Part V: Star Tower
The Fourth Proxy
13 of Eidus, 1221Expeditionists: Alvisstavver, Ambergrene, Mont'larin, Naia, Nimbus, Rodyle At a certain point, it had been deemed evident that there was some connection between that thing upon the Tower - the Reality - the Secretary Aelita believed to still be somewhere within the Tower, and her Proxies scattered around Ancient Vessoth. The R.E.C. had met three so far: the one who gave her life to let Arisa Loamfield subsume her ego, the one who had died continuing to produce experimental medicines at a factory in Shose province and who had been killed in self-defense by Expeditionist Mortier's team, and the endlessly replicated one at the military outpost Gemeri near Alsaines. By Arisa's fuzzy memory, Vessoth should have been home to five versions of Aelita in her day; four Proxies. She recalled one somewhere south of the city Kholis, which had sunk in the past millennium. With the latest business of the R.E.C. to build additional Obelisks - especially close to Ves - there was time for the Aces to pursue this line of thought. The Proxies may be intrinsically related to the nature of the Redshift and its hold over the country… unfortunately. Keep Harpum was only a trek of a few days - spent between Redshifts - to reach a site where the R.E.C. had established their tiny naval presence. This would be enough for the Aces to investigate around the bay and nearby mountaintops-turned-islands. Leaving Alsaines behind for a time, and meeting Captain Rodyle at the seaside keep, the party made preparations to go sailing and looking for the last Proxy that they had yet to meet. Their maps gave them a rough bearing, but it was going to be difficult to find a Proxy somewhere in miles of sea. Even with magic that could help to dive deep, it could take days of searching to find signs of old civilization down there. It was lucky then that while boating across the waves, The Jet Who Streams Around The Mountain Peaks appeared from the east to ask them for help. Indeed, he had spotted them from afar, and noticing his rivals met near Aophewell, admitted he could use their unique skills to investigate his problem: when he had visited the coastal volcano, he found her suffering an illness, and in no state to "battle" him. The Aces decided it might be worthwhile to pause their search to follow him, so they allowed him to fill their ship's sail and carry them to the eastern coast of the bay with haste. Despite knowing of the location for months, no Expeditionist team had yet investigated the volcano up close - and fortunately so, since the place was swarming with noxious creatures of mud and magmatic slime. This was no issue for the Aces, even without the help of Jet, who had exhausted himself on the trip, so cleaving their way from the shoreline to the hills they found themselves before a single-story building at the foot of the nearest volcanic peak. Before even entering the ruin, its nature became clear. A damaged Proxy heart-crystal artifice could be seen over a collapsed wall on the western side. Expeditionist Mont'larin did not choose to hesitate here. No, he marched up the hill and jaunted over the wall, then used his adamant blade to annihilate the remains. From within the main building a death shriek rang out; when the rest of the Aces arrived, and entered the building, they found a puddle of red sludge pooling in a laboratory in which most furniture had been actively destroyed at some point. Right or wrong he had made his choice before the party could speak to the Proxy, before they could learn what state she was in - friend or foe, lucid or mad. The rest of the party agreed that it seemed likely she was unwell, like the rest. They explored the rest of the laboratory, finding an intact teleport circle scribed in a threadbare bedroom, and a strange sludge that bore evidence of being poured into the volcano through a tunnel aimed at its core. They collected what materials they could and prepared to head back, for the site had little more to go on. It wasn't yet clear if Jet had spoken to the sickly volcano directly, or to the Proxy and assumed she was its spirit; but when they reported back to him on the shoreline, he seemed satisfied with the slowness of their information: that the volcano would require significant time and possibly some intervention by the R.E.C. to be purified. He provided them with an easterly wind and then returned to whence he came. When the Aces arrived back at Harpum, they met with Decus and Arisa using the Obelisk network and explained what they had found. The news of another dead Proxy seemed to strike Arisa particularly hard; whether it was the culmination of all these losses or just the knowledge that a creature she once considered a friend had spent the past 1000 years in suffering like so many others. But she accepted the choice. Captain Van, who had been listening in, noticed that he recognized the description of that strange green sludge - he ordered the Aces to have it buried in a barrel of rocks and sand, as he seemed to think it was some natural mineral that produced a noxious aura on its own power. If he was right, he could study the stuff when it was transported to Alsaines; and it might need to wait till after the Redshift was no longer present in this world before the R.E.C. could afford to do anything about that volcano's pollution. That would be taken on in the future: the next task for the Aces was their return to Alsaines, then a visit to Gemeri.
The Third Proxy
11 of Ionhus, 1222Expeditionists: Alvisstavver, Ambergrene, Arisa-2, Mont'larin, Naia, Nimbus Having recovered a bit of the Proxy's core, the Aces brought it back with them among the other salvage to the R.E.C. headquarters at Alsaines. Between this and the one salvaged from the Pallidae site, Arisa finally had enough material (besides her own crystal brain) to try to replicate the technology. And the past year of her study had finally paid off. She didn't want to set up an Obelisk at Gemeri - it was so easy for her to integrate with the Obelisk network, and she was sane. An insane Proxy doing so could cause real chaos. The alternative was to attempt to make a Proxy of herself - smaller and battery-powered, but enough to see and speak would be plenty for the R.E.C.'s plan to befriend and try to reason with this last remaining Proxy of Aelita. With Alvisstavver's help as her hands, she put together the various pieces of Proxy crystal that had been collected and created something like a temporary Proxy-hack. Connecting herself through the network to it was easy; when she made the jump, or rather when her self made a copy, it was proof enough that there was enough hardware to support a living brain for at least a little while. Arisa's Proxy was born then, and though she reported feeling less grounded and less stable than usual, she was ready to join the Aces on their trip back to Gemeri. When they arrived, the Proxy guards recognized them; the team played along with the earlier lie they had told, that they were escorting a new invention of Arisa's from her home to here to attempt to repair the Proxy communication lines. Arisa-2 herself was kept in a covered wagon, to hide the morbid engineering within. Arriving at the Proxy's central building without incident - through a Gemeri that had clearly been shifted once or twice more in the intervening months - they opened up conversation with Aelita. She and Arisa spoke for a while, and told the Aces to make themselves at home while they talked shop. Arisa kept to her word and continued to fluff the truth; she told the Proxy that there had been some abberrant influence upon Vessoth lately, and it might be what interrupted the communication lines. Strange incursions and things of that nature had been happening all over the country. She spoke of things the Aces had seen and done, but not of the fact that it had been a thousand years. In the end, she couldn't do it. She didn't have the backbone to tell this Proxy the full truth, and allowed her to continue believing that her town was safe, that Vessoth was dealing with this crisis without great loss, that even though the Star Tower was currently unreachable, no terrible fate was feared. So the Aces, who had rejoined the conversation a couple hours later, thought to ask the Proxy if she knew the sigil sequence for the Tower's throne room. They knew about it of course, and this was an emergency - the Proxy, surprisingly, readily agreed. She believed the Secretary would have kept those who lived in the Star Tower safe, but it might be just what they needed to get a team from the outside in there to help them get out or solve whatever problem was happening. She gave them the sigils that she had stored in her memory and told them that if anyone gave them a hard time for using them, to send them back to her to complain about it. She gave them their next mission: get into the Tower and help!
Ves Underground
16 of Broccus, 1222Expeditionists: Alvisstavver, Ambergrene, Mont'larin, Naia, Nimbus The goal was set and there was no reason to delay. The Ace Expeditionists would enter the Vessian Star Tower... hopefully. Using the teleportation glyphs given by the Proxy at Gemeri, they attempted entry from their base of operations at Alsaines, and the R.E.C. held their breath. The portal was a success, but only partially, as soon became apparent. The Aces had teleported through some mishap into a deep basement level of the Vessian Star Tower. Here, things were quiet - almost serene, in their entry. Silent, liminal halls of what might have been a place once used, or just an idea of that place, twisted around them: and upward. Finding a window allowing view of the sunken city outside, the Aces realized they were subterranean, and began looking for a route upstairs. What followed was a labyrinth of impossible shape. The Redshift had, in its work, made the Star Tower nigh unnavigable - and yet it was still. The party discovered keycards used by denizens of the past which could open certain doors and activate certain lifts between floors. Even though these floors were twisted - full of strange petal-shaped levers, impossibly-shaped pits, haywire machines, and broken orrery, there was yet a true path through them. While climbing this path, the party encountered an array of automaton guards designed to halt and stun intruders: still active, still hunting, and unreasonable. But though they shouted out, they could not make any contact with the Secretary Aelita who should be inside this structure. Not until they reached the ground level grand foyer. After an exhausting journey, they arrived in what seemed to have once been a bustling indoor plaza; today desolate. A voice rang out above them, giving some automated greeting in what must have been Aelita's voice. Was she really here waiting for them? If she was, it was behind the final guardian of this part of the Tower: the shifted King Erditus, still standing guardian titanic over the corpse of his beloved Queen Ars'ela, entombed in crystal. His crown and blade rusted unto his bones, the blinded King battled the Aces who had arrived from afar, but could not stand against their teamwork. He fell. Behind him laid the teleport glyphs the party had intended to reach; they found that one of them had been magically out of phase, but it could be fixed. They wouldn't be having any additional mishaps to return here. Then, there she was. A ringing, static-filled laugh from a trick of light doubled over in recline, the Secretary Aelita, her obliterated cranium sending sparks as she spoke. It wasn't like the Proxies, unaware so they were. She laughed at them. Taunted them. She wasn't in pain... she was in love. And declared the R.E.C. her enemy. When the Redshift began again, she promised to see them soon, and faded in something like ecstasy as it shredded her stability. The party had to retreat: but they had made a checkpoint. They could rush out the front door of the Tower, then leap back home with Lodevein's skills.
Aelita
27 of Broccus, 1222Expeditionists: Alvisstavver, Ambergrene, Angela, Jabberlax, Kuromizawa, Lufael, Mont'larin, Naia, Nimbus, Sharp Back at Alsaines, recovered and with news, it was time to make decisions. Eska had taken the shifted head of Erditus and given it a burial. But Holtzmann's shifted body was still under preservation. The time when his expertise could be too valuable was coming, and quickly. It was decided for Expeditionist Quillix to reincarnate his body in hopes that his soul might be able to make the leap. With a dream of the future, she summoned him forth, and when the twisted remains sloughed away from within sat up a boy in his preteen years. Adrian Holtzmann returned to life with all the knowledge he once held, a gap of half-remembered torment a thousand years long, and all his physical prowess gone. Reeling but once more human, he came to terms with his arrival in a time far distant from his own. Those who would become his allies assuaged him, putting their trust in him though he blamed himself for what had come to pass. Now that he was here, he could tell them everything he knew; and despite the weight on his shoulders, he was a very reasonable man, and agreed with this course. He had been brought to a group who was so close to the core of this problem that he surely must do his utmost to help. He told the group everything he possibly could about the Star Tower and his work with Princess Cirres; how the Asterith Locus worked; how the machine which channeled it functioned to knit new realities into the sickly Cirres; Aelita's help in all this, and who she really was as a person - as best as he knew. He'd have to remain in safety at an Obelisk, but he armed the R.E.C. with knowledge. With it in hand they readied to teleport back into the Tower; they learned as well that during the last Redshift, the sunken pit around the Tower had been destroyed. Or unmade. A grassy field stretched in all directions now, as though there had never been a city there, and never would be again. The team at Fort Descent had had much of their labor destroyed by this as they'd been trying to create a lift below, but this served to save effort in the end as now the R.E.C. could simply enter the building. It was much as they had left it - identically so. Aelita ignored their calls. But... one of the lift doors in the grand foyer opened on its own. There was little choice but to take the invitation. They arrived in a stretch of the Tower more unreal than before. Where previous chambers below had seemed like representations of what had once been, the places now were truly impossible. The Secretary met them at a banquet spread upon a platform in a blue-hued void, greeting them warmly. It wasn't clear what she wanted out of them. She welcomed them, then told them to leave. She guided them to the next elevator going up, then told them she'd kill them before they could ever leave again. Threats aside, little conversation could be made, and the Aces would not be halted, so they made to proceed. What followed was something like a dream, or a heaven. The shadow of Aelita chased them through a space like a black sea, and a sea in black space. They fell through the sky to pierce her shadow's core, shattering what stood between them and the top of the Tower. Was it real, part of her mind? A trial? A battle to the death? She roared at them as they climbed the Star Tower through some un-space, that they would break something irreversibly, that they would make all the sacrifice lose its worth. There was no way they could stop. They broke back into reality, the real version of the Star Tower, into the chamber of the great machine that knitted the wellbeing of other worlds' Cirres into this one's. After they damaged it, extracting the Asterith Locus from within, making sure it would never run again - but surprised that it hadn't been removed or apparently used ever since its original time - Aelita appeared again to tell them that Expeditionist Mortier's team had begun a similar route up the Tower. They'd have to hope they'd meet up... Again, they broke into a place. Aelita sat among gravestones for each Vessian who had been alive when the Redshift began. Something like regret carried her words to them. It was like she couldn't hear it herself. She warned them again that she'd kill them. The Aces were not dissuaded. Finally, after facing her machinations again and again, there was one final lift and a magitechnology control module. It seemed inscrutable, but before long Expeditionist van Ciel and her team arrived in the same chamber soon after; their routes up the tower had converged. Singed and bludgeoned, they had taken a similar path through trials designed by the Secretary. Lufael had studied the Khollajan Star Tower in the past, and used her knowledge to recognize the magitechnology here. She could control the final lift to send it wherever it went - somewhere even higher in the Tower, however up they already were. The Aces' team agreed to ride the lift up to seek the end. It drove to an impossible height; the Tower seemed as though its walls had been shredded above the clouds, and vast empty blue skies could be seen outside with no sign of the Earth anymore. While more drones attacked the team controlling the elevator, a gargantuan machine bearing Aelita's broken face landed upon the elevator itself. Four-armed, laughing, screeching sparks as she hung on the edge and skittered against the walls of the Tower rushing by. She tried with all her might to slay them, but they knocked her loose, and she fell into the abyss in the Tower's walls. Up even higher they went, till a landing, and a great observatory: where a second Secretary machine burst from the ceiling. She reveled as she tried to kill them, her heartcrystal pulsing red. She damned them again and again for coming to Vessoth to break what had been protected. Try as she might to prevent passage deeper into the Tower, toward whatever it was she was sworn beyond life and death to protect, whether she was testing them or truly loved the Redshift, her machine body was not strong enough. They finally obliterated her heart, ending her life forever. And behind her metal frame lay the final passageway. Whatever she had done to twist the Tower's innards had not affected here; it seemed almost normal, sort of lived in. At the end of the quiet hall was only one simple door. Behind it: a bedroom. A bed covered in ruffled silks, bookshelves stacked with fantasies, decor for a child. On her bed sat Princess Cirres, reading her favorite book, haunted by a great red eye staring at the newcomers, anchored in smooth, rippling purple flesh, trapped behind a spiked golden crown. She hesitated. Asked who they were. Mont'larin, however, did not. He saw what was before him and stepped into it, blade in hand. The Princess flinched. The eye widened; she coughed, then flushed with fever, arched back. The Redshift poured from her mouth. Mont'larin told his companions to flee, but he refused. He raised his blade, struck the Beast in its horrible eye -- and was obliterated by Redshift before he could connect. The rest of the party fled. They had seen the center of the Redshift, but they couldn't kill it. It was something different than that. All this time she had been still alive.