Moon's Haunted/Sessions 9 and 10

Concluding final business in Bata’s village, the party piled into its two freighters and set a course for the other side of the planet, to the tunnel where Evriksen had forced-marched a huge contingent of the Vakhtangians for sacrifice. Some in the crew finally got some much-needed sleep, but interestingly, Major Kesdis left her nap looking oddly exhausted and drained. On the other hand, the crew saw Gaston and de Vranne emerge from the same room, both looking cheerful and rejuvenated—many drew their own conclusions about the nature of the relationship.

As the freighters neared the landing zone, they flew over another prominent ship graveyard. This graveyard was not the same as the one by the ATC’s mining operation, however—ships of more makes than just Celestial and Perfect Prince, the only two groups the Nocturnals claimed had ever come to Kamens, littered the landscape. Crashes of Nipponese, Brass Cities, and even Naga craft could be seen. Seeing this, the party realized without much surprise that the Nocturnals had not been entirely truthful in briefing the ATC about Kamens. As if on cue, this guess was proven when the freighters sighted two Nocturnal ships harvesting junk from one of the wrecks. Kesdis and de Vranne hailed them, trying to threaten them to stop for questioning, but succeeded only in scaring them into taking potshots and flying away; successful piloting, however, let the party ram one into a lethal jackknife and another into a tailspin, skidding it along the planet’s surface.

Flying over the survivable wreck to investigate its occupants, the party found that the noise had attracted a swarm of spiders, which headed straight for the wreck. The party saw a Nocturnal crew get out and climb to the top of the wreckage to fend them off, and realized that unlike the feral Nocturnals of Kamens, true Nocturnals were still targets. The party extended a ladder from the freighter, and each crew member jumped for it—only one made it, while the others fell into the mass of spiders. The party watched as they were forcibly possessed, the spiders stepping straight through their bodies to coil around their spines, and de Vranne mercy killed one with a shot from the airlock. The party took the survivor’s gun and ushered him onboard.

Interrogation began immediately. The Nocturnal survivor, however, was as confused as the party. He explained that he and the others were just civilians who had shuttled over to Kamens to take sellable scrap, and seemed to think there was no problem or secret surrounding this. Apparently, he and other Nocturnals had been doing this for countless generations. Further, he thought that the party was part of the ATC mining group, and was indignant to find them on this side of the planet, where apparently the Nocturnals’ elders had told the population the ATC would not go. He had seen ships of many civilizations go to Kamens, but was under the impression that the Nocturnal elders always warned them of the danger beforehand. He was obviously aware of the spiders inhabiting Nocturne, but thought they were a natural threat and not occult; he did not know what the trapdoor spider god was.

However, when the party produced one of the spider god’s holy symbols from Gant’s work, he indicated (wondering how the party could have gotten those in the first place) that that symbol was indeed all over Nocturne, and was not known to be religious, but instead apparently a common architectural feature in Nocturne’s cities. The party was shocked to hear this about the symbols, but just as shocked to learn that there were apparently cities on Nocturne—as far as the ATC knew, Nocturne had been a backwater with only a few million residents and no major population centers. Scans of the planet by the ATC had apparently not picked these cities up whatsoever.

The party drew a few conclusions based on this information. First, the Nocturnal elders (but perhaps not the population writ large) were in league with the spider god, and had a sort of relationship where the Nocturnals would trick others into going to Kamens where the spider god could consume them, and in exchange, the Nocturnals would be able to shuttle to Kamens to harvest the victims’ scrap for technology. The elders also apparently had incorporated the holy symbol into their cities to facilitate further offerings. (This also let the party guess who had bugged them all the way back in Port Muirkirk.) Second, even if the population of Kamens was not actually witting to the true nature of this deal, as the survivor seemed not to be, their longterm exposure to the spider god’s holy symbol meant that they counted towards the number of people who believed in the spider god (or at least experienced its phenomena and drainage) and therefore were all adding to the spider god’s strength. Ruefully, the party realized that the true majority of the spider god’s power lay not in the feral Nocturnals’ city on Kamens, but in the hidden cities of Nocturne.

With this, the party (apart from Eleanor) fairly quickly committed to genocide: rather than killing the spider god to free the Nocturnals, the party would call in an orbital bombardment of Nocturne by the ATC to kill off as many “believers” as possible, to weaken the spider god enough to confront it. Under false pretenses, de Vranne solicited the coordinates of these apparent cities from the survivor and submitted them to McCabe. A strike team arrived within hours, ready to obliterate possibly millions of civilians on the party’s order. (Again, the party really didn’t particularly find this significant, and in fact had planned, instead of at least watching the event, to scavenge ships in the graveyard in their free time.)

Their plans were interrupted, however, when the bombers radioed in to say that they couldn’t see anything at the coordinates they were given. The party finally realized why the ATC had never found the cities—they were concealed by the spider god’s power over perception, probably with the help of their many holy symbols. That did not mean, however, that the cities weren’t actually there, and the party told the bombers to bomb the spots anyways, and to fly high to avoid being affected by anything occult within visual range. The party found its guess to be correct, as though the bombers could not see whether their strikes found any purchase, the party on Kamens heard a massive, planet-shaking roar of pain and anger. All knew that this would imminently psychically affect them and retreated to their respective bunks to avoid a repeat of the O’Clery incident.

De Vranne, however, was the most moved by this psychic attack. Pacing his room to find distraction from the spider god’s influence, de Vranne flipped through a box of old medals and decorations. One in particular, a four-pointed star, reminded him of some deeply shameful memory from his apparent time not as a soldier in the ATC, but in the Aeldman military. De Vranne committed to repurposing this star for a higher purpose than the shame it now represented for him, and challenged himself to embrace the spider god more deeply than before, so as to know it and destroy it. De Vranne took the star and began to carve the holy symbol into the supple sheet metal of his bunk’s desk. As he did so, the star’s points dug into his hands, drawing blood, and de Vranne began to hallucinate the blood of the fallen comrades he had failed seeping from all corners of the room and raining from the ceiling. As the buildup threatened to drown him, de Vranne sunk to his knees and said, “If this blood should rise above my mouth, I will not stand back up.”

De Vranne’s acceptance of responsibility, and choice to put justice for his actions in the hands of an apparent higher power, settled his will enough that with a cold glare he reversed the tide of blood back into the walls. As he stood back up, de Vranne realized that he now knew the spider god’s true name, and could pronounce it. More confident than ever before, de Vranne presented his symbol, and the instrument he carved it with, to the hunters guarding his bunk door from the outside. Declaring that his knowledge of the spider god was now complete enough to face it, he promised to be the last to ever learn the spider god’s name, and destroyed the medal. This show of apparent, near-supernatural willpower over the spider god enthralled the hunters, and as word spread through the ranks of de Vranne’s deed, the contingent began to see him as the reincarnation of their leader Prince Vakhtang.

As this happened, the roars continued outside, subsiding as the last bombs fell. The bombers were the first to notice what came with this conclusion—the firmament of the pocket dimension seemed to get closer. The etheric gate into the biplanetary dimension, wide and crackling with power before, shrank more and more, threatening to close completely. The engines of the bombers burned less bright as a great wind picked up on Kamens, and the party realized what must be happening: the spider god, losing its primary source of worshippers, was kicking its energy absorption into overdrive for as long as it could before it lost the energy to drain things anymore. This surge was so strong that it was shrinking the pocket dimension and closing the etheric gate into it. It also explained how the pocket dimension could have become biplanetary: the spider might have actually sucked Nocturne into its fold with a surge like this thousands of years ago.

The party flew the short remaining distance to the sacrificial tunnel’s entrance, where they found the bodies of uniformed, well-armed Nocturnals, probably military—it seemed they had been waiting for the party, but were killed by something around the time of the roars. Among the bodies, the party considered its next move. Though the situation seemed dire, the party chose patience over hasty action, believing that the spider’s throes would stop in a few hours, which would not be enough time for the party to stop them itself by killing the god. Besides, though it would mean much of their coming journey would be through null space, the spider god probably would not be able to ambiently drain energy anymore afterwards, so what was on would stay on. The party cautioned the failing bombers to land on Nocturne, as they would run out of power before the spider god was slain—all did but one. The party hunkered down, and found that the vacuum did indeed stop about six hours later.

The party devised a plan to eliminate most of its opposition en route to the subterranean city. Using the null space in the tunnels created by the surge to its advantage, the party would mimic the effect of a black pyramid, activating improvised etheric generator bombs whose power would arc through the null space and disintegrate everything in its path until it dissipated or hit an etherically charged area (which would have to be the spider god itself.) Remembering that souls don’t leave dead bodies quickly on Kamens, Lockheart runically catapulted the corpses of the killed Nocturnal soldiers to the drop point of the bomb as spider bait. The party detonated the first bomb a few hundred meters from the tunnel’s mouth, and with a characteristic thunderclap, it decimated everything for about a kilometer of tunnel.

Walking through the cleared tunnels with a convoy of generators, bombs, and a mining laser, the party saw that without the bomb, they would have been likely assailed by hundreds of spiders, which were now just charred marks on the wall and ceiling. Along the way, the party passed what looked to be an equally-destroyed feral Nocturnal camp of maybe ten individuals. In the camp, what might have once been one of the military true Nocturnals sat caged near the burnt remains of a spider, as though the feral Nocturnals were going to sacrifice the true Nocturnal for the premonition ritual. The party pushed the possible implications of this out of its mind and continued ahead quickly.

The party came upon a grand, cavernous chamber which angled down into a sort of amphitheater, the bottom of which was host to many inscribed passages in the Celestial-Elder script creole that the spider god’s name often appeared in. Gaston, able to read both languages, investigated, and found that the chamber they were in was a sort of vestibule, the inscription over which read “faithlessness belies intention.” Reading this, the party readied itself for a test of faith in the spider god. Continuing to read, Gaston suddenly saw inscribed in the wall, “Hello Gaston.” With this, the room went pitch black for everyone except Gaston and de Vranne.

Gaston and de Vranne found that they could still see everything just as clearly, and could see the rest of the party wandering around blindly, panicking. Most of the party could not see or hear the pair—Specialist Dozir, however, who had seen enough of the spider god, was at least able to hear them and transmit orders. The situation seemed to be a trap for the faithless—only the sufficiently insane were able to see the way ahead. As the blinded party formed protective groups, de Vranne and Gaston watched as Evriksen himself, the spider god’s angel and treasonous former general to Vakhtang, crawled out from behind one of the altars and came to stand before them. Garbed in spider chitin armor, with eight spider’s legs curved menacingly out of his back, he addressed the pair and congratulated them on their faith. De Vranne tried to run for the mining laser, but was psychically stopped dead in his tracks by Evriksen—de Vranne’s level of corruption made him easy to control.

Evriksen shared with the two of them a vision of his own ascent to power during Prince Vakhtang’s expedition to Kamens—shooting Vakhtang in his sleep on the spider god’s orders, taking control of the soldiers, and leading most of the expedition straight to the spider god to be sacrificed. Vakhtang commented that de Vranne’s path on Kamens was mirroring his own—de Vranne too had considered killing his commanding officer, and was already moving to take control of his expedition’s troops, the hunters. Evriksen asked if either of them had ever consumed souls; hearing that they hadn’t (though Gaston gave a convoluted explanation of an apple), Evriksen gave them a euphoric taste of what it was like. Evriksen made the two an offer: experience that forever by becoming an angel of the spider god, in exchange for restarting the cycle Evriksen had created by killing Kesdis and leading the rest of the party to be sacrificed to the spider god. Though the coincidence was striking to de Vranne, neither especially trusted Evriksen, and asked for proof of the power he could truly offer.

As all of this happened, Lockheart consulted the soul of the Saldanese academic Sadine inside her Mage Imperium-era projector, asking if she could detect anything. It was here, however, that Lockheart realized a terrible mistake; Lockheart had not checked in on the mental health of Sadine on Kamens in some time, and had failed to notice that an earlier-placed rune increasing etheric flow to Sadine’s containment device had in fact caused the ambient drain on Kamens to sap her willpower twice as quickly. Driven half-mad, Sadine responded to Lockheart’s entreaties with abject fear, and fired off her own etheric energy from the projector—headed straight for Lockheart’s runic apparatus which, when activated, would set off a shotgun spray of quicksilver pellets straight into the crowd of hunters it happened to be aimed at.

Seeing his hunters at risk, de Vranne demanded that Evriksen stop these events as a display of power; Evriksen responded with disgust that it was obvious de Vranne still cared about his people and was unworthy of his offer. With no other way to keep Lockheart’s projector from going off, de Vranne announced his intention to shoot Lockheart. Gaston sprinted at de Vranne, and made it in time to grab him and try to stop him, but de Vranne easily shrugged him off. Calling out to Dozir, Gaston transmitted orders for both Lockheart and the hunters to get down. De Vranne shifted his aim to Lockheart’s etheric projector, and everyone dropped as de Vranne shot the etheric projector, stopping the shotgun blast into his hunters.

Impressed by the display, Evriksen made his offer one last time. De Vranne called out the losing position the spider god seemed to be in, though, as even if the party failed, the pocket dimension was no longer a viable food source—why become an angel for a doomed god? At this Evriksen laughed, and asked, “You really think this is the only place?” Troubled by this, the pair watched as Evriksen raised his hand as if to conduct an orchestra, and hundreds of spiders began to swarm out of the room’s walls towards the blinded party. Evriksen offered this as proof of his power, and gave an ultimatum: submit, or the party would be destroyed by the swarm.

Gaston and de Vranne silently committed to fight, and positioning himself between Evriksen and de Vranne, Gaston distracted Evriksen and dived as de Vranne drew his shotgun, giving de Vranne the first shot against the spider god’s angel. Supernatural reflexes helped Evriksen avoid the brunt of the blast, but the incendiary shells set parts of his body ablaze. In answer, Evriksen drew his own weapon—an oversized spiked chain which he kept looped around the spider legs protruding from his back. Though the chain was much larger and heavier than Evriksen’s humanoid body could handle alone, his eight other legs added strength and provided fulcrums for controlled, vicious swings. Evriksen’s chain danced around his twelve limbs in a horrifying display of skill, building momentum for a strike. De Vranne, however, dodged an effort by Evriksen to disarm his weapon. Gaston took note of something in his notebook and steeled himself for a risky move.

Meanwhile, the others in the party heard the hundreds of spiders begin to swarm around them in the pitch darkness, and Kesdis fired off a few shots to see what her tracers and muzzle flash would show. Promptly hit in the face by spider parts, the party realized the swarm was very nearly upon them and began to fire blindly into the black. The chittering swelled loud enough to drown out even the sounds of gunfire as the spiders charged, trying to overwhelm the party. As Lockheart moved to turn on the generators for more firepower, Kesdis’s MG fire, Abbey’s wide swings, Moirin’s explosives, and Nolwen’s sniping kept the spiders at bay—temporarily. Two of the hunters’ weapons jammed, however, and the hunter line began to be penetrated as the individuals were slain.

De Vranne and Gaston continued to battle Evriksen unseen by the party. After suffering a few well-aimed shots from de Vranne, Evriksen moved to prioritize a more vulnerable target, and swung his chain wide to wrap around Gaston’s legs. With the exact motion of a spider’s limbs spinning a web, Evriksen looped his legs into the links of the chain and wound it towards himself, dragging Gaston to Evriksen’s feet. Gaston, however, rolled over and fired his pistol straight into Evriksen’s face, wounding him and giving de Vranne a chance to capitalize with a few more shots which blew off some of Evriksen’s spider legs.

The party continued to fight as Abbey illuminated the pitch dark with her flamethrower. Lockheart got the generator working and activated the mining laser, cleaving a path through one cone of the spiders and boring a hole into the cave wall. Kesdis, firing on automatic into space, accidentally ricocheted three rounds into her teammates—one into Abbey, one into Eleanor, and one into Moirin. Abbey was fine, but Eleanor was struck with enough force to send her skull-first into the rocky floor, and one of Moirin’s vertebrae was grazed. Though both narrowly avoided death, spiders overran those positions as well, and threatened to overwhelm the party if any others fell.

Seeing Evriksen begin to weaken, de Vranne made a mad rush towards him, thinking he could finish him with a short burst paired with a tackle. Though each shot rang true and blew off more legs, the tackle was short, and de Vranne essentially face planted right at Evriksen’s feet. On the verge of death and enraged, Evriksen flipped him over, looking the whole time like a spider cocooning its victim, and laced his legs into de Vranne’s armor. Taking de Vranne’s face in both of his humanoid hands, Evriksen screamed—something psychic was happening, but none, even de Vranne, knew what. De Vranne tried to blow Evriksen off of himself with a burst from his sonic gun, but fumbled the draw from his side holster and accidentally deafened himself in one ear.

Satisfied that de Vranne was handled, Evriksen rose from him and went over to Gaston, where he attempted to do the same thing. This time, however, his victim was psychically stronger: as Evriksen tried to force his way into Gaston’s mind, Gaston thought with all his might of deeply obscene images of himself and de Vranne in premarital coitus (which everyone in this universe knows is the worst kind.) Trying to push past this mental barrier, Evriksen overestimated his own strength, and strained so hard mentally that he burst blood vessels in his brain. The last of Evriksen’s strength depleted, he rolled limply off of Gaston and died. Gaston Rimm had killed the angel of the spider god.

With Evriksen’s death, the light in the room returned and the onslaught of spiders disappeared. De Vranne made a heroic speech to the remaining hunters over the body of their old betrayer, even further solidifying their perception that de Vranne was the reincarnation of Prince Vakhtang (and indeed, that Gaston might be a better, more loyal version of Evriksen.) As de Vranne healed Eleanor and Moirin’s wounds, Gaston informed the party of their exchange with Evriksen; though Kesdis was pleased to hear that de Vranne had not taken the opportunity to sell her out, all were unsettled by the knowledge that Evriksen had psychically done something to de Vranne, as well as the implications of whatever “You really think this is the only place?” meant. De Vranne checked himself for black marks of possession, but found none.

The party finally shut off the mining laser, which had been running this whole time—long enough to bore a hole onto a rocky outcropping. Stepping onto it, the party saw the feral Nocturnals’ subterranean city stretch out below them, and a path along the great abyss before them which led to it. As they surveyed the settlement, the party saw something terrible, but perhaps advantageous: the cave rock-hewn buildings of the city were somehow on fire, and Nocturnals sprinted shouting through the area. A seven-foot-tall figure in a ragged brown cloak and iron mask, with a bayoneted rifle as long as a person, loped out from one of the buildings, covered in blood. Gaston, ecstatic, recognized this as one of... the Doormen...