Secrets of the Ancients – Otherworld, Part 3

After losing the Far Hunter, Leon, Fig, and Kenton try to catch up with the rest of the crew. On the way Fig is killed by one of the spider-bots. Afterward, the crew continues to explore the habitats and meets Shedin, one of the locals.

This chapter is based on Kay and Carl’s notes from our December 11, 2022 session. Since we are scattered around the country, we use Discord for voice communications and the Roll20 online virtual tabletop to connect with each other.

Continued from: Secrets of the Ancients – Otherworld, Part 2

Location: On an unknown world, possibly in another Universe

Date: 311-1110 


1100

Leon, Fig, and Kenton made it to the first big warehousey place the away team had entered.

As we approached the door opened, like before. The away team had gone straight through; so we went inside. We were expecting to see the disabled air/raft, but it was gone (probably recycled) and we went toward the far doorway quickly.

About halfway across, we were scanned by a beam (likely the same one used on the others). Funny feeling, but there was no harm that we could detect.

The second room was much the same. About halfway across, we had holograms appear above our heads. It displayed the weapons we had, including Fig's arm and small crossbow. Fig says, “No secrets here...”

The other party’s weapons that they put down when they passed through are not there.

We continued to the next door which opened to the room that has a map on the far side above the door. Except for the map, it looked the same as the previous room.

The map was gray and showed the area we saw on flyover; one area has cropland and town/city, one has desert, and one jungle; different habitat zones.  We figured these were where the teleporter that the away team found go to. Each zone on the map flickered and turned red by the time they got to the center of the room.

In a few minutes, the far door opened and a giant spider-bot came out. They noticed that it was smaller and with fewer tools than the ones that showed up to take apart the Far Hunter. It had tools at the end of its arms and was pulling a grav trailer.

It says “Do not be alarmed; you will be recycled.”

Two door panels up on one wall opened just then, and two more bots came out. We did our best to get around the first one before the others caught up to us.

As Fig tried to get past it, it swung a bladed tentacle at him, nearly cutting him in two.

Recycling Fig gave the other two time to run past it and into the next room. They made it through the door just as it closed.

It was another big room, but with a platform and rotating arch in it. It was the teleporter that the away team used. Leon and Kenton went to the control panel.

Leon entered the code that the away team had used, 001, and pressed GO. 

About the same time, at the away team’s location, Dr. Juni detected some radiation. It was the type of radiation normally associated with ships coming out of jump space. Kipenzi confirmed that with the scanner, just as Kenton and Leon came out of the teleporter arch.

Dr. Juni scanning noticed a radiation spike here and said to Kipenzi, scanner sees spike in Cherenkov radiation (radiation caused by ship coming out of jump). The first thought was that it’s Leon and Kent coming through teleport panel.

Leon said, “Bad news, Fig’s not coming, he’s in parts.”

Kipenzi, “Spider bot?”

Leon, “Yeah.”

Kipenzi, “Damn.”

Juni looked at the reading on her scanner, “It’s not stopping; it’s not a spike, like a ship in jump, it’s a steady stream.”

Looking up, they could see a bright star overhead. Perhaps it is the source of the radiation?  Might be the portal that the Far Hunter came in through. Maybe more ships for recycling are enroute.

Sam’s binocs sees point of light but no ship; his binocs see a spike up at the UV range where the atmosphere blocks UV – it’s hot from FTL particles – looks like a ship trying to come through, but the portal is fighting it or it’s coming through slowly.

Dr. Juni suggested we should go ahead fairly briskly, once we decide where ‘ahead’ is.

The jungle area, the place with people, back to the port and get a ship... several options were discussed. Juni says keep going ahead, it’s breaking through – go to the nearby bunker. Kipenzi suggested going to the overgrown citadel (likely deserted) and check portals from there. Kenton agreed with Juni; Leon wanted to go to the bunker, Sam voted to get out of here.

Leon and Kenton checked the weapons they brought, and those were disabled, too.  Medicus's arm, fortunately, was OK.

The group decided on the bunker where the lawn was so nicely sculpted.

They took inventory of their equipment. Sam has weapons, Kipenzi has climbing gear/scanner, Juni has her G-band scanner, Stiv has food/water (4-day supply).  Leon’s weapons were a body pistol and laser rifle. He also had his iris valve opener and tools. Kenton had water, tools and a grav net to carry items.

Leon mentioned that he thinks he can repair the slug throwers, but needs a workbench and a few more tools. The energy weapons’ batteries are drained; if we can find an accessible power source, we might be able to recharge them.

We redistributed the food and water among the group along with the non-functional weapons. Sam’s slug pistol goes to Kipenzi; Sam keeps the shotgun; Junie gets a laser rifle.

For armor, Sam, Kipenzi and Leon have ballistic cloth; the university researchers have none.

Sam said he wishes he hadn’t lost his drone at Alell, it would have come in handy.

Noon
Approaching the bunker, we were swarmed by what looked like some kind of mosquitoes. On closer examination they turned out to be tiny robots. The group moved back, but everyone got bitten a couple times before the swarm flew off. Medicus checked people out and determined that the robots had taken blood rather than injecting them with something.

Medicus said if they clone us, we should have a safe word. Kipenzi offers “Chamax” and had to explain to researchers what a Chamax was.

Juni said that the bunker was similar to the architecture they had found at the Ancient site on Beck's World.  After entering, Medicus looked at the equipment and said it was for cloning on an industrial scale.  The equipment was operating as they entered.

When Medicus walked around a corner, he encountered a person, old and white-haired.

“Oh!” he said, looking surprised. “Are you from the Maker?”

We used the translator to talk with him. He identified himself as Shedin, high priest of the Maker.

Medicus asked, “What is the Maker?”

Shedin replied, “It makes the people.” He asked, “Do you have any revelations from the Maker?”

We told him to look up in the sky.

The machinery around us was the Maker, and there may be some remote parts as well in other buildings. He had never seen humans like us (Solomani, Vilani and Zhodani races). He thought we were created by the machines.

He thought that the group (us) had been created for some special purpose.

Kipenzi suggested NOT lying to him about anything, just in case.

He had a childlike sense of wonder and hadn’t seen new people in a long time. He lived here, but didn’t build it or even know how it worked.

Medicus asked, “What do you do here?”

The priest replied, “I watch over the Maker and report back to the people if something happens. “

We learned that he’s originally from the Ilimdaki people and this position is bestowed. It’s a great honor for him and he’s been here many decades.

The Ilimdaki people are in the farms and cities we saw.  They were created by the Maker about 500 years ago and were led through the teleporter, found the area in ruins and fixed it up and live there now.

Shedin knew history, and what was in what habitat. The Death Zone should be avoided, likewise the Hungry Swamp.  He referred to the Hunters of Men as well.  The Graveyard came up too.  Something for everyone.

Some places are not safe: the death zone, graveyard, hungry swamp, Hunters of Men. This zone we’re in now is the Maker Valley. Sam told him we teleported from the citadel. He’s surprised, the teleport wasn’t working before. It takes days to go through the mountains from the Ilimdaki city to here.

About 200 years ago they were invaded by the Hunters of Men. They were losing until the Queen invented rifles; they built new palisades over an existing wall and it’s guarded now.

The Hunters of Men have snouts, claws and fur and use rifles; they fight. We used our datapads to show him other species and he points to Vargr, identifying them as Hunters. They have guns...

Kipenzi asks for clarification on the Maker who sent them through teleporter vs. ‘the Maker,’ i.e., this cloning facility. His description sounds like remotes (other beings of metal) showed them the teleport.

He also told us that before 500 years ago, some other people were in their habitat and were wiped out; it looks like this happened a couple of times before.

Shedin is in his mid-70’s and will train his replacement. He studies this place. His people were created over a couple of days.

He gave us a tour and we recorded it.  He was surprised to find that the first cloning creation in a long time was going on as we walked around.  It doesn’t happen often. In fact, it hasn’t happened in his lifetime; this is either very good or very bad. There are nine people being created at this time, and should be out in a couple of days.

Kenton asked, “It only takes a couple of days?”

Shedin tells him that they come through as adults. The Maker programs them with any information that they may need.

Their holy book was written a generation after the original people had died; before that they only had an oral tradition and Shedin is afraid that much information was lost. He had been hoping that we would have new revelations from the Maker.

We asked him for more information about the other zones and he told us what he knew. Shedin showed us a hand-drawn paper map of the other zones showing routes between them: death zone, graveyard, hungry swamp, etc. We take pics.

•    The graveyard is where old machines were disposed of sometime in the past; it contains a vast desert of broken machines.

•    His people have never crossed the Hungry Swamp; it is dangerous and they avoid it.

•    The Death Zone has deadly creatures, flying creatures, plants that shoot at you; no one goes there.  There is a white tower at the end of the valley that has never been explored by the Ilimdaki.

•    The Ilimdaki zone is about 60-70 km across with an oval wall around it. If we travel to the Ilimdaki home habitat, they could help fix our weapons.  He said the Ilimdaki had manufacturing ability, and maybe we could fix our messed-up weapons if we went there.  Like Shedin, they would be interested in our equipment and most would be friendly, although some might be concerned that we would upset the balance of power.

•    Their society sounds feudal at about Tech Level 3 (Primitive Industrial). Their society sounds very conservative, advancing very slowly. Their leader has the title of “Queen of Rifles”; about 200 years ago one of her ancestors invented the rifle when the hunters attacked. She brought Ilimdaki culture up to its current state and commanded them to build defenses.

We went through the building looking for some way to access a power source to re-charge our weapons’ batteries, for two hours; couldn’t find a source of power.

The tech level in the place was way over our heads, could not really grasp how much of it worked. 

We periodically checked the sky, and the portal still seemed blocked each time.

Shedin didn’t know about the starport, which is over the horizon to the southeast about 50 km. The Ilimdaki just know of an endless grassy plain on the other side of the mountains.  

The mountains around the habitats are too regular and are there repeating patterns, almost like they were stamped or molded, definitely artificial. We suggest they may be hollow with an entrance somewhere; Shedin never thought of that but his people have not found any entrances.

Maybe the graveyard isn't such a bad idea… machines... Leon brought his tools…

Shedin showed us drawings of animals from the Ilimdaki area... all were earth animals, all food animals (rabbits, sheep, and pigs).  He said that they were created by the maker as well.

With this information, we could go back to the teleporter and match the codes to the specific habitat zones. Good stuff to know.

Whoever built the white tower really doesn’t want people to get to it.

Shedin has a lounge with fine high-quality, hand-carved furniture. Sam said, “People would buy this”, already thinking about loading up the cargo hold with local goods.

Shedin was happy to share food with us, he has a food replicator. He fully outfits us with food and water in our packs.

Over our meal, Shedin is asked about before 500 yrs. He says there was no ‘before,’ they came from the Maker and someone lived inside the wall before they came. There were ruins and it looked like it was lived in maybe a couple of different times.

1600
We headed back to the teleporter to see what goes where. Medicus went through to check.

• 000 - Ilimdaki Area.  Medicus came out in a teleport citadel on a hill. There are a bunch of Vargr fighting Ilimdacki. As we watched, Vargr with their backs to us with muzzle-loading rifles were shooting and someone was shooting back, and there were trenches around the citadel.  He slipped back before they noticed him. 
• 001 Maker’s Valley area.
• 010 Jungle, overgrown area, different from the one we saw before.
• 011 Slimy water - Swamp – there is a small building with a control panel visible.
• 100 Graveyard, probably.  Grayish sand, lots of half-buried stuff, no sign of life, sand with microcircuits and discarded parts.
• 101 The teleporter citadel is overgrown with thorny vines and underbrush. We would need to cut our way out.
• 110 Does not work here, even though it did elsewhere.  Kipenzi says, “Maybe it’s the Hunter zone since they are coming through to the Ilimdaki area and using it now.”
• 111 Large room, big door on south side. It looks like the spaceport portal.

Knowing the codes is good. Kenton says, “Graveyard sounds good, looking for stuff we might use or learn from.”

The rest of us agreed and we planned to go to the graveyard first; maybe we can find a power source to recharge our weapons. We informed Shedin that the Vargr are attacking the Ilimdaki. Apparently, the teleport system was non-functional before we arrived, but now it’s up and they’ve discovered it works.

Leon’s saber is the only weapon we have that works as intended. Kenton has an idea; maybe the metal bugs got some of Fig’s blood for their clones; there were 9 beings in the cloning chambers.

The equipment in the graveyard was likely broken, and stuff we looked at was beyond our understanding.  Kipenzi used the scanners to look for active power sources as we went... it would be really useful if we can charge up our weapons.  Also, we might make hand weapons, or find them.

Medicus spotted a large piece of scrap that could be used as a blade. Kipenzi also found something that can be used as a weapon. There is a building that looks like it was dropped here; we go to it. Juni is fascinated by this place; it is much more like what she deals with at Ancient sites. We all ended up with makeshift weapons like machetes.

We got to the building, which looked really similar to the Maker area.  It was somewhat demolished, with sections swarming with little robot insects. They don't look like they are doing anything besides wandering about aimlessly.

Kipenzi found a power source we might be able to use for recharging! We got it figured out pretty quickly, and soon the laser weapons were charging.  Leon tried to fix the firing pins on the mechanical weapons, but no success. A machine shop would be nice, but nothing useful popped up.

1800
Laser rifles are charged. There is a nearby pyramidal structure but we decided to go back to Makers Valley and sleep safer; it’s not safe in unknown territory after dark.

Looking up as it was getting dark, we could see a brilliant star overhead.  Bright enough to be seen in the daylight.

312-1110  0700
We had breakfast with Shedin. The food is programmed close to Solomani. Shedin doesn’t belong to any known race we’ve see. He’s is close to Darrian but not as tall and no pointed ears, so different. Medicus scans him. Shedin has no match on any race but generic humanity, and is missing markers for genetic diseases.

We checked on the cloning chambers. The clones are a lot more progressed than expected.

Kipenzi suggested helping the Ilimdaki against the Vargr; they’d respond more positively then, except for the ones worried about the balance of power.

Sam searched the building looking for tools. He found some maintenance robots but they ignored him. This place can produce a great number of individuals at one time, 500 to 1,000 people, and send them out at once.

Kipenzi asks, “What are the floor panels for? They look like readouts.” Shedin doesn’t know. Opalescent floor panels are holographic. Shedin has a sense of wonder and very smart, but zero imagination. He understands concepts as we explain them, they just never occurred to him.

We geared up for visiting the Ilimdaki habitat. Kipenzi and Leon got laser rifles and all have edged weapons. We look through the teleporter; the Ilimdaki are losing and there are a lot more Vargr now.

Armed and ready, we...

Continued in: Secrets of the Ancients – Otherworld, Part 3

See Also: Dramatis Personæ, Skylark 2, Campaign Starts, The 2nd Adventure, The Chamax Plague, Horde, Shadows, Research Station Gamma, Twilight's Peak, Prison Planet, Leedor on Aramis, First Call at Zilla, Trade War, The Bloodwell, ANNIC NOVA, The Kinunir, Kesser's Return, Justice, Mission to Mithril, Outback, Skylark and the Pit, Last Flight of the Amuar and One Crowded Hour and Secrets of the Ancients.