WttSS session 60 - finale... sort of, not quite...

Session report - Whispers to the Star Singer campaign

Written by Doctor Weather

General Summary

Portal Builder operations chamber

As Khalil and Zarzur communicated with the dwindling Portal Builder AI, Murad, Kerman and Masruq dealt with Yochanan and keeping Khalil's body safe from approaching rock monsters and shadow beasts. They did so well that the rock monsters were effectively immobilised and both the shadow creatures and Yochanan decided the better part of valour was to leave - Yochanan choosing to head into mirror space, shattering the main mirror in the process and trapping Khalil's spirit. Yochanan's presence then only increased the degradation of the system, helped on a little by the party's use of the power cube to reinstate the mirror to rescue Khalil. In the end, the party managed to capture Yochanan and Zarzur did a deal with the AI to preserve the Portal Builder experiment data but the cost of the whole venture was the destruction of the Portal Builder system through Yochanan's corruption that then spread through mirror space to destabilise the valley experiment and threaten a second, system experiment being conducted in the great sphere hovering above valley.

• Khalil's first action was to break into security and allow the party to use their full weapon set again - this would later become redundant when Yochanan shattered the entire security system, allowing freedom to use violence again across the whole valley
• At one point Kerman used the strength of his Legion exo to use one rock monster as a club to play snooker with 3 Portal Builder fixer spheres that came in to fix the area's broken mirrors and protect the experiment from out of control energies (anything creating DP), knocking one into the others to stun them
• Murad made use of his full armament to destroy shadow beasts and hobble some rock monsters, keeping Khalil's body safe
• Masruq tried again and successfully placed a blessing on Yochanan that surrounded him and allowed the Portal Builder AI to finally see him and it was at this point that Yochanan decided to flee into the mirror
• Zarzur's conversation with the AI now took a desperate turn: they were already failing due to Yochanan's corruption - the first indication of this being the AI's loss of their pacifism in trying to deal with Khalil's invasion of the system - but the increased damage made them frantic; Khalil's presence was now much less important than the potential loss of the experiment data - but Zarzur agreed to have it downloaded into her headpiece and the AI spent all the energies making this happen before they were disassembled
• The AI did agree to help Zarzur with Yochanan at this point too, through him being a shared pain, and used the energy of Masruq's blessing to create a containment field like the one the Orb of Ghdoar uses
• Khalil tried to escape through the other mirrors but couldn't escape as his body wasn't touching any of them - in a desperate attempt to rescue Khalil, Masruq connected the power cube to the broken main mirror
• The cube repaired the mirror and 'turned it up to 11' as it's wont to do and so the mirror started drawing all spirits into it in the vein of a vacuum cleaner
• Khalil used his mystic powers to 'reverse the polarity' of the cube's operation, forcing everything out of mirror space
• The shadow beasts were destroyed by this process
• The remnant AI were also destroyed, not being able to exist outside of mirror space
• Yochanan emerged in his containment still
• Khalil was rescued by Masruq holding Khalil's hand against the mirror
• Under so much pressure, mirror space for the operations chamber completely shattered into a thousand small dimensions, with the neighbouring spaces for the other valley chambers to follow suit shortly after
• All mirrors, large and small, were also completely destroyed and fell into thousands of tiny, 2D fragments to be lost in the dust of the 3D cavern floor
• After complete clearance of mirror space and the damage from the corruption, the spheres became inert and lowered themselves to the ground - Khalil stole one of them as the party fled the collapsing physical cavern
• The rock monsters turned back into stalagmites with the destruction of their control centre
• Khalil's attraction to weirdness talent allowed him to draw Yochanan's hovering prison along behind him

JUMP TO CONTENTS

Negotiations

In the forest outside the waterfall the party got together to hear the experiment data stored in Zarzur's head and plan their next move. They learned that the valley experiment was in fact a failure and that it had been replaced by a second experiment that would encompass the entire Ghodar system. Unfortunately, this experiment was also damaged by Yochanan and its energies in danger of spinning out of control to the detriment of everything therein. In deciding how they would proceed if they went up to the sphere the party thought best to discuss things through with Jihan to make sure not to do her people more damage in the process. By the end of what turned out to be a negotiation the party made a deal that would safely put the experiment and valley in the hands of the djinn for the cost of only having to deal with the Legion presence there.

• Before the negotiation the party and the Legion were preparing to get to the sphere in the sky and be the first to get into it once it's security failed
• By this point the valley was suffering dimensional quakes as its position halfway between human and djinn space was under threat from failing energies
• During the negotiation the following was agreed:
• The djinn would neutralise the threat to the system from the Portal Builder experiment if they could keep the valley, shifting it full into their world
• All humans would leave and it would become their home, the Portal Builder constructions there theirs to enjoy - all future humans would stay away and the djinn would do their best to hide the valley from future foolish explorers
• The animals and plants in the valley that had been altered by the Portal Builders would also be saved by this transfer
• They would also agree to fix the sorcerers and let them pass naturally into the next life, forgoing their desire to punish Yochanan for the damage done to djinn world in the valley under promise from Kerman that the Icons would submit them to summary judgement as any human would get from the Judge - he asked the Traveller if there was any benefit to him through the different deaths and real-world punishments the sorcerers might face and the Traveller indicated that extra punishment in the living world could only affect the soul of the punisher
• The fixing would be done on Yochanan, the 2 sorcerers the party left in the gravity well of the star or Ghodar and the one on the demon ship the person summoned - also freeing Niv and purifying the ship itself
• The corruption the demon ship sorcerer had already done to the Ghir-3 mining platform - unbeknownst to the party - could not be cured and remained with the party to resolve
• A consequence of the control of the experiment would be the removal of the chain lightning across the planet
• Though this would remove a future potential power source for Khamzi's colony and undermine their use of the lightning bugs as a farming tool, the party thought that this was a fair cost, as the colony could artificially support the bugs another way and currently the chain lightning wasn't being used in the colony structure
• Jihan revealed a further valley location in the mountain range to which the kharatuk had moved on
• The party would have to take control of the Legion and Nasralleh - the djinn would not blacken their souls by killing so many humans and besides, the party really wanted to settle their score with Nasralleh - they have between 1 and 2 hours to do this before the valley moves and is closed off for good
• Jihan would supply Zarzur's 'sister' with a mercurium body, as promised by Kerman
• A diplomatic channel would be left open between Jihan and her people and Masruq and whomever he determined to be his people within Ghodar in the future (potentially the humanite colony the party had come to establish, the Jangahir and the Xinghur tribes already here) - Masruq to determine this and 'put his name to it' in the days to come
• Part of the Legion's preparations also included cutting out the rock core of the kharatuk AI in their monitoring station to take away for study - the two AI there said they planned to delete themselves unless he had a better idea, at which point the two AI took up Khalil's suggestion to download into the Portal Builder fixer sphere he'd just picked up

JUMP TO CONTENTS

35th day of the Deckhand
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

03 Jan 2023

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Contents

• General Summary
• Portal Builder operations chamber
• Negotiations