The Widening Gyre Campaign/Session 4

The firefight is over. Three of our assailants are alive but unconscious, one needing serious medical attention to have a chance of living. We debate whether to repurpose the dying man's body as we set about covering our tracks and moving ahead. Meanwhile, Zylch has been blind long enough that he feels his other senses starting to heighten and wonders if he'll ever see normally again.
A cursory examination of these (presumably) Kirvans leads us to conclude they seem… off. They're not strictly human and may be some sort of hybrid. Gundahar attempts to interrogate them in Fialta, asking one "Who are you?" and the other "What are you?" This doesn't sit well with one of them, who says he has nothing to say to demon spawn. Gundahar chokes him, but he resists, staring and mouthing something back. This one is clearly going to be no help without some advanced interrogation methods.
Gundahar moves on to the other captive, who doesn't seem to understand him. We'll have to communicate with them in Shantine, so Quill uses his soul computer to translate Gundahar's questions. This man responds by reciting some equivalent to a Lord's Prayer. Quill leaves the soul computer with Gundahar and takes the hostile captive to another crawler. The computer, for its part, doesn't seem to recognize the prayer or this man's accent.
Running out of patience, Gundahar offers an ultimatum to the captive, threatening to dispose of him should he prove to not be useful. The man complies and is willing to talk. Gundahar asks about the war, leaving the man confused. He speaks anachronistically, mentioning that he comes from a part of reality that's already been "saved" and rattles off a hometown the computer doesn't recognize. When asked the year, he responds with the "Year of Leandra's Ascension 193". Quill asks over the radio for him to map out where we are within the Gyre and where his compatriots plan to attack us next, which he does.
The man, now identifying himself as Malo, believes us to be illusions sent by the Unnamed to test his faith. Quill asks why he thinks this, and he momentarily questions his own beliefs, as he's not sure. Sylvia asks Bradley to write him a note in Kirvan script, some sort of platitude like "do not forget the path, stay true to it," but Bradley can tell Malo is illiterate, which is unusual.
Sylvia and Quill take a quick break to assess the ships in the area, trying to date them by the level of decay in their engine cores. They find the decay rate to be normal, but the ages of the ships vary wildly. Sylvia then asks Malo how he got to the Gyre. He says he and his parents were sent on a crusade for penance when he was a child, because they had to atone for their doubt. Gundahar tries to hug Malo to calm him down, only making him uncomfortable. Malo believes that he will never see paradise while living, relying on his descendants to rescue his soul long after death (more on that later).
Something odd happens with Zylch. While holding Tim the capuchin in his lap, lamenting his lack of utility, he finds his visual memory fading, but he "sees" something. Images begin to resolve in his mind, and he starts to make out sets of blinding white lights, like beacons in the darkness. Odder still, the shade of light seems to change when he "looks" at certain targets, like the two captives. They each give off different shades, indicating they come from significantly different times. Those who can still see also can tell Malo has some distinctly "uncanny valley" qualities to him.
Zylch shares this odd phenomenon with the rest of the crew, asking Quill to "fix his fucking eyes" as it's starting to make him uncomfortable. Quill determines Zylch's eyes are functional, and the problem is psychosomatic. Gundahar attempts to empathize with Zylch, taking on the same effect. He immediately detests the rancid vibes and empathizes with the capuchins instead. Frustrated, Zylch tries to point out these beacons, but no one else can see them. In fact, they shift as the others try to look for them. It appears he's "seeing" everyone's lines of sight.
Malo is getting impatient. He calls out to Gundahar to prove that he's not a liar, hoping he'll follow through with whatever the latter promised in an earlier private conversation (something involving cloning?). Gundahar says no since he can't access the ship, and Malo grows despondent.
Gundahar tries to therapize Zylch, also making him uncomfortable. Zylch does figure out more about his "sight," though: the beacon's clarity depends on one's level of focus. Malo's beacon, for example, started to scatter as he became distressed. Additionally, the number of capuchins and their collective focus allows their perception to narrow to nearly a single point (seeing-eye capuchins?).
Sylvia interrupts, asking Malo how cloning would be able to help him. Malo believes that "more of his flesh would help alleviate his family's crimes," mostly the crime of doubting Leandra's paradise. Quill asks where this paradise is, and Malo says it's "outside the Gyre" but not a physical place. He also doesn't believe that paradise should be eternal. We conclude that the paradise is a soul computer of some kind.
We skip ahead a bit in time: The Kidney wakes up from its healing nap. Seeing Sylvia is still burned, he whips up a healing salve. She realizes he used biomancy to make it and freaks out, ready to dig it out of her skin if necessary. The Kidney does "surgery" on her to "fix" the problem. It then asks Malo if it and Gundahar can take some samples to assess Malo's health, which Malo agrees to. The Kidney's analysis indicates Malo was in a soul computer at some point, as his physiological age doesn't match his biological one. The discrepancy aligns with his expulsion from paradise around age 5 or 6 to go on his crusade.
On the way to the Basilica, Gundahar tries to rehabilitate the two captives. Quill asks Malo about the procreation process. Malo says when one does something sufficiently glorious, a child appears. He and his family live in the shadow of the Basilica, never allowed to enter, as that would be akin to entering paradise. We would also not be allowed to enter, as they guard it fiercely.
Sylvia asks whether there are any priests leading services, but apparently no priest of Leandra has ever been expelled. This leads to multiple theological and philosophical discussions about how Leandra appropriates souls, how people show up here once they're expelled, how souls get scavenged postmortem, and how the faith economy even works. This last topic bothers Malo, but his faith holds strong regardless.
Malo also mentions the existence of another set of Kirvans, those who can go inside the Basilica. These others seem to stay far away from the exiles and never try to communicate. (Maybe these exiles are locked in time like the ghost ship?) Given this information, we debate how to infiltrate the Basilica. A frontal assault is not ideal, nor is The Kidney transplanting itself into Malo's body. We don't have time to develop a bioweapon to take the exiles out, and we probably can't impersonate these "other" Kirvans. We could dig into the Basilica from underground. While we debate, Zylch notices there are a lot of beacons focused on us. We have plenty of company.
The Kidney interrogates the hostile captive, speaking in Shantine. This guy is resilient: he doesn't listen to reason, and he manages to resist the intimidation when The Kidney describes what it is, and how this guy is more useful for parts than information. He can't overcome truth serum, however, and corroborates Malo's story about the other Kirvans. None of the "tarnished" exiles can approach the Basilica for fear of being swallowed up by the shifting ruins, but these "untarnished" ones can. The church also appears at a constant distance, no matter how close the exiles get.
The hostile captive tells us how we can use the various shrines scattered around the Gyre to avoid the other exile attack parties, as well as the last location he saw these "untarnished" Kirvans. Time to set up an ambush…
Category:Session Summaries