean back round the corner and preventing it from charging. Only once does a enemy get away from him and Khalil is struck by a shadow, falling into despair, believing that the only fate left to him now is having his spirit locked away in a crystal.
During the battle Zarzur is forcibly engaged by the Abouelkassem computer's AI, which has also suffered from the Dark. It tries to attack her through her neural link but Zarzur swats it away like a fly. It attempts to flee into the Foundation shuttle that has recently appeared but Zarzur has already shut all the doors. Turning to the Icons, she gives the AI the command to delete itself and all the evil science within the building.
As it obeys it shows Zarzur all the science she is deleting in the hope she will change her mind:

• The Abouelkassem altered their Xinghur servants that now make up the desert tribes - once with a new change to give them lung enhancements to survive the Ghodar atmosphere, but once by unlocking a now-forgotten gene that would give them back the technology skill - this latter gene that is still locked for Xinghur like Kerman across the Horizion, stolen from them by jealous masters
• Investigations into Portal Builder system- and terra- forming
• The secrets of Ghodar's Lightning Bugs
• The science of the three energy fields the Abouelkassem used to control their atmosphere
• Methods to unlock the mercurium items and weapons held with the kharatuk obelisks
• And the Abouelkassem spirit science that could lead to various capabilities such as scientific exorcism

...But Zarzur also wants the Abouelkassem evil lost to time and she lets the deletion continue.

There's only one thing left to do...

By now, Kerman has planted charges all round the room both on timer and with a remote to set them off early if needs be. Masruq and Khalil each have one of the hand-held devices needed to safely open the spirit crystals. Zarzur has deleted the Abouelkassem databases. And Murad has kept everyone alive and the corridor clear of darkbound.
Only Khalil cannot escape but Masruq reminds the party that the strength of the Icons is with them all, even in this heart of Darkness, and all, Khalil included, stands tall once more. All they need to do now is get themselves and the spirit crystals safely out of the building...

8th day of the Deckhand
(This is actually a correction to previous reports, as I sometimes forget to account for the difference between Ghodar and Coriolis day lengths - see the timeline below)
Campaign: Contract: Whispers to the Star Singer
Characters: PC group: Whispers to the Star Singer
Timeline: Campaign timeline: Whispers to the Star Singer

Campaign

Whispers to the Star Singer (concluded)

Protagonists

Report Date

30 Jun 2021