Hallucinations: Session One

Karel: A barbarian from the small mountain village of Preydiri, played by David. He's into gold and glory.

Zilya: An assassin who comes right from the town of Novstrech, which is where we're starting, played by Bryna.

Novstrech: A supposedly neutral city in the growing civil war between the Old Faith and the Faith of the Stars. Its neutrality is in question because of its proximity to Bohspat, the center of the Old Faith, which is a major military power in its own right. Earlier in the day a gigantic golden cube rose out of the ground, just outside the town. A low thrumming noise was emanating from the cube and was distress to the town.

At dusk Karel and Zilya made their move. Zilya took point, helping Karel sneak toward the Cube. But Zilya wanted to feel a rush, so she made Karel run right as a guard was looking, hoping they moved fast enough under the cover of shadow.

Zilya was wrong.

As Zilya and Karel heard the alarm being raised in the town they got to the Cube. The thrumming noise that had been causing so much consternation was louder here, potentially harmful even; fortunately Karl and Zilya were able to withstand it. They knew they needed to hurry, but couldn't find a door. Karel began touching around the Cube, trying to find a secret door. It was actual gold and quite smooth... exception for the slightest of indentations. Karel traced the doorway, and pushed.

The doors opened with a quiet whoosh, and they stepped inside, with another quiet whoosh behind them. Karel lit his lantern and held it up in his left hand. The whole room was gold: walls, floor, ceiling. In the corners to their right and left Zilya and Karel saw pedestals: white to their left and green to their right. A pair of orbs, green and white, lay nearby, covered in dust, cracked and chipped. In the center of the room was a glass tube, with a doorway cut into said tube.

Karel searched the room, Zilya next to him and lending a helping eye. On the other side of the room were two more pedestals and orbs, red and blue. Karel was looking for another secret door and was convinced there was one, but it was significantly harder to find than the one that let them in in the first place. By the time they did find one they were both so angry they could barely see straight. That door whooshed open, onto a small room. A series of small colored circles were on an area next to the doorway: red, blue, white, and green.

They walked back into the main room and looked over the orbs on the floor. They were safe to touch, about the size of a human skull. Zilya put the red orb on the red pedestal. The glass tube sealed its open doorway shut and the floor within it sank, leaving a hole. Zilya took the orb off the pedestal and the floor returned; the tube re-opened. All the other orbs were tried in their matching stands. Blue took longer for the platform to return, white and green also took longer than the previous one.

They decided that Karel, who was eager for gold and glory, should go down the tube and see the four sub-basements beneath them. Karel got in the tube and Zilya put the green orb on the green pedestal. She lit a torch as Karel went down in the elevator. She investigated the walls as he went down, scraping at the gold with some tools. Three inches of gold later revealed steel. Chuckling, Zilya began to scrape as much off the wall as she could, stashing it in her backpack.

Karel went to each sub-basement. The next floor down had red-tainted gold, and was more of a passage-way than a gigantic room, and had two enormous statues next to the tube he was in. They were equipped with gigantic mauls. They didn't respond as he coasted down.

The next floor down was plated in blue-tinted gold. It was filled with rotting furniture. One of the corners didn't have floor anymore; gaping blackness was all that Karel could see.

The white floor's walls were lined with glass tubes. There were also five ghouls, who jumped up and began to pound on the glass tube Karel was in. Karel knew that, by the time he came back up, they would have broken through the glass.

The bottom green floor had a broken glass tube. The stone platform Karel stood on continued on, even without the tube. There were billowing clouds on the ground, eerily green, and there was a funny smell in the air. Karel held his breath, and realized he was pretty thirsty.

Karel held his breath until he got back into the white room. The ghouls broke the glass tube on their level. Klaxons went off, causing Zilya to jump as she was stealing gold on to the top level. Karel threw the attacking ghouls off the platform as it rose to the next floor. The ghouls snarled but could not reach the platform.

The stone statues were swinging their mauls as Karel came back up into the red-tinted room. He hadn't noticed their clubs on the way down, what was that pattern on them?

Zilya heard the smashing of glass from below and called out to Karel. No answer. The platform came up empty. Could anyone hear anything over those klaxons?? Zilya ran to the small room she'd helped Karel to discover. Taking a shaking breath, trembling from being tired, she pressed the small red circle. The doors whooshed shut. The platform beneath her began to sink. A minute later the doors whooshed open. Two gigantic statues stood over Karel. He looked unhurt, albeit a bit winded. Karel demanded that Zilya get over to him and help! Zilya hid in an opposite corner, waiting, watching.

The statues approached Karel, declaring the intruder needed to be detained. Karel told them he'd been there before, and had just helped by clearing out the ghouls that were down below. The statues paused a moment, processing the response. Zilya saw that there was a control panel on the back of their enormous heads. Zilya took a stiletto out of her hair and threw it at one of the statues. She managed to toss it through the plate on its head and it shut down. the other statue turned around, and Karel pulled out a hammer out and chucked it at the back of its head. As it shut down it said "System compromised. Lockdown initiated."

The klaxons stopped.

Exhausted, Karel and Zilya sat down and made camp. Karel and Zilya gave each other shoulder rubs to help relax after everything. Zilya passed out immediately. Karel did not. He got up, grabbed a parchment and a quill, and began to sketch out a map of the floor they were on.  He found the walls could move on this floor; it looked to be  a storage floor, with various locked containers that he thought about having Zilya check in a bit. There were blue, green, and white pedestals, but a gigantic hole where the red pedestal had been. Karel looked down into a ghoul's glare. It couldn't get up to them.

Karel didn't really sleep well the rest of the night. Zilya slept like a rock.