5. THE TWO TWINS AND MOTHER

 

Fig. P5M4 

 

Fig. P5M5

Over the fallen wall, two giant forms make their way toward you. Each one is a set of conjoined twins. The first set is two torsos sharing one pair of legs. The second is a man with his back arched, walking on his hands and feet. His twin is a torso growing out of his stomach. It looks like the twin is riding his brother like an animal.

Each set of twins wields a metal staff that breaks into a small trident at the top. Each of them wears a cape. Even the one with the arched back. Their skin is like old, wet clay. Their teeth are a radioactive yellow hue.

"Telem! Fortunata! What have you there? Blessed ones?! They are chosen?! Praise to the glory of The Activation! It is the glittering spirit of the wind that guides us and protects us!"

The sets of twins break into a song in a language you don't understand. They stand there and sing at you for several minutes. You are a captive audience to their performance.

"Blessed ones," says Telem, "These are the twinses. They guide our journey. They are high priests of The Thrice Church and first lieutenants to Hood Prie, the great spiritual leader to us." Pointing to the twin stalks on two legs, "This Felix and Steven Pettycrow." Then gesturing to the other twins, the one seemingly riding the other, "This Rudy and Harlowe Blackball."

"Telem! Have they accepted The Veiled Activation as their God?" yells Rudy, the twin riding his brother.

"Yes! Father Rudy, they will be with us in The Thrice Church now! They have been touched by The Veiled Activation! They are ready to be baptized into The Thrice Church." He clangs together his hands above his head.

"Come with us, blessed ones," says Felix waving a beckoning hand. "It is the time of The Mother then."

 Fig. P5V1

4. THEY WERE AS POLISHED BRONZE GODS

Examining the Relics, by Todd James

 
Fig. P4M3

The closest man, who taunted you with his flint blade and strangled male genitalia, bleeds profusely from his screwdriver and tablet wounds. He's sobbing now, having dropped his knife. He's utterly defeated mentally.

The crowd of men around him are shouting at you. Some hit at Mickey, the two-headed mutant rat, Maulmuire, the mutated human, and Morn-Start, the convenience store android, with the base of their palms in a way that suggests they would strike at you to cause you pain, but instead are holding back using this technique which does no damage at all. The expression across all their faces is far from the jovial one from before. Now they look annoyed, agitated, angry. They look on the verge of tears. They grip their dick-and-balls pouches and knead them in worry.

The two men who were crushed against the stone of black glass with the Force Screen are curled in fetal positions at the base of the rock, bleeding, their bodies broken. They sob silently, their faces hidden as if hoping by not looking up they'll receive no more physical punishment.

A perplexed group of men in orange and green is gathered around Moses and Winter testing the boundaries of the Force Screen with quick strikes with the palms of their hands and then quickly retreating back several steps.

Two sharp, loud clangs of metal on metal ring out from the Northwest corner of the square. Two human figures stand their with their arms crossed over their heads (See Fig. P4M3). There is a man and a woman. Both are very tall, seven feet you would guess. They wear only the minimum clothing to cover their groins. Calf-high leather books are on their feet. They have brown, ceramic masks covering their faces with slits for their eyes. On the woman's mask are three diagonal white marks across the cheeks. On the man's mask are three vertical red marks. Their bodies are constructed only with powerful shapes of voluminous muscle. Their skin is deeply tanned from exposure and glistens from sweat under the sun. At the end of their forearms aren't hands. At the end of their right arm is a rough, metal globe, from which protrude three foot-long needles. Instead of the left hand there is a blade that splits into two pieces, one a curved hook, the other a long, serrated sword. Around their waists hang a several strands of steel cables. They look like bronze statues you didn't see before.

But then they move, striding toward you, through the ring of tubular cats who have dropped down again from their "S" poses. The cat tubes slither behind the two giants.

The men in orange and green who've noticed these new arrivals on the scene of conflict run toward them, excited and yelling to them. In a beseeching tone they say, "Gooba! Gooba! Vard puchasey nucks! Gooba! Vard puchasey nucks, Gooba!" And the men point back at you accusingly. They huff and squeeze their members and stamp on the ground.

As the two tall figures get closer, you see their gleaming bodies are covered with wormy scars over their chests, arms, and legs. Their hair is dark long strands.

The tall man steps to one of the men in orange and green and shoves his hook blade into his stomach impaling him, lifting him up, then kicking him off the blade.

The two tall humans walk toward your party.

Moses and Morn-Start perhaps?

3. ENTER THE FOUR-HEADED GOD

 

Fig. P1M3

The group of men in orange and green clothing in the town square—now numbering about two dozen— turn toward the figures emerging from the large building in the North. First a silvery android with cat-like features and clutching a slate tablet, steps out, followed by a two-headed ape-ish man carrying a two-headed rat on its back. The mens' laughter dies down to silence. Some, who still haven't noticed what's going on, are murmuring, bent over, as they pick through the bodies in the square.

In a soothing, yet synthetic voice, the android says, "Rejoice workers and companions hear Moses speak as we praise or New God reborn in this wasteland to bring us light, Bzzzt--rzip beep-lo fat meals!! This message has been brought to you by Morn-Start and is subsidiary's, Start your morning right, Morn-Start! Bzzzbleep!" The android, Morn-Start, puts one hand behind his back, hiding whatever it is he's carrying.

“Oh my faithful peasant worshipers, LISTEN TO YOUR GOD! Give us your attention or give us your LIFE! Tell us what has happened here in this town square! Tell us that this was not your doing! Tell us that this was not done in my name! TELL US!” yells one of the simian-esque heads.

“Worship! Attention! Life! My Name! Tell us! TELL US!” yells the other.

A mutant piranha, known as Moses, with a skull helmet on its head and holding a pale white bone like a scepter as well as a silvery blue metallic egg object, emerges and stands to the side of the two two-headed figures. "Your god has returned! Here, now, and in the flesh! OBEY him!" Moses croaks. "Tell the four-headed god what has happened here!" The teeth in his skull helmet rattle as the piranha gesticulates wildly with his bone. "And tell me, His high priest, what tribute do you offer?"

Aloft, the two-headed rat holds a red ring high over his head. The sun, behind a dull-brown haze, catches it and it glints in the air.

All is silent. An aching silence.

The men don't pay any attention to the tubular creatures with feline heads who now walk freely among them. The men in the square, their smiles collapse almost at the same time. They begin to look at one another, searching for guidance in the faces of their comrades. 

2. THE SHADOWS ADVANCE

 Soundtrack 2

A New Situation, by Todd James

As your party sifts through the wreckage of the town square, the site of some unknown carnage, there are parts of your mind you feel malfunctioning. Synapses are firing, memories stirring, but they are echos of water in a deep dark well and you can make no sense of it. The ringing in your ears grows louder when you try to focus on these specters of memories. Everything, the corpses, the buildings, the large stone of black glass, even the carcass on top of the stone, the others walking around, all of it is familiar. But who and what they are is on the other side of a chasm too far to cross.

In the relative silence of the scene comes an ear-splitting sound. You flinch in surprise. The sound is of metal snapping. As though a foot thick piece of iron was broken in half under pressure. That sound decays into a high-pitched whirring sound which in turn evolves into an almost a deeper, constant resonance of metal slowly cutting through metal. The sound's source is in the Northwest.

Fig. P2C1

 Post 2, Map 2

Winter Blackford, by Pete Conlon

Fig. P2M2

1. GLIMMERINGS IN THE DARKNESS

A Meeting, by Todd James

The darkness fades as the light from the sun glows behind your eyelids. You awaken. You sit up and are on the dusty ground. There is a sound in your head vibrating your skull, but you can’t tell if it’s ringing in your ears or if it’s external. Others are sitting like you, but most are lying down and their bodies are shredded. Some have their insides in piles next to their bodies. Some look like they’ve been turned inside out. Some look to have been flayed. Steam rises from them.

There are buildings on the edges of the town square made of gray clay or scrap metal. In the center of the square is a stone of black glass. It’s one meter tall and three meters on a side. On top of it is flesh, guts, hair, and bone, of some large, unrecognizable animal.

In the sky behind you a sand storm is receding. The storm clouds are iridescent. They shimmer in the sun when they move at certain angles.

All you remember is your name and who you are. Otherwise you remember nothing.

Morn Start the Android, by Todd James

Mickey, by Eric Gillin

Map 1