To Steal a Sun - Full Adventure

Here you go;

Wiliam Morris I think

SERAPHORMER REBOOT

Good work YOU (by which I mean ME, and all of US). Because Reality is BACK baby!

Since you (we) closed that Reality Breach, the SquidBrawl has stabilised.  Causality has cracked back into place and time has a linear flow! Now we can finally make decisions again.

However, the situation, though stable, is also DISASTROUS!

The Seraphormer, my (our) para-reality and deeply-shrouded engine of souls in a situation that I would describe as borked.

The Demon-Engine is compromised! This is a coagulator of vile supernatural fluid composed of Quileth harvested from the many layers of Uud and brought here by the bone ships of the LichJammer Captains. Now its leaking Demon Fluid everywhere! That's maybe the worst kind of leak you could possibly have.

The Atman-Engines are cold! These Hyper-Future Techno-Cores held in the void outside the central Seraphormer provide the sacred code which allows us to shape souls! The Atman Engines live at vastly accelerated time. The longer they stay cold, the harder they will be to start up again!

The Imaginary Suns are out! Stolen from the minds of dreaming gods long ago, these suns provide power for the whole Seraphormer! We are working on residual power for now, but without them nothing else will work for very long!

And worst of all, the Delusion Engine is off! The Delusion Engine maintains the shroud of unlikelihood around the Pocket-Realm which holds the Seraphormer, AND it sends a cognitive field out into every layer of Uud which prevents any intelligent being from even considering that we might exist!

That means SHE, Yggsrathaal, the mother of Entropic Wyrms, the destroyer of Esh and our, and  I can't emphasise this enough, really extremely NUMBER ONE ENEMY, can deduce and perceive our existence! The longer the Delusion Engine stays down, the more chance there is that she will!

Most of our communal mind is still totally barmy from the Reality Incursion - useless, or even dangerous.

But don't worry! I pulled together literally everyone, and everything, sane and self-aware that I could find. Yes there are only four of them, but arguably this makes them our ELITE TEAM!

Our “Elite” Team!

(Literally anyone we could grab who seemed (relatively) sane).

Fury-Warded

"Deep do I dive into that malign typhoon of the undigested damned."

A Demon-Shielded Quileth-Stoker-Founder inside an engine suit of blackened iron plates etched in pearl with interlocking warding glyphs with a rumbling engine core and a demon-grasping tri-fingered claw hand which opens to reveal a holy Quileth Vacuum trap. Just visible beneath the demon-scarring are the pearl-etched words “Burt do I Burn”. Fury-Warded is arguably slightly morally corroded from their endless bathing in, and wresting with, the raw ichor of trapped demons, but you can't fault them for willpower! Also they are massive and have a combat claw.

Five 60 Six-Six-Six Reoccurring

"Looks like it's time.. for a hyper-fix!"

A massively multiply-armed, gibbon-bodied ULTRA-REPAIRER FOUNDER. 5-60's long and gawky self-built body-suit has wild tool-handed arms, that expand into MORE ARMS, which then expand into EVEN MORE ARMS. Somewhat wild and whacky, 5-60 can climb almost anywhere and repair almost any piece of hyper-tech with anything they can find. Combat capacity - QUESTIONABLE. Mental Stability - DON'T ASK. However, for invention, personal courage and sheer can-do attitude, nothing can beat them!

Grailogos - Multi-Founder Consciousness

"My calculations cannot be comprehended by singular minds."

Grailogos is a supremely crystalline and gracile intellectual Atman-Coder founder. Their robed ceramic body supports a magnificent huge, glowing-blue fishtank head occupied by three individual Founders linked in mutually-supportive group consciousness. Grailogos can "decode" aspects of non-founder reality into glowing multicoloured cubes which float around, and which they can then 're-code' into specific para-reality effects and raw substances. Somewhat abstracted and speaking in a polyphonic chorus-song, Grailogos sometimes disagrees with themselves in times of stress.

Somo-Omos - The Uncertain One

"I am, but know not what I am."

A quantumly-uncertain Founder who guards and operates the Delusion Engine. Somo-Omos occupies a Founder-body which looks as if it were made of mirrors and strange visual projections. Their form is hard to precisely perceive, as if they were a walking Kaleidoscope. Somo-Omos is always shifting their colour and state within the projecting body and these projections are continually flowing across the surfaces of that form like a cubist impression of a technicolour cuttlefish. Somo-Omos can simulate other forms and identities, become near-invisible and even "shift" through perceptually-solid objects. They are also in the middle of a massive, and endlessly-looping identity crisis and must often be reminded of exactly who they are.

 

Lionel Walden

The Missions

(To be handled in whatever order seems best to you).

Fix the Demon-Engine

·        Penetrate into the ruined Demon-Engine.

·        Locate the ruptured seal.

·        Battle the half-Formed Quileth fluid, Corrupted Quileth-Stoker Founders and Possessed Founders who's suits have cracked.

·        To defeat the half-processed Quileth force it into a specific shape. Provide it with Fears. Either your own, or draw raw residual fear matrices from the ATMAN-ENGINES. (Five 60 Six-Six-Six Reoccurring can probably locate some, if you can get an Atman-Engine semi-functional.)

Problem? - using the fear matrices in this way may lead, to some souls without fear, to some with demon-linked fears, and others with their fears replaced or re-coagulated from Quileth - with UNKOWABLE RESULTS.

NEXT? - You Need - MORE QUILETH. And not from a distant source – our only LichJammer Captain is fulfilling a mission which only they can do.

A closer location is available; the Waste around Blackwater

As such, the Soul 'Wreaca' has been instantiated and will begin - A WALK IN THE WASTE.

Re-Start The Delusion Projector, And Fast

The Delusion Engine which keeps the Seraphormer secret and safe is offline.

·        Find your way through the maze of dreams and illusions born from its slow collapse.

·        Fix the umbral shrouding and Mistake-Generators.

·        Kickstart it with some of those INVISIBLE BEASTS from the Outer Void.

·        To process them, you will need to jam them in the Demon-Engine and refine them into Pneumo-Mystification, then pipe that straight to the Delusion Projector!

·        That should get it working, but its like running a petrol engine on raw crude oil.

NEXT?

You need LIES, and not just the ordinary kind. A massive storehouse of pure deception, right from the source. Only a Fae Emperor in the depths of Margenalia commands such Grand Palaces of Lies.

As such, the soul Cir Talox Blithe, the Worghast Knight has been instantiated for - A MEETING IN MARGENALIA.

Missions In The Outer Void

Gerardo Dottori - Burning City

The Atman-Engines and Imaginary Suns are both located in the Void of the Outer-Serpahormer, a zero-g outer-space pocket realm the size of Jupiter.

There is Chaos in the Outer Rings!

A Rocket-Powered rebellion is in process. The huge angel-form Founders set to guard and maintain the GigaTech of the Seraphormer are still in the grip of the SquidBrawl, now also a SpaceBrawl!

Not only that but the Void has been infiltrated by Photon-Negative Hypermutating Bioforms:  INVISIBLE BEASTS!

We think these are low level interstellar predators which slipped into the Seraphormer pocket-dimension during the SquidBrawl. Presumably they came to feed upon the Imaginary Suns. Now, through some strange interaction with the black, dying imaginary suns and the collapsing penumbra of the Delusion Engine, they have Hyper-Evolved!

Anyone venturing out into the Void will have to contend with;

·        Avoiding, or ending, the Rocket-Powered Rebellion.

·        Escaping, or defeating, the Photon-Negative Bioforms!

Void Mission - Restart/Rebuild the Atman-Engines!

·        Find a still-functioning Atman-Engine amongst the chaos of the Outer Void.

·        Re-connect it to the Seraphormer.

·        Transmit yourself inside the digital hyper-reality of the Atman-Engine and see what is needed to get it back online and functioning.

NEXT?

You need WORLD-BUILDING HYPER-DATA. Massive data loss and corruption means the Atman-Engines need a huge input of Raw Data, enough to Shape a World.

This can likely only be found in the layer of the Uud-Reality located 50,000 years in the future, where interstellar Empires bloat and war amidst the prismatic stars. There perhaps some ruined or forgotten god-tier hyper-mind can be located and returned to the Seraphormer.

As such Nebulon Brax, Captain of the LychJammer Tyche's Hand has been recruited for - A MISSION TO GLEAMSPACE.

Void Mission - Re-Ignite the Imaginary Suns!

·        Hop between the darkened suns.

·        Try to find at least one with some ergs of energy in it.

·        Delve into those suns cold cores, explore the cold abandoned Palaces of Fire within and try to discover some means of re-ignition.

NEXT? You need - A STOLEN SUN. A jewel containing the Dream of Hyperion, the solar imaginings of a sleeping god which could, in theory, start a chain reaction to re-ignite the Imaginary Suns.

Its last known location: Possessed by one of the hidden Emperors of the Grey city of Glaem.

As such, the soul 'Lady Amoret' as been instantiated and will begin - TO STEAL A SUN.

The Resulting Quests

Good news! With the Seraphormer (partially) active, we can now send Souls into Uud to grab the resources needed to keep us operational!

Less good news: we have a limited number of souls ready to go, and limited power to send them.

Essentially we had to pick the best three for the missions we have, and give the last one to this Skeleton Dude because he has his own Space Ship.

A Meeting In Margenalia

https://twitter.com/anonamos_701/status/1097650144323895297

Cir Talox Blithe, the Knight with the Iron Heart,  is sent to the Mountains of Reality, there to seek a way to the deepest tendrils of the Eld-Realm of Margenalia to bargain with a Fae Emperor for possession of one of their Palaces of Lies, each one greater than the last, the largest within the smallest, and the key to the last hidden in the first.

To Steal a Sun

Gustav Klimt - Dame mit Fächer

In the Grey Cities of Blackwater, the ridiculous, somewhat-craven, vain and occasionally brilliant Lady Amoret is sent to the Grey City of Glaem, there to penetrate the Hidden Palace at the centre of its Megastructure and perform the greatest theft of the modern age - to steal from the Emperor of Glaem the Frozen Dream of a Sleeping Solar God.

A Mission to Gleamspace

Corey Harris https://www.reddit.com/r/Art/comments/baahqk/space_skeleton_digital_2000_x_2000_px/

Nebulon Brax, the undead Captain of the LichJammer 'Tyche's Hand' must take his bone ship of solar sails, and his skeleton crew, into a realm where his magic will be near-useless. He must travel to GleamSpace, the prismatic realm 50,000 years in the future of Uud, a time dominated by Hypertechnology and decaying utopias and there seem a Loom of Realities; a god-machine powerful enough to restore and renew the Hyper-Data of the Seraphormers Atman-Engines.

A Walk in the Waste

Jab Jira https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6VbWW

'Wreaca' the Half-Orc mother, most solitary of the Waste Walkers, yet most skilled, must venture again into the caustic grey hell which surrounds Blackwater - the Waste of Yggsrathaal. There she must face the untold dangers of that realm, the Orc-Kind who form part of her own bloodline, dark agents of the Teratarchies and the Spawn of Yggsrathaal and her Pale Courts. But simple survival is not enough, for Wreaca hunts not monsters, but Quileth - Demon Kind itself, long sleeping since the fall of Esh, and her mission is not the demons destruction, but it’s capture.

The Mass Confusion

I, Observer,  have been Considered by the Mind to record in hardcopy a report of the recent Mass Confusion, to do so from a 'neutral' position (if such a thing is even possible), and to include within this record, an explanation of exactly what 'I' am, what the Mass Confusion was and what, in general, is going on.

I, Observer assume this has been requested in case of total memory loss, mind alteration, loss of identity due to an overload in the Delusion Field or simple forgetfulness.

So, if You are reading this, be aware I am You.

You are the Eldritch Founder and You have either lost your full memories, been separated from the Gestalt that is I/Us or are suffering Identity Issues.

You are a Hive Mind and everybody in this record, including I, Observer, is also you. You have simply become temporarily unaware of this.

We are all thoughts in one larger mind.

A Confusion is a literalised Parliament of Thoughts, or extended inner argument which takes place within I/Us when consensus has yet to be reached on a particular issue. In this case the Confusion took place over the issue of Mass in the bodysheathes of the Sparkborn Souls.

This is a record of your own thoughts, told to you, by you, the you that is currently I, Observer.

That should be clear enough.

Transcript follows;

---------------------------------------------

EXECUTIVE - This looks enough like a Quorum to go for it. Everyone missing is either mad, has forgotten who they are for a while, is lost in time or temporarily dead. I declare this Confusion begun!

WORLDLING SPEAKER - As a coherent aspect of the MAJORITY..

(Boos, hissing, flashes and stress-tentacle positions from all other factions)

WORLDLING SPEAKER - (louder) AS A SPEAKER FOR THE MAJORITY!.. thank you,.. as a Speaker for the majority I declare our opinion that of the Worldlings, for only we are truly and deeply concerned with the strife and substance of Uud, unlike the nerds on the opposite bench who We Here declare as..

GRACILES SPEAKER - (interrupting) We accept that name and declare ourselves the Graciles..

(Flashing and writhing from opposing bench)

EXECUTIVE - Accepted on both counts and please calm yourselves. Speaker for the Worldlings, please go on.

WORLDLING SPEAKER - Thank you. I will make my argument brief for its rightness is so obvious that little rhetoric is required in its support. The matter is a simple one, and that is, to be a hero, you need to be able to punch someone in the face.

(mass hissing and great writhing from the Graciles)

GRACILES SPEAKER - Brutes! Simpletons!

WORLDLING SPEAKER - AND IF NOT THAT. If not that, you need to at least be able to be punched in the face, and to still get up. Now, our opponents with dress this up with a lot of fine words about psychology etc etc, but the simple fact of the matter is we need our souls to survive and we them need to win fights!

(Cries Of "intelligence!" "intelligence")

WORLDLING SPEAKER - Yes there are many other aspects which might be useful. A soul is a complex thing, as we all know. But what use are any of them after the soul in question has had their head caved in during their first risky action? We can talk this over all day but the simple fact of the matter is that we need survivability Look at our survival numbers! We need more winners and the truth is that SIZE ALONE will do this! And at a much lower cost in resources and time! They need to be BIG, they need to be STRONG. We of the Worldlings demand thicker and more muscular souls!

(Great merging of lights and snapping tentacles from the rest of the house)

EXECUTIVE - Thank you thank you. And thank you for making that brief. Speaker for the Graciles, you are recognised.

GRACILES SPEAKER - Thank you Executive. Now.. Heroism, what does it truly mean?

(Hissing, flashing, cries of "too long", and "get to the point" )

EXECUTIVE - Graciles we cannot and will not sit through YET ANOTHER deep dive into the philosophical meaning of Heroism! You need not explicate every point down to its primal axioms. Now the Worldlings have been good enough to summarize and save us all time. I do ask you to give us the salient points.

GRACILES SPEAKER - I protest! This assault on Discourse itself naturally favours the other side!

EXECUTIVE - It favours us all getting back to work. Spit it out like a Sophont!

(Laughter)

GRACILES SPEAKER - Very well. Under protest, I will summarise.

GRACILES SPEAKER - Heroism, or even villainy, cannot be reduced to mere punching ability! The precise mixture of physical and mental challenge, handicap and talent acts differently in each soul, AS THE OTHER SIDE KNOWS WELL. Is it not true that many of our most successful and memorable Souls have in fact, a very various range of physical capacities? Yes many of them do die

(interruptions and flashing, boos)

EXECUTIVE - Settle down please. SETTLE DOWN. Continue Graciles.

GRACILES SPEAKER - Yes we lose a lot in the early stages, but those who survive are of a much HIGHER QUALITY than the MEATBAGS being proposed by our opponent! Not only that but the concept rapidly becomes ridiculous when applied in large numbers across Races and Humanoid types! Will they have us produce a generation of buff Aeth? Bodybuilding Homon? To churn out a dull succession of barbarous oafs like a factory, well this, I would claim is Wyrm Talk!

(massive blinding flashes from all, several members ball into primary fear stance, huge boos)

EXECUTIVE - Graciles! Really! This is ill language for a Confusion. Very ill. That was a dire and uncalled for insult. I find you in contempt. We cannot have any more of this.

(Interruptions from the benches)

EXECUTIVE - Yes? Well, it seems we have a minority faction. You may speak.

DISTORTIONIST SPEAKER - Thank you Executive. We claim for our group in this Confusion, the name of Distortionists.

(Shock from all sides, claims of "radicals!" "radicals!")

EXECUTIVE - Silence please.

DISTORTIONIST SPEAKER - Thank you. We could not agree more fully with the Graciles. A uniform and singular approach would indeed be disastrous, and we would claim the House has already gone too far down this path..

(Interruptions, cries of "fetishists!")

EXECUTIVE - Now now. I will allow this Speaker for the Distortionists, I want to see where you are going with this, but I caution you, this better not devolve into another minority protest, I will not have the House logjammed by intrusive thoughts again.

DISTORTIONIST SPEAKER - Thank you executive. We desire only a greater diversity..

(Cries of "Liar" and "They want freaks!")

DISTORTIONIST SPEAKER - And what is wrong with that!? YES we want freaks! YES we want mutants! AND WHY NOT? For too long this Houses mediocre..

(MASS HISSING)

DISTORTIONIST SPEAKER - mediocre and narrow view of what a Hero can or should be has been allowed to limit and constrain our own INFINITE IMAGININATION. So yes! We do request, nay DEMAND that the bounds upon mass and muscle be not only relaxed, but ABANDONED COMPLETELY!!

(Objects thrown, blinding lights emitted.)

EXECUTIVE - Silence! Settle down I say!

(Distortionits begin group chanting; "We Want Freaks! We Want Freaks! We Want Freaks!" e.t.c.)

EXECUTIVE - Please! This is chaos! See this individual! Now please Distortionists, please. Here is a Lone Thought from your own side. Will you not please let them speak? Please?

DISTORTIONIST SPEAKER - We do not recognise this thought.

EXECUTIVE - Well they are here and they have a right to an opinion just as you. You there, speak up, yes you. What are you.

LONE THOUGHT - I.. thank you Executive. I.. I am here..

EXECUTIVE - It's alright. Take your time. Take your time. Silence the rest of you. Now please, what are you?

LONE THOUGHT - I WANT A RANDOM GENERATOR!!

(House descends into chaos)

---------------------------------------------

So ends the transcript, the Confusion becoming too violent for any final result to be recorded. As a compromise the Executive ultimately allowed full control over several aspects of mass to be altered at the point of creation by whatever aspect of the Founder was present at the time. Though I fear this has only knocked the problem further down the line without resolving anything.