The Grand Tapestry

Saturday Game-

Something I had forgotten to mention about last session was that the Khem PC had begun to mutate, developing two pair of pronounced canines, [infravisual capacity,] and an unnatural thirst for blood. It is speculated that this transformation was triggered by exposure to the Aelbaan 'mummy dust' present in Delver's Void-craft.


I have been working with artists to bring the Vrun Players' Module to completion, and this has consumed most of February, with less time than I had hoped devoted to writing. I believe that March and April will be even lighter on posts here.


I was able to play in my setting for the first time in years, yesterday, and the game is looking very promising. :)


It looks as though J. will be hosting this weekend, and it would be the first session that M. would play at that venue.
--The recap should be up on or around Monday.

Best to you all,

Delver Denab, master of the 'black pearl' Void craft, and J.'s two characters (an Yirinn Command Caste, and a Khem Jack-of-all-Trades) were responsible (previous session) for piercing an alien colony on an airless hunk of rock in this strange planetary system, resulting in the deaths of uncounted creatures when a streamer of particulate Black Metal was sucked into the Void craft's wake on their way to said place. They had barely surveyed one exposed rail-trench when proximity warnings announced a massive and 50% luminal velocity object was rapidly approaching. Once they realised what had happened, Delver left a Void probe behind, and under duress from the Command Caste, sent out another probe to the highly elliptical orbiting world on the outskirts of the jumbled mess of the binary star system. As they returned to Kelune (the very deformed planetoid upon which live the Yirinn/Khem colonist civilisation, and the green mineral life), Delver toyed with his control over the craft and made an important discovery.

By turning the craft inside out, the 'pearl' instead became an observation room in some vast Void complex, and the observable universe became encapsulated within the volume of what used to constitute the craft. Merely by touching a point on the sphere, Delver was able to zoom-in on events transpiring, send probes to, and even fold space to instantly 'appear' at the distant location. One probe was sent intro the heart of the green mineral which comprised the planetoid, and revealed a macro-molecular biological enterprise, like a study of cellular function, in which currant-red, green-veined gelatinous brains sat in their own mitochondrial power generators and directed fabricated proto-cellular materials to form into organelles and the like as it all swam about in something like cytosine. Immediately, J.'s characters began fiddling with plans to destroy the green machine, and had the pearl's computer (now a mix of Ashta's personality and Delver's) perform several different permutation calculations and simulations, including transferring some of the green mineral to a gargantuan clone factory craft or structure they had found the previous session.

Meanwhile, Tyb and Ashta and the secondaries of Players M. and C. (on my sweetie's Birthday-eve) were chasing an Aelbaan around the System Ship fragment that had entered the CVE. The clock tower 'fight' was brief, and after two or three of Ashta's Mind Thrusts, their quarry was captured mostly alive. It was revealed that he was surgically altered to appear more Human, although still rather tall. One of the other occupants of the fragment, a young female, contacted Ashta again and provoked the PCs while she was telerelocating her kinsman to her person. Being a Telerelocator as well, Ashta grabbed ahold of him and prevented his departure while gaining a clear understanding of his intended destination. CiCi had dumped all of her DP into her zen-mace, and pressed down on the scintillating immaterial fellow, and Darius, too, used his magic mace (or is it a hammer?) to remain in contact with the guy before Ashta masterfully allowed the transport to occur and the lot of them were relocated to the seraglio in which the young Aelbaaness luxuriated with her ten handmaidens (chained in groups of five to bracelets she wore).

This next bit gets weird.

Darius and CiCi were both dominated by the powerful psionic and instantly perceived the world as one in which everyone was a mannequin, including themselves. Through an exact event which escapes me now, CiCi was able to take a more proactive role in this altered reality, and her mace attack sundered the chest of the Aelbaan mannequin, revealing a field of stars within the hollow cavity. Darius reached within and sought to grasp stars in his hand, but found himself attracted to a particular point of light, and CiCi her own. She then found herself hurtling through space towards the star, and hoped to use her Void-blood powers to 'absorb and diffuse' the energy. As CiCi neared the sidereal object, it became clear to her that it was a mass of writhing and battling titans, each the size of our Luna, battling their counterparts in the Positive/Negative Lightning dynamic. Her approach was partnered by her Patron, Mistress Abyss, who seemed intrigued by the woman's notion: 'What a lovely notion' or something to that effect was her Patron's reply to the Absorb/Diffuse plan.

CiCi neared and gained the attention of the titans before she, with fully-charged (as in her entire DP total was placed in the) mace extended before her, crashed into their mass. Passing through the outer shell of titans, CiCi then was overcome by the intense energy in the star's core...

In a location previously hinted at in others visions of alternate and quantum realities/timelines, CiCi found herself flying very near by a stupendously gargantuan, gleaming, gold-kissed white palace on a scale that crushed her ego, and yet for all its beauty and splendour, took her to the heights of glory.

"What is your aim?" Came a voice that seemed larger than even the palace from whence it emanated.

CiCi explained why she sought to extinguish the star, thinking it would free her from the Mannequin reality. She was informed by the lovingly-friendly and hope-inspiring voice that the two events bore little relation to each other. 'Who are you', she asked.

"Look upon your original face, and you shall know me."

(CiCi's Player is the Buddhist of the group, so I hoped that this would resonate with him)

CiCi acquiesced to contemplation rather than striving, and emerged from the domination to find time had slightly re-wound allowing her to attack in reality, seriously wounding the Aelbaan dominatrix. Darius, was then freed, and used his Gravitix to drag the woman closer and get in his own licks with the magical melee weapon. Finally, Ashta delivered the coup de grace and pulled the bracelets off, contemplating what she ought do with the ladies attached (and now KO'd). CiCi gained a Magnitude, gained a Fight Die, and increased one Ability score for the enlightenment she received.

Back to Delver and the Void pearl.

One of the alternate realities they had seen was of the Yirinn Command caste character addressing a LARGE audience in a strange and very martial setting, akin to the scene in Lynch's DUNE where Paul is addressing the Fremen in the vast hall.

With the group reunited, plans to transport the entire population to the far-orbit world were presented, and proof of the validity of Void travel demonstrated. In time, the entire youth corps of astronauts (thousands) were addressed by the Yirinn. J. burned 16 DP to roll 4d6 in addition to his 2d12 action roll, and achieved a very impressive 40-something.

Reality altered to the timeline in the vision, with many more, and much more martially-inclined astronauts raising their fists in wild assent to his exhortation.


We held it there.

While half of the group was on their way to the game, I ran with the other two.

Team Black (Pearl) sensed an alien craft and followed it into an anomaly that lead somewhere else entirely. Surviving that non-encounter, they then floored it for the nearer of destinations in the curious system, and in the process, devastated an asteroid base that was possibly still inhabited.

The Primary characters left with natives of Kelune upon their experimental craft, and explored what appears to be a portion of the Aelbaan System Ship, and decided to track the previous user of a telerelocation utility.

Then it was quitting time and we held it there.

I was thinking of all of the adventures I can remember gaming on Urutsk, as well as fiction I have written for it, and came up with these locations and time periods:

The Marnharnnan Continent: From the Fall of the Ancients, through the Vrun Colonial period, and the years of play in Latter Autumn, and into the surrealistic dark-fantasy of the Winter Era.

The Vrun Continent: Pre-history, Spring Era, Summer, Autumn, and bits of Winter (7,000 years of history). From the Crystal Pyramid through hunter-gatherers; from the standard fare of 'mediaeval fantasy' through Sci-Fantasy of the war against the Aelbaan; Late Summer and Early Autumn's mass-warfare campaigns, cults, disease and famine; The Humanoid and Frontier Campaigns; the pseudo Napoleonic gatling-gun and cannon period of Consolidation; the rise of the Vrun Continental Authority and highlights of the First Tyrrhean War with its necroborgs and gas-masked cavalry sorties; Latter Autumn's Second Tyrrhean War and the urban malaise of capitulation to the People's Automatic Union; all the way into Winter's madness and desperate subterranean scramble.

The Black Crown / Marnharnnan Yirinn Empire of Bereme Oykh: Autumn and the Departure, and Winter's Discontent.

The Chaos Isles: Scattered incidents throughout Autumn.

Tuliri / Lhoman Border region: Late Summer and throughout the Autumn Era, especially during the Second Tyrrhean War. Hours and hours of miniatures wargaming took place in this region, as well as a religious insurgency on the Tuliri side of the border. Martial Arts action, Pulp adventure involving serpent men, and the rise of an Immortal.

The Durn Continent: Early Autumn's visitation by the contemporary Playtest Party as well as a one-off with a Big Game Hunter, his trusty sidekick, and a powerful Durn Holy Warrior versus Guild Council slavers; Latter Autumn's challenge to modernise, and the Durn Maximist Covenant's polite refusal of the PAU's invitation.

All of the above is but a small percentage of the total gaming done in the milieu, and fails to touch upon the exploration and colonisation of Aqmlk, the Red Planet, and its latter eras; the entire span of the Space Age with its Hyperspace Shunt Network and Dragon Wars; Alien worlds crawling with unspeakable horrors and confounding alien technology; and the actual Sphere of Stars built around the galactic core; and other bits and bobs throughout these past 26+ years of my cultivating this wild and wending garden.

What adventures will you have here?

New batch of the bug.
--This one was nipped in the bud with a shot of Lysol, Airborne, and a Zycam Swab. Now it is just fatigue and occasional headaches.

I forgot to mention this last time: Both Officer Max Rockatansky, and Lt. S. D. Bob Plissken are aboard the Aelbaan shuttle and have a gaggle of semi-feral kids native to the Aelbaan Starship as their wards. These two are along for the ride, and have felt suitably upstaged by the PCs.
--This is the second time that the duo have appeared in one of my games.

After the Khem's tele-experiences on the planet, the Yirinn character who had been gifted with a Black Metal alloy seven-bulbed lamp-stand (decorated to appear as a braid of roses) lit the oil reservoir with Elemental Fire. This produced softly writhing fractal shadows that fell in a circular pattern around the device.
--With this effect, the Aelbaan Starship changed attitude and began to alter its course as almost palpable Shadow Plannar effects could be felt by Tyb.

The Aelbaan who had occupied one of the System Ships (in which the shuttle the PCs are occupying is located) began to launch the System Ship. The System Ship then re-entered 'normal space', which was anything but, and the craft began to shake and shudder as its relativistic velocity and the wrinkle in timespace they were immediately caught in did not mix well.
--The Aelbaan informed the PCs that they needed to jettison roughly the same mass as the loaded shuttle to act as an explosive charge in their attempt to break out of the rut of the rolling space fold. Quick calculations by the PCs suggested that they would fail.

I'd like to explain more, but the blog is a poor substitute for the detailed information contained in the forthcoming Vrun Players' Module product.

The Party bickered a bit, but ultimately, the shuttle was jettisoned and sucked directly into the Charged Vacuum Emboitment. This was no surprise to the Khem, whose ancestor had heard that the other colonists had experienced the same event which led to their finding the curious planetary system.
--Debris started to cling to the shuttle's hull as Ashta saw a swirling multitude of possible timelines and past/future events.

Players had to leave early for various reasons (a date, and us fetching C.'s and M.'s sister at work), and so we called it there.

Last week I was ill and there was no session.

Previous session amounted to the group having a combat that they won in perhaps 3 Rounds (I can't roll Initiative for my NPCs to save their lives), which then granted the whole kit and caboodle of them (including the Blue Tree and the Humanoids) to gain the system-ship's shuttle.
--Ashta took control of the shuttle's escape pod, to make up for the loss of 'the pearl' that had been converted to Void and subsequently piloted by Delver Denab.

Thursday I spoke with one of my Players who is newer to the group, and who, although possessing two characters roughly on par statistically with the rest of the veteran PCs, is behind the curve as far as raw weirdness and power. We talked out a few of his Khem fencer/bodyguard's off-screen activities, and that opened up a few pertinent facts about the path the Aelbaan starship is taking, and why that is likely inimical to their continued existence.

The character was gifted by the Santa-soldier with a sort of glass harmonica which evoked a genetic memory of an ancestor upon a human starship, who narrowly escaped to a habitable (and inhabited) planet.
--We discussed how the differences between the ancestor and the descendant blurred even on the causal level, and that concerns about 'simply repeating the ancestors actions' proved unimportant as the actions the character in the present would want to undertake are the actions the ancestor apparently did take. More than simple glimpses of scattered ancestral memories, the Khem is experiencing an entirely different life at a rate of days and weeks on the planet to hours on the constantly accelerating starship.

I wonder if I'll have enough time to one day write the secrets of the Khemesh origins?

Well, folks, 2011 is off and running, and promises to be very interesting in the proverbial Chinese manner: Bird kills, religious posts engendering i-net kerfluffles, Florida Atlantic University being the first university (at least in the State) to ban Smoking anywhere on campus (including one's automobile -- which in Florida is considered legally part of one's home wherever one may be in it), and Miami hosting the first (officially) US-deployed surveillance drone. Yay! I'm so happy, can't you tell?

Still, I'll get those lovely photos of Jeff Berry's truly awe-inspiring collection of minis, the costumes they have produced, as well as recounting the events and meetings with personages of import that transpired while C. and I were there in the land of snow and ice.

For those of you in a tiff over my posting TaNaKh on my blog, I urge you to move on. It's bound to happen again, as will my posts on mysticism, and even human nature. I can assure all, however, that my usually droll adventure recounts and other miscellany will dominate the content, and I think that if everyone is fair in their assaying, I usually am personal-content-free (apart from the posts while my father was dying). I cannot say the same for other vetted blogs out in the OSR, but then again, their controversies swirl around die-types and edition flames, or the applicability of percentile thieving skills. Meh, to each their own, I suppose.

So... I'm off to the grooming station before I open the apartment door to my weekly gaming crew (a mixed lot of Atheists, Buddhists, Catholics, and Jews :: Wait, that sounds like the beginning of a joke...) where we plan on resolving the Party's immediate concerns of escape from the course-locked Aelbaan starship and the possibility of returning home to

URUTSK: World of Mystery.

tschüß

:: Longish, but fun ::

Having utilised the Void bubble to pierce the Aether-effect Force Fields protecting the System Ship Bay, Tyb had Ashta pass through as well. While in transit, she saw the suit of armour she had been wearing in alternate realities as Xholte, the Death Goddess, and touched it. When she appeared in the bay, she was wearing the armour (+3 Defence, 2d6 Armour || -3 AC bonus, -1d4 per Attack in AD&D terms). Tyb was surprised, having seen those alternate time streams, and noticed that she had been gone for slightly longer than normal. Tyb's Player made a comment about Ashta having received some Christmas goodness, and then decided to fiddle about in the Void bubble and grasped coniferous tree branches. At this point, the players began to smile and make their 'guesses' as to what was happening.
--Tyb passed back through the bubble, holding onto the branches as he went, and occasionally felt fur somehow intermingled with the pines. He emerged to a snowscape forest with sleigh tracks leading off in the distance to where a curious looking vehicle (minus the pulling animals) and a man wearing glossy red armour and shiny black leather boots stood ready to kick the sled.

Tyb then slid towards the shadows cast by the vehicle and man, and listened in as the fellow in the red armour was becoming increasingly flustered about his tight schedule. Other voices, over a comm unit, could be heard: I took the opportunity to include Cheech and Chong, Elf 232, and 'Rudy' as part of the sleigh-driver's network of very well informed and dimensionally-savvy remote crew.
--It seems a Void-effect passed through the sled and vaporised an entire circuit board. Imagine that.

The gang fixed it and as a test of the vehicle's repair, the fabricator produced gifts. Ahni (Tyb's eldest daughter) and the Dryvv battle maidens he carries in his shadow emerged, and Ahni was the first to open a present, while the man in the glossy red armour stood by. She opened it and was amazed at what lay within, but quickly grew half-sullen. It appears that her gift was something called, 'Good Intentions', which began to work a change in the otherwise ... salty nature of the Vae-girl. One of the Dryvv maidens opened hers and was confused by the three lumps of coal she received.
--Nick, the man in the armour, warned Tyb, Ashta, Ahni, and the maids that they were on the naughty list, and that the longer Ashta wore her new armour, the naughtier she got. Ahni seemed genuinely distraught about the change she was undergoing, and the coal girl seemed to treasure the gift although she, too, was a bit puzzled by it all.

With the sleigh repaired, the skids retracted and he admonished them again before tearing off into the sky and disappeared in a flash of glitter.

Presents were brought back through and we handed them out to the entire stable of PCs. Nyqolas' was a peppermint-flavoured mercury-looking potion that sped him up to the point that everyone else was frozen in time, and even the passing proto-stellar matter outside the ship was slowed a tad. He used the time dilation to go to the bug-hive and kill as many of them as he could reach in the very large cubic chamber filled with multi-tier jungle.

Osyl was gifted with Turkish Delight by a frosty looking woman who contacted Ahni as she was leaving the snowy forest scene (with lamp post and a pair of cloven hoof marks in the snow) ;D Lady Arctise was able to contact Osyl when she ate the sweets, and the Lady urged her to make certain to take the upcoming planetary-system detour.

The Khem PC's gift was a peculiar circular 'harmonica' that seemed to trigger genetic memories of a Human starship's destruction, and his ancestor's last-second travel to an inhabited world with that man's mate.

--After much bickering about their actual plan and how to carry it out, the System Ship was once again being explored -- this time by the Black Pearl's Void probe. An Aelbaan couple spotted the probe (which looks like a coal-black disc at any PoV), and these two activated the psychic alarm, and power on the main bridge (where everyone else was) began to shut down.

Delver began searching for a large enough interior space in the System Ship for him to pull the Black Pearl through the probe, because it seemed as though the Aelbaan were preparing to at least isolate it from the rest of the ship.
--The best calculations predict that there will be no planets in range for 3 months, ship-time.

HappyMerry folks. :D

Attempts to reach a System Ship within a launch bay proved difficult, not only due to the Seeder Ship's odd (re)arrangement of any given section of the ship (each internal section like a cargo container), gaps in the line, but also the fact that a mess of Aelbaan have taken that particular launch bay.
--Delver helped Tyb to cross through the Aether-based Force Field (using Black Pearl's Void-Effect stuff) and we held that portion there.

They also determined that the ship's trajectory was Coreward; had already travelled an enormous distance into the galaxy from the Rim; and the ship's fuel supply is condensed dreamstuff. As the Aelbaan are not a sleeping species, they also do not dream (without Tiape, the Dreaming Blend -- courtesy of Brian Penn), but instead abduct and raise dreaming species aboard their craft for the purpose of cultivating the dreamstuff.
--Kitsune entered the consensual reality of the Aelbaan Psychic Network, and found that it was piggybacking off of a much larger system network operated by an Aelbaan-like species, but much stouter and perhaps more removed from Human concerns. The individual encountered was, "watching for Dragons and Shorrannin Hive Ships.", and was too busy to really aid her except to warn Kitsune she was in danger.

Indeed, more 'bug' warriors appeared in an explosion of Smoke, accompanied by six 14Fight Die (14HD) beetles the size of small delivery trucks. Nyqolas entered into melee and was horribly abused, being literally squashed by the bug for oodles of damage. He had to rely upon aid from Prince Lucent to regain enough wherewithal to reach the gravitic field Darius was using to keep Qaya's corrosive Smoke-magick in place as an active deterrent.
--Once Delver's lighting arm device and Osyl's use of the subterranean repilmalian lightning crystal were brought to bear, the bugs started to die in satisfyingly explosive ways --save a warrior that managed to disappear elsewhere on the bridge levels.

The foretold Black Moon has risen, and it is the Pearl, changing from Aether-aligned to Void-aligned. The attempt to change it to anything but Void resulted in a Water-alignment, and Pearl was about to become Princess Wave's new toy, but it was reverted to Void and was piloted by Delver Denab (Ashta being unable to utilise its Void-tech).

[The Governors of Doran (Tyb and Ashta) have been ousted, and the Kherstic League has taken control of the island nation it purchased from the WICE only a year or two earlier.]

Aberrants, Dokirin warriors and shaman, and Humanoids, as well as the Blue Tree, were all pulled along into the Void, and Delver took the craft up to the Aelbaan starship in orbit in the High Aether. Being Aether-based tech, the Void craft was undetected by passive sensors, and allowed the Black Pearl and all of her occupants to become noncorporeal and slide through both Force Field and Hull. As undead, the crew and fighters acted to take control of the main bridge, and in three Turns (30 minutes) had secured that second-most important position on the ship. However, before the last Aelbaan collapsed from Vampiric fields, he was able to launch the craft on a predetermined emergency course.
--As soon as the more powerful Aether-effect drives initiated, the Black Pearl and her crew/etc. became corporeal and were taken along for the superluminal flight out of the Av system, and already unknown stars distant.

As I am busily writing and mapping for the Black Blade Publishing adventure I am co-writing with Rob Kuntz, I'll have to make this briefer than usual.

The Primary Characters are realising that their past has caught up with them in many ways: Lord Worm has challenged Tyb to a personal battle to restore his tarnished honour at Tyb's re-absconding his Vae daughters from the Black Citadel. Ashta's refusal to undergo full gene-thereapy to fully awaken her Aelbaan ancestry, as well as her continued operation of the Pearl (escape pod) has antagonised them further. Delver Denab, having managed to escape the miles-long Aelbaan ship in orbit (and in the high Aether) with a half-feral human raised on the ship, barely survived a drone fighter attack and landed on Baroness Averdyn's estate, whereupon the drone dis-integrated and tele-relocated the escape pod the two came down in.
--Meanwhile, travelling at Mach 2.75 across the Storm Ocean towards the Western Isles to fetch Delver, Ashta and Darius drew the concern of the WICE long-range defence network which fired upon them and alerted the Home-Isles of the rapidly encroaching threat. This resulted in Pearl shattering a Glass barrier erected as a safeguard, as well as the deployment of Jump Troopers throughout the metro Yovend area in an attempt to slow the attackers pending the 'heavy gear' being brought to bear.

There was no Mutants of Marnharnna game this Friday, as two players were unavailable.

However, C., my girlfriend, and I played a bit both Friday and Saturday in her Baroness Averdyn solo-game.
--(The pace of the assembly, fitting the refinements in alongside complete revision, clarification, and organic development of the character's background, baseline attitudes, ambitions, etc. -- It is so conducive to a nice dynamic interplay between Top-down and Bottom-up building on a neighbourhood/borough-level.)

We've sorted out that she was not raised at the Park Estate in the centre of Old Yovend (not to be confused with the Yoven Garrison in OLD Yovend), rather, she was raised on the North Coast of Byrtheq. Her upbringing in her youth was pastoral in her wanderings, and the crash of the waves on the 'Bloody Coast' upon the sheer cliffs that overlooked the quarantined isles of the Savage Folk. They are forest dwellers who never succumbed to the Continental Empire, nor the soft words of their Isle brethren in joining them in the Bronze, and Vurenym-Alloy Ages.
--It was in this instalment that she learnt that her character, the Baroness Vanya Averdyn, is derived from this stock admixed with diluted Aelbaan blood.

Her time spent at the inherited Winter Home was yearly in her youth, and occasional when she moved to Yovend to attend Academy, where she studied the Essentials, and favoured Art Theory, and Art History. She had two friends, both male, throughout school. One, a Law Student from modest means, the other a minor noble from Lhoma. It is from her Lhoman friend that she mastered fencing methods unorthodox to the West, such as parrying and disarming with the held scabbard.
--At academy, and later throughout life, Vanya was challenged by 'The Duchess' (later reduced to the non-aristocratic honour of Baronetess [Btss.] after her husband, a Duke, was stripped of his Admiralty and executed as a traitor for conspiring with Humanoids) Byniir Aeryx, a (perhaps) full-Aelbaan woman at least 20 if not 50 years Vanya's senior, although she appear younger than the Baroness.

The gristly murder of a young woman upon the Estate was the first mystery, but in the course of play, others have surfaced at nearly every turn:

* The Estate was built as an internal and external façade which covers an ancient fort, possibly of Latter Qhattanian provenance, explaining the odd layout of the Estate and her childhood memories of secret hiding places she couldn't later find in the floorplans.

* Silt-aligned Humanoid creatures with a mane of writhing earthworms have been at run within the 'false walls' of the Estate for an unknown period of time. They are able to dissolve into Silt, and even this stuff then steams and sparks away into nothing.

* The current ground and street level of Yovend is at least 30' higher than the foundation of the fort, and the hills in the landscaping may all be barrow mounds (Isles of the Dead, when the floods came)

* What's more is that Vanya just discovered that at least one of the sites is Qobryn, and that a teleportation framework was in place throughout linked locations she has no geographic marker for, although she is aware of facing in different directions when she stepped into a new location's chamber. One was active, with cooking fires in a cave formation, another was a grotto with light shining up through crystal clear water, upon which a dinghy is moored, while the third location was a king's throne/burial room, but the skeletal figure is pierced by what appears his own broadsword.

* A malfunction in the T-Frame kept her pattern in the buffer for 10 months before reconstituting her. She found her way back to the chamber panelled in the Qobryn yellow-orange alloy they were/are renowned for, and accidentally activated some sort of energy column that burnt a hole through the ship timbers that had been used to seal up the site from whence she had disappeared after descending by line into the underground chamber.

* In the intervening ten months time, her rival, the 'Duchess' Aeryx had approached Vanya's lawyer friend about running the charity and sweets shoppes in the Baroness' absence. All of the money could be accounted for, and an increase in profit was seen for the four+ months the business had been back in operation.

* Wireless Telegraphony in the Estate has increased with Karl's (the ghillie) anxious search for sign or word of his Lady, and his having scoured his stable of Sig-friends from around the globe via telegraphonic rumour and library sites. More vacuum-tube aethertronic technology has been invested from the weathered man's income, and a harmonic attack by him seemed to 'muck-out' the Silt humanoids as their resonance frequencies became disrupted.

* The young lad (likely the son of the murdered woman) had been remanded into the State's custody, although as soon as Vanya heard this, she moved to foster him. Her lawyer friend found this an easy task to accomplish.

* Hints of conspiracy with the Constabulary now lead Vanya to a meeting with the Department Head of the Omniprecinctual Yovend Metropolitan Constabulary, who claims to have been good friends with her uncle (and fellow Astronomer's Lodge member).

...and other stuff. :D

Without going into excruciating detail, the party confronted the apparent demon, moved down an Ancient corridor beneath House Ahzenbakh (Tyb in 2D Shadow-form throught the rest of the battle), Ashta fought the unseen baddie in Psychic combat (doing a good chunk of its DP total), the rest fought skeletal mooks, and then were confronted with a fairly wimpy Shorrannin which was slain.

Ashta psych-blasted it one last time and tore through its non-mind only to reveal thousands of its Hive-siblings suddenly looking back at her. Its carcass self-destructed injuring everyone, especially Skelk and Rhur who were not in sealed e-shealth Scout suits, and then the tesseract labyrinth began to collapse in upon itself.

The party not only managed to escape, but saved the KO'd cavorters and pre-sacrificial kids, but lady Miren, with implicit authority from the Governors, killed her sorceress mother, Dame Diem. The Governors asked Miren for (and were granted) permission to take over the mansion so as to better safeguard the site, as it was still extra-dimensionally unstable.

End of that adventure.

Beginning of next adventure:

The Aelbaan Sphere, having been nearly destroyed by fighters launched from the cloaked ship in orbit, had been repairing itself and hadn't been able to assist Ashta since they'd entered the sea cave. It asked to be transported to the Shadow Plane where it wouldn't be fighting gravity to repair its various micro-fissures. Tyb couldn't do it alone and went off in search of assistance, meeting the Shlzm. This group describes an army of human worshippers of a demon-god raiding their underground realm, and secures the aid of the party in exchange for their Shadow-transport of the Sphere.

He also meets a very loony Dryvv woman named Kyllia who is essentially a historical quasi-goddess who offers a number of her handmaidens to accompany Tyb in his future raid of the Aelbaan starship (in exchange for a drop of Ahni's [and by extension, Tyb's] blood). Kyllia is whispering into her slumbering Grand-(or great-grand-)-father's ear about wanting to have possession of (one of) Tyb's timelines. Tyb is given an inky copy of the Myth of Power, the mythified history of the pre-Dryvv, proto-Dryvv, and Dryvv peoples. It can be manifest as a regular tome, or can be 'read' in his mind's eye as a (searchable) running film narrative of the contents.

Ashta, Mela, and Tyb confer and determine that the demon was in fact a psionic delusion/illusion generated by the Shorrannin. And also that the Aelbaan are aware of their possible defeat at the hands of the party, and are moving against them, fearing that Ashta and Tyb will learn to unify their power. This is then vaguely set against the background of the Dryvv' interest in Tyb's timeline, and his metacosmic relation to another character of his from my Pathfinderish off-the-rails game that preceded my running UWoM for them.

The party are now in the Endgame of followers, land holdings, and approaching lord/dameship.

Fight on! :)

Before starting the session, we hammered out Tybylt's particular sort of magic, which, at this point is still derived from canned sources, namely the 3.5 Shadow Magics, and the Warlock, but will eventually be drawn entirely from the native Urutsk 'constructive magic' rules. I've been too diffuse already to dedicate time to the magic system, and I am unwilling to write up a bunch of canned spells -- the Retros and Simulcs do that job well, as does the above edition -- but it just isn't my vision of magic, and hasn't been for decades.

After that, I had Ashta spend some of her free Adventure Points on purchasing competency in the Aelbaan Technology she has become increasingly exposed to and comfortable with, due to her partial Aelbaan ancestry (Western Isles Vrun).

I rolled my trusty d12 about a dozen times to divine a loose line of internal inquiry, in which I determined a future encounter that 'made sense' given the current situation, as well as the main point, namely, to introduce more stuff/tech for the PCs to have the opportunity to procure/purchase/trade-for, etc.

My d12 methodology is ubiquitous:

* Frequency/Intensity/Proximity of Encounters (in the extant Referee's Manual .pdf)

* Clock-overlay directions ('I've got your 6', man, now advance up to that cover and survey our 10 o' clock.') I extend this to geographic scale to determine the general continental region, and then use refinements of these rolls to determine exact origin not only at the governmental/national, etc. level, but even districts, quarters, and so forth.
--Don't mistake my organic Top-Downism for Non-Oracularism. ;)

* Intensity of Reactions, etc.

* Quality of goods, etc.

* etc.

My SO and her brother were regarding my mostly silent, unwritten die-rolling burst, and then I recapped what had happened the session prior.

While many moments in the play were notable, I will condense further, as there is so much to cover (we wrapped a bit after 1 AM, having played for at least seven hours).

* The Aelbaan sphere was utilised to assist the friendly ground forces, until a missile attack was partially deflected by Tyb, using the Wand of Plant Control, and partly due to the geometry of the craft. The payload was some sort of alchemical viscous fluid that appeared to possess both corrosive and electrical properties (in fact it is a Plasmatic Acid payload, aboard a small cruise missile).
--Using the sensors, a flight path was reverse-projected, and the firing craft, a sailing vessel about a mile offshore, was identified and set after. Much futzing about resulting in that ship going down, but only after the Humanoid crew (4) who were overseeing a literal skeleton crew (16) gave the party a bit of trouble, including the Humanoid captain using a beefier version of the Jaunt-type spell trying to scuttle his ship so as to prevent its weapon from being captured.

* Back over the island, the initial resistance by the pirates was crushed, but only at the cost of most of the local ships (including the WICE Misty Sea), and heavy loss of life. Her captain, Qeurryk, lost his left arm and foot, but was saved alive.

* Dealing with the wounded. Dealing in a cultural context with the need to dispose of the dead. During this time, as captives are being centralised, it becomes apparent that a large number of the pirates are unaccounted for.

* Accusations of individuals harbouring the pirates begins to erupt into street 'justice', and in the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation trial, dozens of names are brought up, but between eyewitnesses and sphere/probe sensor logs, fifty percent of those in question are cleared of wrongdoing, while a new thirty percent were proven to be guilty, mainly upwardly-mobile businessmen and noble houses.
--The second trial results in Tybylt's executive decision to draw and quarter by horse those found guilty of the greatest offences. Three are killed before two are ready to spill the names of fellow traitors. The entire merry Tea-Time Magical group, and all but one member of House Ahzenbakh, including the Ahzenbakh kennel master, are directly implicated. Tybylt does nothing yet to alert them of his knowledge of their treachery. At the same time, the two final to be d/q'd are instead stripped of 90% of their wealth, and exiled. Private individuals who, out of humanitarian drive, provided shelter to individual pirates (as in the case of three boys who served with the pirates) were never brought to trial.

* As a prison is being constructed, it is determined that up to 20% of the prisoners are Humanoids, and Tybylt decides to keep their number separated, and refuses to bring them to swift execution (as is the way across most of Urutsk, especially if the Humanoids have attacked a Human population centre). Instead, he has a second facility built for them, and begins to investigate the connection between the Humanoids and the pirates. This exposes the contract-work the very organised (and strangely 'civilised' [the religious leader claims to be a starship captain, and possess a following of over 250,000 of his Abbekqorru kinfolk, apart from being a Class III Phaser technician]) Humanoids had with the pirate network. A hinted-at number of agents of his are somehow able to blend in with the Human population (the Half-Abbekqorru's Humanesque ability to shape-shift, like a jackalwere).

* Salvaging sunken cargo, etc. underway with Ashta, Qeurryk, and another highly Aelbaanesque WI Vrun, Yan Tsurmen, utilising the Aelbaan sphere's TK abilities to greatly speed up and make safer the operation. Six days and all of the PMH containers are centralised for Doran's arsenal. Ashta finally bunks down after sleep deprivation begins to catch up with her.
--Instantly she is whisked away by some unknown force and brought up through the atmosphere to an Aelbaan ship that de-cloaks as she is brought inside and thoroughly interrogated as to the whereabouts of Delver Denab. She overhears that while his sheath (cadaver) had been handed over to them (see the post regarding the underground Dryvv ship sections, etc.), they cannot account for the whereabouts of his spirit. As she is being returned, one of the congress slips something into her mind/brain and she has to deal with that.

* Negotiations with the Abbekqorru leader results in his being allowed to speak freely with his leaders of hundreds and tens, dressed in full armour and weapons, and he informs his people that they are now under contract with the Governors of Doran. Plans to utilised one thousand of them for tunnel-clearing operations (to flush-out the remaining pirates) are initiated.

* Ashta struggles with the news that her prefrontal lobe is being altered by an Aelbaan protein so as to develop her latent Psionic powers (the Aelbaan are powerful psionics). She eventually chooses to have it removed and go back to being herself rather than risk being brought 'into the fold' against her choice. The operation is performed by the Abbekqorru, and assisted by Mela, but the ship, now an extension of Ashta, merely trimmed the protein chain so to, in a hypothetical future, allow Ashta to willingly activate Telekinesis.
--I explain that, in effect, Ashta can now control the craft without much in the way of conscious thought.

We held it there.

Ymyk used the mechanical bow taken from the Xarj' corpse that Tybylt had fetched after his hideous near-petrification event last session. Although his physical strength isn't high, Ymyk has the equivalent to the GW mutation 'Heightened Strength', which adds a flat +3d6 to all melee damage he does. I have also allowed him, at times, to simply add 3d6 to his various prowess-related rolls to simulate the idea of his great strength. Anywho, this bow adds an additional 3d6, an the javelin-like projectiles do 1d10 each, for a whopping 6d6+1d10 (07 | 26.5 | 46) points of damage. This proved instrumental in the upcoming fight with these things.

Tybylt decided to investigate a malign-looking metal torch the party had picked up earlier in the weird complex (in a vast jungle, under lavender skies) and discovered that its operation required the immersion of the crown in blood. With handy fallen baddies nearby, and after a bit of jumping up and down on the cadavers, said blood was procured and the item (after the undisclosed command word was uttered) spouted a blood-red flame in which the writhing souls of the deceased could bee seen. This fell arcane light was shed to 30' and looked like rivulets of blood in water, and proved effective in countering the effects of The Void in which the citadel was located (behind the mean/nasty door that had led Tyb to the petrification trap he only narrowly escaped).
--Armed with this, the group left their +/- Lightning followers behind, and moved on to retrieve Tybylt's two fey daughters. Coming to one of the many portculli in the citadel's wall, they looked through and saw Khark and Kaukara humans dressed in very little clothing going about their business. I made it clear that this was a caste society, and that many of the porters showed signs of early and frequent flogging; their backs carven with scourge scars.

The party, stealthy as ever, lasso the lever and let themselves in, at which point, one said slave backs away without drawing attention to anyone else, namely the four-armed 12-15'-tall critters. Sadly, that didn't last, as one of the creatures spotted them and moved forward to investigate/hold the choke-point. I rolled for CiCi's behaviour and she lobbed an alchemical firebomb at it and scored a direct hit, but the spatter caught a noble-woman's gossamer 'dress' alight and surprise was utterly lost.
--Although there were four of these creatures, and each had 4 attacks per Round, I was not rolling well, and the party was, and the four were quickly neutralised.
---Horns were sounded throughout the citadel.

Spellcasters cast at the party and Mela was bedazzled by the pretty blue lightning bugs she saw, and was out of commission for three or so Rounds. During all of the fighting, Ashta had pressed on, always looking for a fight, while everyone else was still controlling the gateway of the portcullis, being badasses.
--A glittering whirlwind of chert and gypsum shards would have made short work of Tybylt, but we rolled off to see if his Shield spell was effective, and his player won that Round. His action was to grab the female caster's imp or whatever (that was the one actually casting the spell) and fling it away, upon which time Ymyk shot and slew it.

A shield wall of heavy infantry blocked off the street they were nearest and poked poisoned spears through the wall for added effect.
--A Round or two later, a 'rhino-rider' smashed through the shield wall and used his flaming segmented sword to attack the force-field enshrouded Darius, who took about 30 points, but transmitted about twelve electrical back along the weapon and ticked the rider off. More importantly, Tybylt cast Sleep on the steed and it took a nap, but the rider was able to jump off without getting pinned under it. He didn't last too long: First a Bleeding (Condition Three) leg wound, then enough wallop to KO him.

The party again asked for the two fae-girls, and a few minutes later, down the two streets that hug the citadel's walls, came two litters preceded by scribes and virgins carrying bowls of lit incense, and made their way to the area in which the party had entered, and stayed (hoping to demonstrate that they were not invaders, but merely interested in collecting what was theirs).
--Each street procession was attended by a temple representative carried upon a litter. On the right was a bald man with a bright red chevron painted upon each side of his head and wearing a necklace of large gilded wooden links. He was accompanied by an Undead man thickly covered in aromatic resin. This individual (clearly a reasoning being) acted as the priest's representative and addressed Tybylt, asking him to accompany them back to the temple for a feast. At roughly the same time, down the left street came a reddish-brown haired woman wearing a solid (green) jade torc. She was represented by a perfectly symmetrical and flawlessly beautiful nude woman. Tybylt was forced to attempt a Control (Spells) Critical Test (due to her unearthly beauty and the lust it provoked) and just succeeded.
---The Undead and this Symmetrical Woman both spoke via some sort of translating magic, and both spoke of their patron's respective temple (The Devouring Worm, and The Golden Goddess), and I made certain to demonstrate that their source language was significantly different than anything they'd ever heard before, with only Ymyk understanding one word in ten of untranslated speech. Tybylt, much to the Horse-archer's protests, accepted the invitation to the feast, and was encouraged to hear that the girls were still intact and could be traded for, and slaves were offered but instantly refused, with brief mention that they had battled slavers. This was translated back to the priest of the Devouring Worm by a scribe who had not been addressed by the priest. After receiving the impertinent informant's info., the priest smacked the other's head sending him to the ground, whereupon he was speared by at least three guards in the procession.

Following the priest's procession (they would have been carried upon shoulders, but all refused, and those kicked away by Ymyk were also slain by the guards for failing to please the 'demons' --as the PCs were addressed). The central plaza contained a cubic temple decorated with electric blue and electrum-inlain murals of the dragon-headed Devouring Worm, replete with images of wailing corpses and undead falling from his maw and clawed hands as he writhed in and out of the ground of the surrounding jungle countryside. The Golden Goddess' temple was a tall, stylised phallus atop an irregular-faced dais.

The party entered the temple of the Devouring Worm where they were asked to kindly extinguish their blood torch. Tybylt asked for blood to re-ignite it, and a temple virgin girl was slain on the spot and her blood collected in a golden bowl. The players were dismayed, and my SO, Tybylt's player's sister, made a comment about morality as did Ymyk's player, to which Tyb's replied that having already died once and his spirit being used to power a Dryvv Shadowdrive craft, there wasn't much worse he thought could happen in an afterlife. I laughed knowingly and we proceeded. The party saw that the priestess of the Golden Goddess and her retinue entered from an underground passage on the side nearest their temple.
--Within the rather large structure were hundreds of face-painted adherents, dragon-masked warriors, undead, and other monsters, including upright reptilian warriors, some of whom sported maces at their tail tips (this starting to sound familiar yet?). These reptilian warriors demonstrated feats of strength by fighting amongst themselves in mock combat with their wickedly curved and serrated longswords, and then fought 7-8' tall powerfully-built humans in dragon-motif armour > wink < who invariably lost the fight and were torn, limb-from-limb as the party either sat or stood at the banquet table (only Mela partook of the fare and found it richly flavoured: for example, long-grain and wild rice with blanched almonds and currants, mixed with cinnamon and slivers of mango-like fruit). Eventually the two fae-girls were brought out, and Ahni (the eldest of the three girls) Jaunted to the stage and attempted to save her favourite of the two (Vania), but was prevented from doing so by one of the lesser Worm priests.
---Ymyk took that cue to shoot the man, but suffered half of the damage as both he and his target saw that the 'arrow' occupied both places simultaneously before disappearing in a flash. This, however, was enough to disrupt the psychie/spell, at which point Ahni Jaunted back with Vania and urged their father to ingest the Shadow Travel potion he had received directly from Lord Shadow. The chief priest then cast a mass Hold spell, and only Mela saved, but had to burn through two DP to be able to act and re-ignite the torch by lifting the bowl of blood to the item and encanting the command word. Rather than leaving one of his daughters behind, Tybylt used his new combination of Levitation and his Shadow mysteries to pick up the cage in which the third (we've forgotten her name) was held. There was a moment where all looked lost, but as the priestess of the GG and her retinue departed, one dispelled the priest's Hold spell and the party dipped by falling into Tybylt's shadow. There were shots fired and a few characters took hits, but not enough to '86 them. He left last and made certain they weren't being followed.

They emerged, not in Shadow, but back at the canal in the underground gypsum city of the Lightning Undead. They navigated the marketplace after purchasing a few grounding staves, and DiDi'd back to the still-cloaked Aelbaan craft (outlined nicely by the rain).
--We held it there. The secondary characters (and Ymyk) each received about 4500 Adventure Points, and the Primaries one half that much. A few were close to matriculating to the next higher Magnitude, but were still at least 1k or so away.

Still in the vast subterranean chamber abutting a black river => They went to investigate the submarine => Entered a maze-like sprawl of Disneyworld-esque 'cute buildings' => Battled a Water-Weird sort of thing that 'Fumbled' and decided that the party wasn't worth that sort of abuse => Found magic items => Met deformed folk interested in their doings => Pressed on and found a 'pit' that looked like something had simply scooped-out a section of the vast faux-village, but was still radiant blues in the Dark- and Ultravisual spectra => Skirted the pit => Ran afoul of more mutant Dryvv-like creatures, but scared them off with bright lights => Found a vast highway trailing off into the water due to the displacement shearing => Beset by more mutants who warned them of the deadly beast (sub) and its poison breath => Story recounted of the sub's core being ejected and causing the pit => The vessel's AI contacted and the 1325 year decontamination-process begun => The escape pod least affected, and jettisoned to roll onto the shore => Delver understands this to be Aelbaan technology and enteres the craft, passing through an energy screen => The others see Delver transform in a flash of light as he passes through the screen: He grew 7" and put-on 35 or so pounds (he now stands 7'2") => Tybalt, also talking to someone he thinks is the AI, is urged to kill Delver, and in return, the party would be rewarded by the agency from which the voice said Delver had gone rogue. Cliffhang...

(c) Copyright Kyrinn S. Eis All Rights Reserved

After surviving the tentacular horror that erupted from the Qerzyk sewers; the fire-storm from the docks; and the run-in with the Hierophantic Church wizard, the parties have decided to stay together in their Kherstic League assigned exploration of the Undercity. Some of the party went to ask for the improved armour and weapons for their larger force, and had a funny series of vignettes with the K-League personnel: From the ore-cart 'train' operator and their crash at the end of the line; the snobbish subterranean terrarium 'Druids'; the distracted Armoury clerk who was reading a colour comic book; the shipping and fulfilment workers in the shop; and the interaction with the less than delicate war veteran NPC, Byllys. The hydraulic freight elevator was operated by tiny green humanoids clearly well-integrated to Kherstic League.

A continuation of events in previous sessions involving human Spacers encountering difficulty upon reaching Urutsk was had just as the characters emerged with their gear being loaded onto wagons and carriages.
My fiction and games tend to be rather bitter-sweet and in this scene, three survivors were aloft in some sort of sail-'chute gondola, and through the use of Clairvoyance, and then Clairaudience, one of the party members came to understand that of the three occupants, one had died of his wounds, a second felt he was too badly injured to make the attempt to 'ditch' the craft, and he suggested to the woman, that she take the entire potion, rather than the two of them likely not receiving the benefit at all. She imbibed the entire potion, bade him farewell, mentioned 'to the 909th', and made her leap. The woman glided, and used a sash to brake and finally landed not far from where the party ran to meet her. She was then asked a few questions, before being picked up by a Kherstic envoy.

With the 20 veteran Men-at-Arms now wearing cold-cast platemail, and bearing polearms and longswords, the party re-entered the formerly hidden surface entrance. They quickly re-searched the areas they had previously fought a (troll) and six (ghouls). They failed to spot a secret door. BTW, I am using Christopher B.'s Cold Mountain dungeon map, and the players so totally screwed up their mapping so as to make it pointless for them to continue.
Things were weird for them as they encountered nothing but guard posts and torture chambers, clearly hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. However, by the time the entered the second troop barracks, I had successfully lulled them into complacency. Animated corpses, superficially akin to Sons of Kyuss began to appear from the overturned cots and tables. Ceanek (Cici) throw an alchemical fire-bomb, and once the worms began to take damage, their shrill cries subjected the party (including Kitty, the bear) to a Control (Spells) Critical Test and all but two of the characters failed it -- including the cursing M-a-A's. As the affected ran back up[ the stairs, into the first barrack, the cries alerted the critters in that room. At first sight of them, the affected fled down the side corridor, and ran into the Armoury. Once behind the thick door which dulled the sound, the party present were freed of the effect. I am using the three dots on Chris' map as murder holes (it doesn't need to make much sense), and with one good strike, Ashta smashed through the thin stone with a mattock, revealing the 20x20 room that cuts into the Armoury. I placed a psychic Lift Shaft there, and soon that lot began fiddling about with its operation and made an initial reconnoitre of the next higher level (which they realised 'ought' to be at street level).

Cici and the psychic (sounds like '70's sit-com) briefly did what they thought would help, but it was to no avail. Cici was separated between the two barracks, in the parallel corridor. She tried to use her Turning ability, but the fear did not permit that. She settled on throwing a bomb on either side of her down the corridor, and settled in for meditation. Her mace allows her to 'power-up' the +1 to Hit/+2 to Damage weapon by +1/+1 for every full five of her Dodge Points invested in the weapon. We had already discussed that if all of her points were invested, though her body die, her spirit would remain in the weapon. Cici did so, and found herself at the hilltop monastery, on the perpetually mist-shrouded stone bridge. She saw herself as a scared little girl, and eventually took her hand and guided her through the mist. Cici came out of meditation clear of the effect, and immune to it for the remainder of the encounter, and all but 5 DPs still invested in the mace.
Renewed, she was able to turn the lot of critters pounding on the armoury door (I gave her that boost), and she was able to enter the Armoury and join the others.

They discover that while Kitty was cowering at the base of the stairs that lead to the kennel, that it was occupied by Worg who exhibited at least human-level intelligence when contacted by the psychic. The beasts were trying to tunnel to their food source, but the stone was too thick.
Up a level, the characters proceed down a corridor until Ashta realises that it is made of ship metal (the weapons had been identified as full metal (as opposed to alloys or metalloids), now rare on Urutsk), and that something 'odd' was up ahead. The psychic decided to reach out and was contacted by an organic AI which instantly identified him as being other than fully Human, and fired at him but missed --the mechanism being so old and all... ;) Delver, the Western Isles Vrun lesser noble who had continued to change more toward his Aelbaan ancestry after using several doses of Mummy Dust from their first group adventure, was the next to be attacked. His Energy Reflection aberration manifest, and the LASER was disabled by its own beam.

Further down the same corridor they came to a heavy sliding door with no obvious controls. Tybalt cast his Jaunt spell and hopped to the other side of the door.
The Men-at-Arms got bored and started taunting the undead to fall into the shaft, while others tinkered with the hatch the LASER had lowered from. Mela Mela, the apothecary, clambered up once the Grogs had spent four hours dismantling it from its lowered base. Thousands of spiders (the player shivered in disgust) fled from her torch light and allowed her to creep along the conduit until she could see into a room in which Tybalt, three other Humans,an Aelbaan (they'd not yet met one), and a bipedal insectoid with tech gear on its harness were frozen in a shimmering electrical stasis field in what looked like a brig.
Mela reported this to the party and they then fiddled with the door frame until a stream of the liquid-like energy could be seen. When Cici cut the stream with a dagger, she exploded and coated the party with her tiny chunks of gore. But-- the psychic paid his points and we instead wound back the tape to that moment. I gave him and her an Initiative roll, and he won, saving her life.

They then retreated down the other side of the corridor, past the Lift Shaft, and they decided to fire an arrow into it instead. 10d6, and 36 points of electrical damage later, half of the M-a-A's were at 0, the others dead, and the party badly wounded (3/4 made their save for 18). Byllys was one of the hardier ones and was still up, and began resuscitating those of his brothers he could while the party downed 1d6+3 healing potions and with remnants, tried to revive as many of the fighters as possible.

Meanwhile, the field had dropped, and the insectoid began to attack one of the humans. The Aelbaan began trying to tear the bug's head off, and was assisted in attacking the creature by one of the others. Tybalt seemed stunned (his player, actually) and didn't participate in time before the Aelbaan had accomplished his mission. The other human was dead, having been fed upon.
The Aelbaan began speaking in its language, then using its psychic powers to boss folks around as they forced the partially open door.

The party reunited, bolstered by the other humans (an Yirinn, and a Kaukara, both male), and all were bossed about by the Aelbaan who recognised that both Delver and Ashta have diluted kindred blood.

We held it there at 1:40 AM.