Investigation Planning

Okido: Realizing that the inside of these black bubbles might not have a breathable, or any, atmosphere at all.

Canadian Liaison: based on drone footage and lack of suction when the buble went down, the Norman Wells bubble had about 1a of pressure when it vanished.

Green: what about CO2 concentration

Canadian Liaison: drone couldn’t tell. it was a bomb-disposal bot.
not a NASA rover

Okido: I think we might want to consider respirators at the very least.

Okido: We’ll be preparing as if we will be here for a while
Pressure helmets at least, environmental scanners
We can’t guarantee light, so everybody’s bringing a flashlight
Toolkits and extra parts to repair armor/weapons
Modular Q3 pressure helmet with attached flashlight
If Geoff gets high repair then we don’t have to spend too much on toolkits
I’ll be shelling out for a Q7 medical toolkit
I fully intend to hold a camera, stick my arm in and pull it out to see what it records
Because what the hey, why hasn’t anyone done this yet

Green: stick your arm in??

Okido: We are walking bodily into a pitch black sphere
You can shove a stick into it then pull it out
If it’s not safe to shove my arm in then the mission is doomed

Green: no, the stick gets cut in half
and a drone went in safely

Okido: Wait

Canadian Liaison: as far as we know, nothing the has crossed the boundry has returned.
if you hold a stick in halfway, it gets cut in half, as geoff said.
the drone went into the Norman Wells incursion around 0800 zulu, witch is 2AM local time.
it caught some stars on camera.
and somewhat could make out the 2 creature it caught on film.

Okido: Ahhhhh

Canadian Liaison: so at least some light was around at the time.

Okido: I thought they exited the Incursion
Ok
I see, so inside the Incursion there were these two creatures and the town?

Canadian Liaison: it seems like.

Okido: Alright, ok
So chances there is an atmosphere, probably a low-light environment

Canadian Liaison: the bomb disposal drone mostly saw part of a street and the wall or a building though
not much to go on.

Okido: How long does it take to break a stick?

Canadian Liaison: unclear? you can’t see the other side.

Okido: Alright

Minami: I vote we try setting up a message basket where every few minutes someone outside reaches in with a hook on a pole and picks up the basket we might have put a message in, if they’re fast maybe they can snag the basket before the stick breaks
Probably the stick will break
But maybe it wont

Canadian Liaison: > as far as we know, nothing the has crossed the boundry has returned. @Canadian Liaison

Green: yeah
stuff can’t come back you guys
if they put the stick out and pull it back it breaks
there is no coming back
they tried last time

Canadian Liaison: dun dun DUN!

Minami: It sounded like they tried holding the stick in the, not quickly stabbing the mysterious dome

Canadian Liaison: they tried fast-pokeing.

Okido: Wait, does it cut, or does it just prevent moving out of it

Canadian Liaison: they tried lots of pokes
they are SCIENTISTS!

Minami: Oh so they did try quickly stabbing it

Okido: Because if it’s the latter then it won’t break just by pulling out, it’ll just get stuck

Canadian Liaison: seems to cut?

Okido: But if it’s the former then something in the human body will be cut by going in

Canadian Liaison: drone got in intact.

Okido: Whatever
We’ll be here all day
If it doesn’t cut when moving into it, but cuts if you stop or slow down then theoretically if you had a long enough stick or cable you could keep inserting it into the Incursion and have it not break

Canadian Liaison: maybe!

Okido: Look, I don’t want to spend the first two hours of the session poking it with different and expensive sticks
But it makes a lot of sense to try to find out at what point it decides to cut things
If nothing else then for safety purposes
It’s not like I can’t tell when part of a stick falls off due to the lost weight

Canadian Liaison: it seems like there is a tiny ammount of resistant force, if an item pushes past that, it’s sucked in intact.
if you force an item in partway and hold it there, is gets cut

Okido: Alright, so as long as we don’t stop we’re fine
Alright, I won’t poke it with stick

Canadian Liaison: that’s the theory of the guy who ordered you to run into the thing, at least :P

Okido: …

Canadian Liaison: <3

Okido: New plan: poke General aggressively with stick

After Action Report

A very tired Lt. Col Ohkido marched into the conference room carrying a folder with far too much paper for his liking. The conversation between the high-ranking military officials sitting around the meeting table died down along with the lights. Specialists Green and Manami were also present, they both looked like they were about to fall asleep where they sat.

“Good afternoon,” said Ohkido “if we are ready to begin?” The general nodded minutely.

Green’s keyboard clattered and the projector flared to life, showing an image of the 3rd Incursion, a gigantic dome so pitch black that it looked like somebody had simply censored a chunk of the picture out.

“The Quincy Incursion, yesterday at fourteen hundred twenty four zulu. Myself, Specialist Green and Specialist Manami were sent on a mission inside the Incursion in an attempt to gather intel on the Incursions. We arrive at sixteen hundred fourteen, entering after a brief test.”

The screenshot changes to camera footage of the Lt Col doing just that, stepping through to find the inside very well lit, the sky was visible through the reflective dome, making look a bit like a one way mirror.

“We have determined that radio signals and light can enter the barrier, but not leave it, so communication is possible one way at least. It is why the light from the sky is blended with the dome’s reflection. But I digress.”

The image changed to a Birdseye view of the Incursion Zone.
“Drone footage showed about thirty man-sized unidentified subjects, as well as much larger unidentified creature, rounding civilians into an area at the center of the Incursion. These civilians were taken to a point in the center, after which they would instantly disappear without a trace.” The image changed to a smooth metal column of about 5ft. tall with a metal orb floating unnaturally above it. “We later discovered this device to be the source of the Incursion and presumably the origin of the repair field as well.”

One of the Generals chimed in “Repair field?” Ohkido blinked, “Right, er,” he forgot to mention the repair field. God he was tired, he massaged the bridge of his nose before explaining. “we found that many objects would spontaneously repair themselves shortly after sustaining damage inside the Incursion. Living beings were unaffected as far as we could tell, we didn’t stop to experiment for more then a minute.”

The projector started flickering between zoomed out views of the civilians, each one with four less civilians in it, with a clock in the corner marking the passage of time between them.

“As you can see, they only disappeared a few civilians at a time with a certain time between each one, indicating a possible limitation in the technology. In any case, seeing as the unknown forces were spot into two groups, twenty at the center guarding the captured civvies and ten closer by in the process of kidnaping more civilians, we opted to move closer to the group of ten in order to assess their capabilities and engage as necessary. As for what we found when we got there…” Green’s keyboard clattered.
The image changed to a split screen. On the left there was a man clad in face concealing bronze armor, wielding a large red tower shield and a short spear with nasty looking barbs at the tip. On the right there was a picture of several of their corpses lying naked on a metal table in a morgue. “Much to our surprise, the unknown subjects turned out to be human. At least we assume so, autopsy reports are still pending. They seemed to act in a very primitive way, they didn’t understand what a grenade was, their armor and weapons looked like they could’ve been smithed in the Middle Ages, and they had no advanced technology on their person that we could discern except for one notable exception that we’ll get to later.”

“Dispatching them was a simple matter, Green distracted them with one of the scouting drones, while Manami, Myself and the combat drone opened fire. Between our armor and Stabar- stab-proof overcoats, they wholly failed to deal any meaningful damage to us and Green’s Combat Drone took only minor superficial damage. We dispatched all but two of them, who escaped. We gave emergency care to them, and managed to keep three stable, who are now in custody.”

The screen then showed the top down drone footage, ten of the soldiers had broken off from the center.

“As you can see, ten of them broke off from the center to confront us. So we simply drove the Jeep around and confronted the now weaker center group, leaving the other squad for later.”

The projector showed a close-up of the stationary forces, with the larger creature identifiable. It looked like a giant, scaled wolf-dinosaur. And it had a rider.
“At this point Green had moved his drones close enough to identify the larger creature. As you can see, it had a rider, and judging by his more intricate armor we assume he holds a higher rank then the others. At this point we engaged in hit and run tactics, we did a drive by and I had Green and Minami fire upon the creature to draw its attention and either separate it from the civilians or continue firing until it died.” The footage showed the rider leading the creature to take cover after it had been wounded. The camera moved away rapidly as the Jeep they were on drove away. They were about maybe 800ft away before the beast exited cover, then Green paused the footage.

“Now, up until now all of their technology has been painfully primitive. Bronze plate and weapons, wooden shields, riding an animal into battle. All of their technology has been medieval at best with one exception, play the clip.”

The footage resumed, and in a blink of an eye, the giant beast surged forward, covering the entire distance until it was on top of the vehicle. In the same motion it had bitten Ohkido and lifted him out of the driver’s seat.

“As you can see, the creature displayed a preternatural ability of rapid acceleration and deceleration.” The clip showed the recorded angles on the action, including the drone footage from above, with helpful measurements to show exactly how fast this thing moved. “At the time we didn’t know what had happened, but the science team has found that the source of it were a couple of bone spurs that the leader was wearing.”

The projector showed said spurs, as well as a clip of a scientist crossing a football field in the blink of an eye before going back to the combat footage.
“You’ll have to get the details from the science team, we only witnessed the ability firsthand once, as after the Deathasaurus bit me we-” General Barca cut him off, faintly amused. “I’m sorry the what?” Ohkido blinked. “The, uh.,” Big Murder Lizard “uhm,” Fucking bastard dinosaur that bit me “er…”

“Occidendum Magnus?” Minami offered.

“Yes, that. The creature. The Magnus, after it bit me it died shortly thereafter to sustained fire from Green and Minami. The remaining soldiers abandoned the civilians and marched towards us, which allowed us to clean up the remainder of them with an rpg without fearing for collateral damage. In any case, we swept up then inspected the center point of the Incursion.”

Green played the footage of the squad walking up to the strange metal pole.
“This pole is very similar to the one found in the device recovered from the Indian Ocean. We found a metal orb and-” Another general cut him off. “Why did you throw a body at it?” Ohkido swung around, looking at the footage of the dead soldier awkwardly slumped against the pole. “The civilians that had touched it disappeared once they touched it. I wanted to test that property before we inspected it.”

“Hm.”

“In any case, Minami figures out how to operate it, to a limited extent at least, and she could make it more or less active by shifting it a certain way. I ordered her to make it less active after which the Incursion Zone collapsed and the pole vanished. The rest you know: the army stepped in to clean up. The remaining Bronze Age soldiers were swept up with ease, though due to their refusal to give up we only took two of them as prisoners. The D- the Magnus turned out to be alive, but was killed by a startled soldier after it twitched.”

Entering an Incursion, Lt Col Okido

If entering with a vehicle, try to enter through a street or road. Enter slowly, as to avoid any collisions. Ideally, use a long stick to probe the area you are going to enter through, if it bends or moves unexpectedly then there is probably an obstacle there. Find a different entry point and try again.

At this point in time we can’t assume anything. An Incursion zone might be irradiated, have extreme temperatures, have different gravity, have extreme temperatures, etc. I strongly recommend entering with a pressurized helmet and bringing a Geiger counter at least.

Memo

Field report, Incursion 2 (Quincy, California, USA), Specialist Rowan Minami

Submitted 19:36 (roughly three hours after the end of the incursion)

Summary

• Prevented capture of the remaining at least a few hundred civilians still left inside the dome when we arrived.
• Captured three enemy soldiers, who appear to be Roman legionnaires. The other two were retrieved after the bubble went down (in the future, please try to capture more of them alive. It is hard to get linguistic data if they are dead).
• Killed a large somewhat reptilian creature, which we have nicknamed the Deathasaurus.
• Investigated the technology involved in the bubble, and used some of it to bring the bubble down within an hour of entering the incursion.

The bubble:

The bubble is somewhat transparent from the inside; we could see ourselves reflected with about as much clarity as we could see the people standing outside. Specialist Green thinks it is somewhat like a one-way mirror. The barrier feels very solid, and made a barely inaudible sound when we hit it with a stick. Perhaps it is extremely rigid, and therefore does not vibrate when struck, so the sound was just the stick vibrating. Or perhaps it has some sort of sound absorption capability, as we could not hear any of the ambient noise present outside the bubble.

Visibility is good enough that we could receive visual messages from the outside, if there is anything to communicate from outside in. Since we won’t be standing next to the entrance the whole time, we might consider sending visual signals to a device on the inside which would wirelessly communicate with Specialist Green’s laptop.
I am curious as to how air interacts with the barrier. I would assume it does not cross back out, but can it enter? Objects and people can, but sound doesn’t seem to. There wasn’t much of a breeze at this incursion but perhaps there will be at a future one and we can see whether the wind continues inside the bubble. Or else someone on the outside could spray a brightly colored or strongly smelling aerosol at the bubble, and see if it is perceived by those inside.

The repair field:

Objects which were broken mysteriously knit themselves back together while in the bubble. After observing a pile of wood (the result of a group of enemy soldiers kicking down a door) form itself into a completely undamaged door [see camera recovered from mailbox of 482 Alfred Pl], we realized that the bubble had properties beyond blocking all light, sound, and matter from escaping. We ran a test with one of the spare cameras, and learned that the repair field applies to items brought in after the bubble went up. Further experimentation showed that it does not extend to computer memory, as the test message I recorded before smashing the camera a second time was lost when it was repaired several seconds later. The repair field extended as well to robots and armor, but not to living creatures, at least as far as we could tell (nobody wanted to stab themselves for science). Things in my possession repaired by the repair field have remained intact even after the bubble went down, at least so far.
I am curious as to how air interacts with the barrier. I would assume it does not cross back out, but can it enter? Objects and people can, but sound doesn’t seem to. There wasn’t much of a breeze at this incursion but perhaps there will be at a future one and we can see whether the wind continues inside the bubble. Or else someone on the outside could spray a brightly colored or strongly smelling aerosol at the bubble, and see if it is perceived by those inside.

The repair field:

Objects which were broken mysteriously knit themselves back together while in the bubble. After observing a pile of wood (the result of a group of enemy soldiers kicking down a door) form itself into a completely undamaged door [see camera recovered from mailbox of 482 Alfred Pl], we realized that the bubble had properties beyond blocking all light, sound, and matter from escaping. We ran a test with one of the spare cameras, and learned that the repair field applies to items brought in after the bubble went up. Further experimentation showed that it does not extend to computer memory, as the test message I recorded before smashing the camera a second time was lost when it was repaired several seconds later. The repair field extended as well to robots and armor, but not to living creatures, at least as far as we could tell (nobody wanted to stab themselves for science). Things in my possession repaired by the repair field have remained intact even after the bubble went down, at least so far.
The soldiers very much resembled legionnaires from the Roman empire. Physiologically, they matched, being uniformly male, muscular, a bit shorter than the average modern human (which makes them taller than average for Romans), with tan skin and dark hair about right for the region. Having done emergency medical care to a few of them (now in custody and still unconscious), I am fairly sure that they are in fact human. Their gear also matched the era: leather armor, bronze spears in a variety of lengths, and wooden shields taller than they were. They were quite adept at using the shields to block bullets, with surprising effectiveness. They wore cloth ponchos over their armor with matching designs for each company of ten. I don’t recall the Roman armies being that organized, but someone should fact-check that, if it’s relevant. In any case, the legionnaires did not seem to belong to a high-tech society. They had no more reaction to a grenade thrown at them than they would have a rock, and were completely baffled by the robots (they repeatedly tried stabbing the combat robot to little effect).

The lack of technological experience demonstrated by the soldiers was a bit baffling given the other technological feats we saw on display by their leaders (we assumed the people in robes were the leaders, as there were fewer of them and they seemed to be giving the orders. Also, one of them was riding the Deathasaurus). The most obvious was the teleportation. During the course of the incursion, we observed several instances of small groups of civilians being herded into a small space next to one of the men in robes, and then vanishing [see SKEYE footage around 15 minutes in, copied onto flash drive left in mailbox of 8399 3rd Ave]. Since simply vanishing people doesn’t sound very useful, I assume they were teleporting their prisoners elsewhere. The repair field is also obviously technology far beyond our capabilities.
Another example is the Deathasaurus, and its ability to teleport short distances. Either that or it can run really, really fast. Lieutenant Colonel Ohkido thinks it was running really fast, and didn’t teleport. We goaded it into chasing our Jeep to lure it away from the civilians and the teleporter, and it moved nearly aabout a thousand feet in a couple seconds. I don’t know if we got any good footage of it; it was far behind us and we were driving away, and then the Deathasaurus had yanked Ohkido out the Jeep window. There’s no way that thing should have been able to move that fast! The man riding it also appeared to be able to move that fast, zooming from the fallen Deathasaurus back to the empty lot much faster than we were able to drive the distance. Perhaps the speed was his, then, and not the Deathasaurus’?

Their language was unfamiliar to me and did not sound like it belonged to a language family I have much experience with (that is, Romance, Germanic, or Semitic). We did not manage to hear much of it, and most of what they said was during battle and was probably directions. As for the prisoners, I recommend letting at least two of them talk to each other as soon as possible and as often as possible. This will probably allow them to craft false information to tell us once we figure out how to communicate, or plan an escape. However, I think it is worth it, as they were unlikely to cooperate anyway. Letting them talk to each other is a much better way to gather linguistic data which could allow us to negotiate during a future incursion or interview future prisoners. Keeping one of the injured ones isolated from his comrades should be sufficient for keeping a collusion-free source of information.
### Technology:

The main technology we encountered was a shiny pedestal which seemed to be embedded in the ground, and the orb that went with it. Both vanished when the bubble went down, as did the repair field.

The pedestal is made of gold and carbon, according to Specialist Green, and appeared to be very stuck to the ground, though it left no mark when it disappeared. The orb, which had moving pieces that could be slid around in various configurations rather like a Rubiks cube, seems to be the controller for the pedestal. We had already observed that the pedestal could be the center of some sort of teleportation field, but further examination of the SKEYE footage of the instances of teleportation revealed that only people directly touching the pillar vanished, and the operator managed to stay behind by dropping the orb onto the pedestal and jerking his hand away before it came to rest. The orb, when placed near the top of the pedestal, likes to hover about an inch and a half above the indentation on the top of it, and will fall into place if dropped from various heights, provided it’s close enough to center. In order to avoid touching the orb while it was on the pedestal, we resorted to hitting it with a stick whenever we wanted to remove it in order to make adjustments.
The orb has a lot of pieces that slide around. None of them are labeled, not even in a different language. [See camera retrieved from tree next to the main road for footage of orb.] It seems like it doesn’t do anything except when it’s on the pedestal, although it does vibrate slightly to the touch. That was the main source of feedback I had when trying to get it to do something interesting: sliding various pieces around could make the buzzing increase or decrease. Decreasing sounded like it might be less dangerous, so we tried that first. When I tossed the orb onto the pedestal after getting it down to a barely perceptible buzz, the orb and pedestal vanished, and the sky stopped looking slightly reflective; the bubble had gone down.

In hindsight, we probably should have spent more time investigating the orb and documenting its motion and configurations. But we didn’t know that once we took the bubble down the orb would vanish. And we didn’t know that we could use the orb to take the bubble down, either. But now that we know we can leave whenever we like, we can more safely take the time to document the orb’s structure and test out more of its capabilities. We might consider bringing in an additional scientist who specializes in this sort of thing (I’m not sure what kind of scientist this would be, but I’m sure there’s someone), who we would leave in a fairly safe area until we had cleared out the soldiers and retrieved the orb for them.

Recommendations:

• The legionnaires were fairly easy to fight given their low-tech gear and inexperience with modern weaponry, and can be dealt with by average soldiers. Given the amount of people lost during the time it took us to reach the incursion, it could be advantageous to send in the regular military or whoever else can get there the fastest to slow the kidnapping of civilians. They probably would not be effective at fighting the freakishly fast Deathasaurus, though, should one show up again.
• Consider setting up a method for determining where to hide camera drop-offs, for easier retrieval in the event that we get teleported and cannot tell you where we put them. On the other hand, you would still have to search everywhere for a last camera we might have dropped while getting kidnapped, since we can’t be sure to get kidnapped somewhere convenient.
• Please try to get more living prisoners. We cannot get linguistic data out of dead people. Living prisoners who don’t already hate us for killing their comrades are preferable.
• Attempt negotiation once we figure out more about the Legionnaire’s language. The goal is to convince a troop of legionnaires to take a negotiator to someone in charge (probably the man riding the Deathasaurus). Negotiator should have mics and cameras which transmit wirelessly to a remote computer, in case they get eaten by the Deathasaurus.
• Next time we have a badly injured and unconscious Deathasaurus, consider not killing it. I’m sure everyone wants to know why it’s so fast, and a live one might be more helpful than a dead one. Although given how fast it goes, we probably want to keep it unconscious so it doesn’t crash through the wall, or teleport away and escape.
  • The legionnaires seem to be human, so human drugs probably work on them. Equipping Specialist Green’s scout robot with a tranquilizer gun might be a good way to take prisoners.
• The downside of the legionnaires being human is that we can pass diseases between us. Consider quarantining the incursion zone and screening everyone’s health until we can be reasonably sure that they haven’t picked anything up from the legionnaires. The captive legionnaires should also be isolated for their own protection, and probably vaccinated.

condensed investigation summery of incursion zone 2(Quincy California, USA):

Analyst Jasmine Watts, USSOCOM. 18 days since incursion 0

estimated 520-540 civilians the incursion zone

• 347 were extracted alive(9 in critical condition)
• 31 were found dead, all of witch have now been identified
• an estimated 142-162 people were abducted, apparently via teleportation

estimated 80-100 invaders:

• 39 dead
• 3 captured, badly injured
• estimated 40-60 unaccounted for, presumably vanished.

invader numbers and deployment (based on eyewitness accounts and cell phone footage)

• by 20 min into the incursion, the invaders numbered an estimated 80 soldiers(perhaps a hundred? ten groups of ten?)
• a large number of people were violently rounded up early in the incursion and abducted, a large number of invaders apparently disappeared along with them(to manage the captives on the other side?)

containment and quarantine:

• quarantined was enacted 4 hours after the incursion ended. There were several quarantine failures due to delay and the lack of preparation.
• Members of Senior staff were exposed to the Contact team shortly after the incursion, but are so far in good health
• two army medics that treated captives came down with dysentery-like symptoms, witch responded well to antibiotics and rest. Their unit is under quarantine.
• so far, there have been no cases of unknown illnesses among either the quarantine zone or Contact team(currently quarantined in Nellis air force base, on heavy antibiotics as precaution)

Terminus project:

an international collaboration to investigate and respond to the threat posed by apparent extraterrestrial or otherworldly incursions.

many aspects are still being settled, up to and including who will serve as director on a permanent basis. nonetheless, given the pressing and unknown threat, the Terminus project is being rolled out in an unfinalized state as quickly as possible.

Terminus is run by a director, who answers to a council of representatives of all participating nations.

operating guidelines: the central focus of Terminus is first-boots-on-the-ground rapid response to incursions withing the borders of signatory nations, enabled by the saucer-like craft retrieved from incursion 0 (designation EA:I0:0000-0000). this is to be achieved with contact teams ready around-the-clock to deploy into any incursion. the exact goals an priorities of a contact team are still under debate, but they should include the prevention of deployment of superweapons, gathering of intelligence and resources, and protection of persons in the incursion. diplomatic contact, if possible, is highly desirable.

diplomacy: while diplomacy is a major goal, the Terminus Projects diplomatic status is complicated, as it’s unclear what the assumption the other party would have, and unclear who they would negotiate with. Terminus can’t promise anything or make agreements on behalf of signatory nations, but trying to have dozens of nations separately negotiating would be very difficult and disadvantageous. it’s proposed that the council as a whole could negotiate as one entity that relays this through a single representative, but this has not been agreed upon.
technology, and artifacts: the decision of what to do with artifacts and technology recovered from incursion zones is contentious, to say the least. the current agreement is that that Terminus will study most artifacts with an on-base team of scientists(from myriad nations), or outsource to another lab, and will share findings with member nations. a provision exists for Terminus to keep some stuff that has pressing in-the-field application.

base location: the permanent location of the Terminus hanger and operating base in undetermined, as most nations want it within their borders, but a “temporary” base is being set up in the USA near area 51 in Nevada.

staff and personnel may be drawn from any signatory nation, provided they pass appropriate background checks and can get security clearance. the current command staff is mostly American(mostly transferred from USSOCOM). while this is useful for having a team that already knows how to work together, this is a major point of contention with the other signatory nations.

the (approximate) singing nations and some of the current Terminus staff are as follows:

Nations: all NATO nations, as well as Australia, Japan, Egypt, Argentina, Russia, Philippines, South Africa, Jordan, New Zealand, Brazil, Morocco

Some Staff:

• Alexander Barca, Director(interim), Air Force General USSOCOM(USA)
• John Much, Head of Operations, Navy Colonel USSOCOM(USA)
• Mila Harris, Head of Intelligence, Intelligence Officer(UK)
• Sycamore Ohkido, Contact 1 Team Leader, Army Colonel USSOCOM(USA)
• Mortimer Hammermeister, Analyst(tech), private sector(German National)
• Jasmine Watts, Analyst(intel), USSOCOM(USA)
• Ray Harper, Pilot, Air Force 1st Lieutenant(USA)
  

memo on the personal summery of results from investigation of artifact(I0-0000) AKA “Saucer”:

1st Lieutenant Ray Harper, Terminus. 22 days since incursion 0.

Sirs, you asked me to summarize my personal takeaways as the Saucer test pilot. while we don’t understand how the Saucer works, we’ve got a solid idea of what it can do, seeing as I’ve been the one flying the thing, I’m putting forth this memo as a non-technical summery of it’s tactically-relevant capabilities and limitations.

• maximum speed of Mach 32
  • fast enough to go completely around the earth in about 40 min
• maximum acceleration of 15G
  • goes from 0 to Mach 32 in 80 seconds
  • I can just barely stay conscious at 15Gs forward acceleration in a high-G flight chair and G-suit.
  • accelerating more slowly is a little imprecise, but staying at a safe number of Gs is straightforward
  • Accelerating backwards, down, or sideways quickly is dangerous, and rotating the craft is slow and bumpy
    • this make it unsuitable for precision maneuvering or fast course adjustments, but is no issue for point a-to-b courses
• limited internal space
  • enough cabin space to fit 4 flight chairs with lot of overhead space.
  • we could probably squeeze in another set of 4 flight chairs above the first layer, but deploying would be ridiculously tight
  • (carries 4 medium size creatures, plus a medium size pilot, plus 4 size medium cargo spaces)
• cargo weight
  • can support up to 2700lbs of cargo without any performance loss at all
  • tends to dramatically destabilize when loaded with more than approx ~2780lbs
  • each flight chair weighs 200lbs, each cargo rack weighs 10lbs, or 30lbs for heavy cargo. I weigh 182 lbs.
    the deployment plan looks like having everyone strap in, taking off at 10Gs, reaching peak speed at 2 min, spending the travel time following the curvature of the earth and slowly rotating 180 degrees, then spending the last 3-4 min carefully decelerating.
    

First interrogation of Sakhin, third prisoner from the Quincy incursion.

Specialist Rowan Minami, day 39 (1 day after incursion 4 in Barcelos, Brazil)

Yesterday, I talked to Sakhin Loza Nyufela [sæ.ˈxi:n ˈlo:.zæ ˈɲy.fɛə.lə], the soldier from the Quincy incursion we were keeping in isolation. We have not had much cooperation from the other two, Asin Khesha Shawsot [ˈæ:.sɪn xɛ.ˈʃa ʃɔ.ˈso:t] and Maroz Khesha Ostaleh [mæ.ˈɣoz xɛ.ˈʃa oˈstʰa.lɛ], and hoped to have better success from the third one. However, we had been holding off until we were better at communicating, so as not to inadvertently offend him or give him information he could use to deceive us. After a month of study, I thought I could manage a passable interrogation with little chance of giving offense, so I got permission to hold our first conversation with the remaining prisoner. My full report was somewhat delayed, as the Barcelos incursion occurred about half an hour after I finished talking to Sakhin.

Summary:

• The civilians teleported out of the incursion were taken as slaves. This is common practice in the Jaket [dʒɨ.ˈkʰɛt] Empire when conquering new territories. Also, Sakhin says the group of soldiers he was with was ordered to take prisoners rather than cause fear or destroy infrastructure (other common methods of subduing a town).
• The lacertael occidendum magnus is commonly kept as a pet by the nobility, mainly as a status symbol. They are not typically used as part of the military.
• The Jaket Empire is roughly at the tech level of the Roman Empire. That is, Sakhin’s spear and shield are quite modern for his world.
• Sakhin had never encountered anything like the the incursion dome, from the inside or the outside, until the day of the incursion.
  • Sakhin does not know what power armor is. When I showed him pictures of the Russian incursion, he was impressed by our fancy metal statues. Therefore the Jaket Empire is probably not in league with the power armored faction, whoever they are.
• Items with strange powers, such as the bone spurs, are uncommon in the Jaket Empire, but not unheard of. Occasionally a master artisan will go mad and create a bizarre artifact which nobody can explain.

Additional details, analysis, and speculation

The Jaket Empire is the major power on its continent and has been expanding for the past couple of centuries, seeing victory after victory (and, I suspect, tight control of information and a highly effective propaganda system, so nobody hears about their defeats). Citizenship is hereditary and comes in degrees; about half the population are designated residents of the Empire but not citizens, and have very limited rights. Sakhin’s family comes from a region recently assimilated into the Empire, and he was in the process of acquiring citizenship through military service; right now he is designated Loza, or roughly Enlisted, meaning he has some privileges given to him through the military, and may eventually earn partial citizenship. Many second- or third-generation residents of the Jaket Empire take this option to gain better status for themselves and their descendants, conveniently providing an army for Empire’s constant expansion.

Like many Loza from recently conquered groups, Sakhin is not very patriotic, and joined the military only as a way to gain a level of citizenship. Throughout our discussion of his homeland, he seemed altogether unenthusiastic about the Jaket Empire and did not portray it as a very nice place to live. Our other two prisoners, on the other hand, have the rank of Khesha, meaning they were born full citizens, and gained greater status after joining the military. So we shouldn’t be surprised that they aren’t very cooperative—they likely harbor a great deal of loyalty to the Jaket Empire given their larger stake in its success. We might be able to convince them to play the role of ambassadors in order to open up a little more, although it doesn’t sound like diplomacy plays much of a role in Jaket foreign policy.

Sakhin has no evidence of the Jaket Empire ever making forays into another world. Until the day of the Quincy incursion, he had never seen a dome, or anything of the golden-carbon material of the pillar and sphere present in both incursions I’ve seen. He was stationed at a remote outpost when a high-ranking noble rode up on a lacertael occidendum magnus and insisted that ten tenths—about half the troops present—accompany him. They followed him half a day’s march into the wilds, arriving at a golden pillar. The noble did something with the pillar and a translucent dome appeared around them (it sounds a lot like what the incursion bubbles look like from the inside, only much smaller); then they were ordered to teleport out in groups of five by touching the pole. Once they had arrived in Quincy, they began rounding up people to be teleported back through the pole, as we saw.

The timing here is important. We know the noble had the bone spurs, and therefore could have traveled from the pillar to the outpost in very short order, but it still took at least three hours for the soldiers to march back to the pillar. Whereas Myria’s account of when the pole showed up in her cube seems to match when the dome went up in Barcelos, indicating that the pole appeared in both ends of the teleport simultaneously. But in the Quincy incursion, there’s a three hour gap between someone in Jaket deciding to use the pole, the dome going up here. One possibility is that the noble somehow knew the pole was going to appear there, or summoned it there himself. Another is that the incursion domes on our end only go up after a pole has been activated elsewhere, and the pole in Myria’s cube was activated almost immediately by its unusually curious residents (perhaps the flying cockrach-jellyfish, which Myria remembers was the one to manipulate the sphere in their cube into sending them to Barcelos). A third is that the poles appear simultaneously on both ends, and the domes only appear once someone has activated them; we can’t prove or disprove this one since there weren’t any witnesses or cameras from Quincy who were looking at the empty lot before the dome went up, and Myria reports very little delay between the pole’s appearance and her traveling to Barcelos. In future incursions, we should make sure to interview residents about whether any of them saw a pole before the dome went up—if the pillars can make an appearance before the dome goes up, we could get warning of an impending incursion before it happens and have nearby civilians either take shelter or evacuate.

The best explanation Sakhin has for the teleportation is that it’s an unusually powerful artifact made by one of the mad artisans, or even a group of them (if they are capable of working together in their frenzied state). I think it’s unlikely, but worth looking into if we ever get access to Jaket again; those artifacts come in a wide and unpredictable variety and could include something very useful. It’s also his theory for what might have caused a repair field. Those are not common on Jaket, disproving my theory that the phenomenon causing the Amazon to stick to the walls of the incursion bubble was related to the strange gravity in Myria’s cube world.

I have another theory about where the poles come from. The spheres Myria was taken by when she became telepathic, turned purple, etc, look like they’re made of the same material as the poles, and the saucer. So someone with the same technology has control over Myria’s cube. They likely have other advanced technology besides the teleportation between worlds (or over large distances?) and whatever it is that makes the saucer so fast, as they were able to manipulate gravity to point to the surfaces of the cube. This would also explain the bizarre gravitational anomaly that caused the Amazon to stick to the inside of the bubble in the Barcelos incursion, as well as the repair field in Quincy. I think we should investigate whether the saucer has the capacity to do any of these things, and perhaps try experimenting more with the pole-and-sphere setup in the next incursion, assuming we aren’t under time pressure to bring the bubble down immediately.

The question remains as to what the gold-carbon makers want. Myria’s cube sounds like an experiment in genetic engineering and application of some kind of psychic powers (such as Myria herself has, or the teleporting viper-wasp), but to what end? Do they have a hand in the mad artisans of Jaket in the same way they kidnap residents of Myria’s cube? Why are they setting up teleportation bubbles between unsuspecting societies like Jaket and California? We might try asking the invaders in the next incursion in case they were already familiar with the technology, but I’m not sure there is very much coordination between places which use the pillars. Given the temporary nature of the teleportation area, it’s possible the technology has spread to various societies who haven’t had much contact besides some initial world-hopping, and they’ve all noticed us around the same time (somehow) and come to have a look. However, Myria’s cube has had direct and repeated contact with users of the gold-carbon material, so I think we should consider using the teleportation function of the pole to visit, should we find ourselves in contact with it again. We may not be able to leave the bubble on the other end, but we could leave a message which could be answered upon our return (if we connect with the same place twice, it seems a good bet we will encounter it again at some point).

As for Sakhin, he seemed eager to learn more about our world. It could just be enthusiasm at having someone who would actually talk to him, but he was eager at the prospect of learning English or another language in order to communicate with others here. I explained to him that he is not free to leave right now, but might be at some point in the future, either to return to Jaket (assuming we can get back there) or stay here and become a citizen of an Earth country. He seemed cautiously optimistic about the possibility of staying, understandably hesitant as he doesn’t know very much about this world but quite taken with the idea of becoming a citizen. I still don’t entirely understand the Jaket social structure, but citizenship has a lot of significance there, so I think he might be reading too much into it. I told him we didn’t do slavery anymore, and most countries on Earth treat everyone pretty well, regardless of citizenship, but I don’t think it really sunk in. In any case, I recommend start Sakhin with English lessons from the linguists immediately, and deal with the citizenship question later. We will want to continue studying the Jaket language as it’s a very interesting case, being a provable language isolate, but I understand that being able to question Sakhin directly is a priority. We should still keep him from contact with Asin and Maroz, to prevent them from influencing him (I don’t see Sakhin colluding with them to conceal information, but the other two might say something to convince him to stay as close-mouthed as they are).

PS: Sakhin says that he really likes the food here—thanks, Chef Dimas!

Condensed summery on the current state of the Krakow Disaster, day 5:

Analyst Jasmine Watts. 48 days since incursion 0

status: a humanitarian disaster, ongoing urban battlefield, and semi-contained risk of undead apocalypse or plague, all within the same few densely-populated square miles.

Containment ring

• Polish army(aided by German and English forces) has established a killing field over the ring of rubble created by the expanding bubble
• nearby buildings have been evacuated, some are being used as barracks, triage, ect
• secondary line established to keep civilians from entering

Containment threats

• non-zombie related deaths near(within a mile of containment ring?) the Disaster Area seem to turn into zombies
• several reports indicate invisible zombies, while it seems like there aren’t many of these, some may have escaped undetected
• the sewer system is not fully secured, and some undead are suspected to be dwelling withing.
• ordinary animals such as cats and rats naturally dying, and becoming zombies that are very difficult to detect

Containment efforts in progress

• armed patrols for the whole of Krakow to prevent natural deaths from causing another outbreak.
• sealing or collapsing section of the sewers to prevent undead from spreading underground
• no satisfactory response has been developed for the spread of undead vermin
  . Safety of survivors and refugees
• civilian casualty estimates are 5,000-12,000
• survivors who can make it to the containment ring and answer basic verbal questions are brought into the ring, and then moved to a refugee shelter. an international humanitarian effort is ongoing support and improve this process.
• many of those who were injured by a zombie have become ill, and are quarantined separately and under guard. there are no signs yet of spreading to the uninjured, and as of day 5, almost half of those injured have fallen ill.

Extraction and reclamation

• efforts to secure and reclaim the Disaster Area are slow, as the undead’s high resilience causes difficulty in safely clearing the interiors of buildings
  

Creation of additional Analysis subsections pertaining to mystical and supernatural, as well as biological investigation:

Chief of Intelligence Mila Harris. 45 days since incursion 0(2 days since Krakow incursion)

As we encounter more incursions, it has become apparent that we will need more varied and expansive expertise within the analysis division. driving this decision is both an overdue response to the continuing appearance of biologically alien life(“Myria”, “viperwasp”, and Ocedendum Magnus), as well as the apparently mythological or occult nature or invaders and artifacts in the Krakow incursion(I-5).

I made some custom anti-monster bullets!:

Desi Kaufman, Analyst(occult). 51 days since incursion 0(8 days since Kracow incursion)

Compiling myth-weakness got me thinking, and I talked to a custom ammo guy to make some special bullets(rounds? cartridges?) for fighting monsters. Some are pretty simple like the classic silver bullet for Werewolves, Baatezu, Abishai, and Vampires, apparently they had made those before. I also wanted cold iron for demons, fae, fairies, Irish ghosts, ect but nothing agrees on what makes iron “cold”, so I went for crude “pig” iron worked/cut into shape without heating. even got some wood-tipped rounds, maybe for vampires or something? We don’t know what the next encounter could be, or what rules they follow, so I also had some Hellboy-style(the Del Toro movie, not the comics) bullets made, that just shoot absolutely everything that might work.

The Hellboy-style rounds shoots pretty much everything but the kitchen sink: pig iron for fae, silver for a bunch of stuff, white oak(because Hellboy), holy water for undead, ghosts, evil outsiders, ect, salt for ghosts and whatever, garlic for vampires, wolfsbane for werewolves, clover(good enough for hellboy, good enough fo me), depleted uranium dust for ghosts, capitalism for commies, and mercury and crude oil just in case.

You won’t believe the 10 things we used to kill Mouseula! Number 11 was super effective!

Liam Harding, Analyst (occult), day 52 (9 days after the Krakow incursion)

By now you must have heard of Mouseula, our resident vampire mouse! The vampire mage captured in the Krakow incursion is too dangerous to get close to, so we exsanguinated 15 mice and injected them with some vampire blood to see what would happen. Fourteen of them were abnormally strong, fast, and bloodthirsty for mice, but one stood out, being as strong as an average adult human and as slippery as a fish. He can’t turn into a flock of bats, or even one bat, but he can somehow fly anyway, zooming around like a deranged hummingbird only with more teeth, and a thirst for blood. In case we meet more vampires less easily contained than our new furry friend, we have been trying to kill him. Temporarily, as he usually resurrects himself by the next evening.

1. UV light: effective! 5/5

Just like his progenitor, Mouseula does not like UV light, and shrivels up when exposed to it. That’s why we now have an emergency lighting system in the Mouseula room to prevent any escapes! A shriveled up Mouseula will revive at sunset, so no need to worry about losing our fluffy test subject if we have to fry him.

2a. Major religious symbols: effective! 5/5

Many portrayals of vampires in myth and fiction depict them as being vulnerable to crosses. This is true; however, you need a proper, high-quality cross. Holding some branches in the right shape won’t do anything, nor will a drawing of a crucifix, even if it has a really detailed Jesus on it. But poke him with a physical, well-crafted cross and Mouseula will fall right over, dead. Well, re-dead. And only until night falls, then he’ll be back like a furry undead yoyo returning to your hand. It doesn’t have to be a big one, even a cross necklace can work; the important thing seems to be that it is a symbol of faith, and not a few pieces of wood in the correct shape. So if you want your casual vampire protection, go for a necklace or other piece of jewelry—it’s physical, but not an inconvenience to carry around should you run into a vampire. Just make sure the chain is long enough to hold out at arm’s length, or easily detachable. You can also whack them with a menorah in a pinch, or any other object used in worship—symbols from any large religion work, even if you’re not a believer.

2b. Other religious symbols: effective if you believe in them, 4/5

A lot of religious symbols are out since they don’t have a great physical representation. If you want to smite a vampire with math, you’re out of luck since the Pythagorean triangle is a bit tricky to get into physical form. If you can make a physical representation of your religion’s symbol, it works against Mouseula—but only for you or someone else of your faith. We still haven’t figured out what makes Christian, Jewish, and Islamic, and Hindu symbols work for nonbelievers, besides that they have a lot of adherents around the world.

3. Fire: sort of effective, 2/5

The Unitarians have a flaming chalice symbol, so we tried an actual flaming chalice (well, a wine glass with a fire in it). It was not nearly as effective as the physical religious symbols, but Mouseula cowered in fear! This also works if you just hold up a lit torch, but a flaming chalice is much classier.

4. Garlic: sort of effective, 3/5

Mouseula is not harmed by garlic, but boy does he hate the smell! Just holding up a clove of garlic doesn’t work very well since it doesn’t smell very strongly, but crushed garlic or garlic powder goes a long way in making Mouseula keep his distance. Mouseula also hates potted garlic plants, so you may want to take the opportunity to beef up your windowboxes with some anti-vampire protection until we figure out how to test whether Mouseula can enter dwellings where he hasn’t been invited. Liam recommends: garlic squirt guns, and eating more garlic than your neighbors so the vampires will go for tastier prey.

5. Maksim’s Holy Branch of Smiting: effective if you are Maksim, 4/5

Maksim Drogonov from Contact 3 made a fancy stick of smiting vampires, with birch wood and cool-looking runes, and consecrated it over a fire. It smote Mouseula with no problem when he was bopped with it. Unfortunately nobody else could get it to work, even after Maksim explained all the components that went into its crafting. Which is to be expected given we’re not Tengrist, but we could still hope a custom-made vampire-slaying tool might be more widely usable.

6. True Names: ineffective, probably, 0/5

Do vampires have True Names, and can we exploit them? A Jewish story from the 17th century says that Lilith, at least, does, and can be defeated by her secret names. Which, like all helpful villains, she reveals to the prophet Elijah during her monologue bragging about the host of demons she’s got with her. We tried banishing Mouseula using those names, but he was not slain, nor did he lose his sole power of flight; instead, he remained hovering throughout the recitation, occasionally flinging himself ineffectually at the bars in bloodthirsty rage. But we did not lose hope! Those were Lilith’s names, and not Mouseula’s. Unfortunately, intoning Mouseula’s name in suitably dramatic fashion did not work, either. But maybe someday we will find Mouseula’s true True Name, and smite him with it!

7. Holy water: super effective! 5/5

We threw some holy water on Mouseula and he melted with a horrible shriek. Liam recommends: holy water water balloons!

8. Holy symbols drawn on skin: not effective, 0/5

When you’re worried about vampires, your first thought might be to protect your neck. Can a holy symbol drawn on your neck prevent a vampire from drinking your blood? Unfortunately, no—we drew a really detailed crucifix on a steak and Mouseula drank it up with no problem, leaving behind a piece of impressively shriveled and extremely unsanitary jerky.

9. Music: mostly ineffective, 1/5

Mouseula has absolutely no taste in music! We tried singing him hymns, played recordings of chanting from various religions, and had Maksim play him a holy drumbeat, to only minor effect: Mouseula cowered and then appeared irritated. Actually, Mouseula appears strongly dislike loud or sudden noises of any kind, regardless of musical genre. Liam recommends: screaming loudly if you are attacked by Mouseula—it will be your first instinct, and it might hurt his poor malevolent furry ears enough to make him leave!

10. Staking through the heart with wood: very effective! 6/5

We stabbed Mouseula with a yew toothpick through his heart and he died. Permanently. RIP, Mouseula, you will live on in our hearts. And in Mouseula Jr, our second vampire mouse! As well as his 37 older siblings, who are only partly vampiric. That is, they are strong, fast, and violent, but at least they do not fly. They are also dead. Again, permanently. Unlike Mouseula or Mouseula Jr, the ghoulish mice only die once when smitten with a cruficix or set on fire, and do not rise at dusk with a thirst for blood.

They do, however, exhibit that thirst for blood at all times. We found this out when Muffins escaped while I was retrieving my dropped pencil. Professor Adriana Bellini from the Xenobiology group managed to shut the cage door, but not before Muffins had leaped through the opening with preternatural speed, sailing over my head. I slapped the emergency UV light switch, but only Mouseula Jr himself let out a chilling wail. After determining that the ghoulish mice had the same reaction to holy symbols and garlic as Mouseula Jr did, we had been running tests on them. Unfortunately, we had not though to check whether Mouseula Jr’s many belligerent siblings shared his weakness to UV light!

Muffins, undeterred by the harsh purple glow which was smiting his youngest sibling, continued his evil plot, targeting not myself or Prof. Bellini, but the cage of a compatriot, Snowball. Luckily, mouse-proof cages are mouse-proof from the outside as well, so even the extremely strong Muffins was unable to release Snowball. I chased him around the room trying to stab him with my pencil while Prof. Bellini used the intercom to summon backup. Regular mice are hard to catch, and partially vampiric ones are almost impossible. Also, they have very sharp teeth, as my ankles attest.

11. Sean O’Brien: very effective! 5/5

Help arrived in the form of Professor Sean O’Brien, the mage. He stood outside the door and filled the room with some sort of positive energy which heals injuries in humans and other living creatures, but has the opposite effect on undead mice. Thus was the tragic demise of Muffins, Snowball, their 35 siblings, as well the 14 siblings of the original Mouseula. Mouseula Jr was the only survivor, having been but temporarily killed by the UV lights, and revived several hours later. There are two possible lessons to take from this: don’t keep 52 vampire mice; or make sure to keep them all in the same room where the healer can kill them all at once. Also, I clearly need a holy water squirt gun in order to do my job in a safe manner.

Mandatory analyst classes on experimental safety and report writing.

Mila Harris, Chief of Inteligence, day 52 (9 days after the Krakow incursion)

Avenues for Exploring the Religious Question

Deanna Needler, Analyst (general), day 52

The fact that symbols of sufficiently large religions are effective in non-believer hands is fascinating, and warrants further observation.

First we should ascertain that this is indeed the determining factor, and not some aspect of the wielder’s mind. For this, we should find a wielder who is genuinely unable to distinguish between genuine and placebo icons of a distant religion. Meaning no offense to our gracious hosts, I believe an American and Hindu symbols present our best chance.

Assuming population of believers is indeed the relevant factor, we should then seek a census of moderate-size religions. Perhaps our diplomats can appeal to the governments of the more religiously diverse cultures.

I suspect distance is also a factor. I believe our most immediately local religious groups are Quakers and Amish. The Algonquins and the Church of Latter-Day Saints may also be relevant. I believe all have distinctive symbology. We may compare them to similar-sized religious minorities in Asia or Africa.

For a maximally-distant point of comparison, we should consult our captive legionnaires. Assuming the Roman parallels hold, they presumably hail from an empire of tens of millions with a single state religion – many light-years away.

We might also appeal to Myrria, but given her confusion on encountering Christianity, I expect religion is not a major presence in her native cube.

Regarding Zbigniew “Steve” Musial

“But I’ll be walking.”

“Okay…” Doctor Pamela Rose said, her voice heavy with the exasperation of repeating herself yet again. “I’m not sure you’re understanding. It’s a one in thirty-seven chance that this even works. The rest of the time you turn into a vegetable, a hollow husk of your former self, imagine if you were lobotomized, but somehow worse. And even if this miraculously succeeds, you’ll have to sustain yourself on blood every day, you won’t be able to go out in the sun. Seriously, this is almost guaranteed to effectively mind kill you, you have a full life ahead of you, there’s plenty you can do with yourself, even with your condition. Think about what you’re doing.” She looked at the wheelchair bound man expectantly and to his credit, he seemed to actually pause to consider her words.

She couldn’t endorse testing vampirism on people, it was too soon. General Barca could tell her to take volunteers as much as he wanted, she didn’t have to actually sell anyone on the idea. It was stupid and reckless and thankfully the Corporal here might just-”

“But I’ll be walking.” Said Zbigniew for the sixth time that meeting.

“Fuck it!” She practically threw the clipboard at him, which he signed eagerly. “Ego-kill yourself for all I care, if you’re so eager to throw your life away don’t let me stop you!”

“Thank you!” He said jovially, wheeling out of the room, leaving Pamela alone, with her head in her hands.

Nearly thirty minutes has been spent jamming needle tipped tubes into Corporal Musial’s various veins and arteries, which were all hooked up to various pumps.

“We’re going to medically remove as much blood as we’re able from your body.” Dr. Rose paused. “This will kill you.” She said bluntly.

“Ok.”

“Exsanguination will kill a normal person after they’ve lost about a little less then half of their blood. Dead people tend to not pump blood very well, which is less then optimal for removing their blood. Once you die we have about an hour to remove the rest of your blood, so we’re going to circulate saline through your system and filter out the blood until it’s all gone. Since we’re killing you anyway we’re pumping you with a frankly ludicrous amount of adrenaline to keep you going for as long as possible. You won’t have a lot of blood oxygen, so try for long, deep breaths.”

To his credit he actually looked somewhat nervous. Though not nervous enough to actually call off the procedure it seemed.

The room itself was fairly ominous, more like a vault really, there was only one heavy metal door and a bulletproof glass window. Not that he had been told, but the room was lined with explosives, just in case he turned out to be mentally compromised if the vampirification turned out successful.

On the other side of that glass were a couple of other doctors, General Barca and Lt. Col Ohkido.

“Are you ready?” Asked the doctor. Steve gave a thumbs up. “Then let’s kill you.” And then plunged a syringe into his arm.

As soon as the Corporal went unconscious, Ohkido retrieved his shield and checked his guns. He had loaded one with silver bullets, one with sink rounds and the other two with explosive rounds. Really it was just a precaution, they had only seen an entire two vampires and it wasn’t unthinkable that a newly created one might have different abilities. There were plenty of abilities that a vampire might have: turning into mist, shapeshifting, hypnosis, fire generation, psychic powers, etc. The room wasn’t airtight, but the only vents had been sealed, so if mist was on the table Steve would have To slowly make his way under the door crack to make it to them, which he could sprinkle with powdered garlic and holy water to keep him in.

Making precautions was calming, each precaution sealed away another future where he was unprepared. Each one killed off another potential mistake.

It also let him redirect his attention towards the more dangerous yet desirable futures where this blasted procedure actually succeeded rather then turn yet another soldier into a vegetable.

“You couldn’t talk him out of it either huh?” Asked the doctor, Ohkido raised an eyebrow.

He glanced at the tubes, which were much clearer then they had been a minute ago, by his estimate Steve should be pretty dead by now.

“But I’ll be walking.” Said Ohkido.

“Oh, you too.”

The Lt. Colonel shook his head. “It’s not that he doesn’t understand the risks, it’s that he doesn’t care. He was never this recklessly stupid.”

“He’s suicidal? Didn’t he get a therapist?” Ohkido snorted.

“He passed all the psyche tests with flying colors. I told the higher powers, but they said the needed volunteers and that was that. He doesn’t see any value in his life.” At that point the Corporal had been fully exsanguinated. A small robot arm holding a syringe positioned itself over the dead man’s chest. The dead liquid, of a red so dark it might as well be black, was plunged inside Zbigniew’s heart.

Ohkido expected a flash of light, a chill in the air, a puff of smoke or any signal that the body had been reanimated by supernatural forces, but none came. Instead the many tubes popped out of the body, the resulting holes sprayed saline from a hundred tiny holes like a vandalized waterbed. The dead man calmly got up on his own two feet and looked at his hands.

One of the supervisors pushed a button on an intercom near the bulletproof window. “Corporal, if you are conscious, please push the button next to the intercom and say something.”

Awkward seconds passed as the Corporal seemingly ignored him, simply walking around with a blank look on his face. The supervisor was just about to give it another try when Steve poked the intercom button. “But I’ll be walking.”

Regarding Maksim Drogonov

Before the incursion, Russia already had a large, well-funded military. They wisely set aside 0.1% of their funding for unknown-unknowns. This resulted in a remarkably well-funded program of people with weird skills being hired to refine them on the off chance they’d be needed. Maksim’s skill with a spear caught their attention, and since his other job prospects were bleak, he joined.

After the superspeed dinosaur incident, it became apparent that melee combat was going to be a serious risk to Terminus personel, and Maksim was transferred.

He was quietly instructed to keep an eye out for signs that the United States was trying to turn Terminus into a tool of American hegemony. So far, so good.

The Terminus officer corp has probably deduced this secondary mission. It may be part of why they assigned him to the same team as the new vampire, and quietly instructed him to watch for signs that his teammate was becoming evil.

Maksim is not actually very good at this “watching for signs” stuff, but he’ll try.

Maksim is a moderately devout Tengrist. However, centuries of Christian, Muslim and Communist rule have wiped most of the living tradition, and Maksim is not very skilled or diligent at research. So he fills in the gaps with generic neopaganism or personal guesswork. Given Tengrism’s view of the highest truth as inherently unknowable, this is probably ok.

On his first day of training alongside a vampire, he drew a traditional 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃 Yurt and a more personal 32-Ray Sun over his carotid arteries in sharpie, then wore an high collar to hide them. He had planned to have the designs tattooed there, but then learned pigment-based holy symbols are ineffective.

O’Brien is writing a journal which is not at all official

Day 56, eight hours after end of Detroit incursion

Today was equal parts awful and laughable. No, that’s not exactly true. It was at least eighty percent awful, with enough ridiculous thrown in to make it seem a tiny bit surreal. But still mostly awful.

There was an incursion in Detroit, and it was not at all like I expected.

Before today, I was kind of excited at the prospect of an incursion. An invasion from another world can be a serious danger to humanity, obviously, but there’s so much we could learn from them! Vampires are real, magic is real, who knows what might else be? And it would be a chance to try out my magic (it still sounds strange: I have magic) in a real situation. It sounds really silly now, but I thought it would be like the Mouseula incident: easy as getting rid of a hoard of undead mice by healing them to death. I wanted to play the hero.

It wasn’t like that at all. Lord Grim is scary. He’s strong and indestructible and he can kill people with a look. Except for Steve, because he’s a vampire. But he killed Maksim. And a lot of other people who just happened to be in a traffic jam caused by an impassible barrier appearing in the middle of the highway.

I hadn’t really thought about what it meant that people in the incursion might be trying to kill me. Which is pretty ridiculous, honestly. (Not the laughable kind of ridiculous, the kicking-yourself-for-being-stupid kind.) There was the zombie apocalypse two weeks ago and Krakow is still a disaster area. How did I think it was going to be anything different when I tried? I’m not the kind of person you need to be to fight zombies, I’m a college professor who’s been a wizard for about a week and a half.

.Which is to say that knowing powerful people are trying to kill you feels terrible. Kind of like those dreams where you’re running away from something horrifying but can’t seem to make any progress, or the ones where the sea swallows you up. Only not like that at all. I can’t think of the right way to describe it, and I don’t really want to think too hard about similes.

Things started out okay. Weird, but manageable. We took the saucer to a nearby airport, then flew in through the bubble in a helicopter. There we ran into Lord Deathghost, who was hovering a few hundred feet in the air, surrounded by a flock of orange blobs. The blobs were each holding a small gun, and all of them were shooting at something on the ground (probably Carmine, come to think of it). According to Carmine, those were her telekinetic hands. She was obviously from the other side of the incursion, but at this point we had no idea whether she or whatever she was shooting at was the bigger problem. Steve decided that she was the problem and tried to tackle her but passed right through. (I’m not sure what to think of Steve. The vampire thing is pretty worrying. But also I’m kind of amazed at how fast he’s adjusted to being a vampire. He jumped out of the helicopter no problem because he knew he could fly, absolutely believed it even though he’s only been a vampire for a short time.) Since she was intangible, I figured the forceful spell might work on her—it lets objects interact with ghosts, and probably other things we hadn’t figured out yet—so I enchanted some of Maksim’s bullets and he shot her.

There’s a problem with this. I think what’s bothering me is how fast things shifted. We were confused about this floating woman and her herd of orange things, and then we were trying to kill her. Looking back, I’m not sure where we actually made the decision to switch. Did they even say anything about it? I didn’t really notice at the time, I was too focused on figuring out how to harm an intangible being to notice that I wasn’t sure why we were doing it. Not until later. Not until now, really, when I am really trying to make sense of things.

Still, it probably wasn’t the wrong thing to do. Right after Maksim had killed Lord Deathghost, we met Ashley Carmine, who explained what was going on. She came through with the incursion, but unlike everyone else, she isn’t a Lord and doesn’t work for them. She’s a revolutionary. Or I suppose I should say she was; she’s stuck here now. Probably permanently—we haven’t seen any repeats so far so for all we know we’ll never make contact with her world again. I feel bad about that, but I’m not sure where we should have made a different decision that would have resulted in her going back home. In any case, her world is ruled by Lords who have mantles that give them superpowers. Mantles are varied; some are pretty standard superhero movie fare, like super-strength, or durability, but there are also weirder ones, like Lord Holocaust who turned into a firestorm, or the one who turned into a dragon, or Lord Perfect, who causes explosions but everyone knows they’re staged and not a mantle at all (they still call him Lord anyway, I’m not sure why). Lord Deathghost had been able to phase, that is become intangible. Mantles pass to someone geographically nearby when the bearer dies, so Lords typically accrue more power by fighting mantle-bearers in a big open space, to maximize the chance that the survivor walks away with the other one’s mantle as well as their own. Mantle-bearers with weaker powers (like Lord Deathghost, who is mostly hard to get rid of unless you have the forceful spell) might serve the ruling Lord rather, or keep quiet about their mantle if it’s weak enough.

The current leader of Carmine’s city is Lord Grim. He had come here to challenge the Lord of the city to a duel. This is one of the ridiculous things about today: a supervillain showed up to fight the mayor of Detroit for his city. Lord Grim himself would almost be ridiculous if he wasn’t so scary: he has super-strength, some sort of invincibility, and can kill people with a look. That’s one of the awful things about today: he killed Maksim.

He was only dead for maybe 30 seconds before I started CPR. It went pretty much perfectly, actually. We’d gone over it so many times to make sure I’d remember even if I was panicking—which shows that they had a better estimate of how I’d do in an emergency than I did—and it actually worked. My magic doesn’t work on dead things (we tested on some of the worryingly plentiful mice they have here), so I had to get him back to sort-of alive with CPR. Magic gets rid of most of the problems with CPR. A lot of people who need it don’t end up making it, but you don’t need to get them to an actually healthy state, just alive enough for magic to work. You’re already not supposed to worry about breaking their ribs, but in this case you can completely ignore any concerns about hurting them because you’re about to fix them with magic anyway. (Which is good, because it would have been pretty difficult to not break some ribs when the strength turned on.) All that matters is that they are alive.
Even so, there was a while when I thought it wasn’t going to work. The whole time I’d had this sense that my magic wasn’t working right because there weren’t enough plants nearby, not enough life around. That isn’t how it works out here, but I guess magic works differently in the incursions. Being in a city felt like there was a blanket over my magic, making it really hard to cast anything, and I had already done a lot of spells and gotten a headache that made it hard to concentrate. There was a field a couple minutes away that would be much better, but Carmine can’t drive and I couldn’t leave Maksim alone or he’d die again. I probably would have kept trying to cast, blanket of concrete or not, but the first aid kit had an impressive array of drugs and I found one (adrenaline mixed with some other stuff. I didn’t care what the other stuff did because that was side effects were a problem for later) that looked like it would keep Maksim’s heart going for a couple minutes while I drove to the field so my magic would work properly. And then I did. It wasn’t easy, but it was pretty simple: just keep doing healing spells until he seemed like he was sleeping instead of unconscious. It was hard to tell if I’d fixed him enough, since he’d looked perfectly fine when he was dead, no visible problems. Then we waited for him to wake up. And he did, a few minutes later. The doctors say he’s going to be fine, as far as they can tell.

That part went well, and it feels really good. I saved Maksim. This is exactly why they decided to send me into an incursion in the first place. Even though it was scary and stressful, and there was a couple minutes, or maybe more but I lost track of time, when Maksim was stable and there was nothing urgent to do and I actually thought about what was happening, and then I couldn’t stop shaking and thinking about how Lord Grim was out there somewhere with his death glare and I didn’t know what I could possibly do about it if he found us in the middle of this open field and I didn’t want to die. It’s strange how calm Carmine was through the whole ordeal of fleeing from Lord Grim and reviving Maksim. Maybe she has incredible control over her face, but it didn’t seem like any of this really bothered her. Can you really get that used to danger and fear that you can ignore them even when there isn’t something urgent to focus on instead? I don’t really want to do that again, let alone enough times that I’ll get used to it. But I can’t not go to incursions because eventually someone else is going to die, and I won’t be able to save them if I’m out here.

There’s something else about the Lords. Carmine’s world is a lot like this one, worryingly so. They had a lot of the same technology, even if it’s mostly fallen into disuse. The same continents. She speaks English with an accent I’ve never heard, but it’s definitely modern English. And she said that everything went wrong when people started getting weird powers. That hit like a wave of seawater, cold and crushing. All I could think was powers like being a wizard? And I just sent out 64 scrolls of minor healing to medical researchers. But that doesn’t really fit. Now that I’ve had time to think about it more, I don’t think Carmine is from the future, from our future. The mantles are different things than my magic. Probably. They feel different, anyway. So we’re probably not causing the collapse of society, or at least not in the way it happened in Carmine’s world. But it might still happen anyway. Any of these incursions could be the one that tips our world into chaos.

Maybe releasing magic into the wild is a good idea, then, so when something horrible comes through an incursion there will be some people scattered about who can do healing magic to deal with the aftermath.

What happened next was that we decided to fight Lord Grim. Now that I think about it, this was almost certainly a terrible idea. But Carmine had laid out Lord Grim’s known strengths (many, notably the death gaze) and weaknesses (basically none, except that one time he cut himself on a broken bottle, so he’s not always invincible) and I started thinking that maybe he would be vulnerable to electricity, or at least it might tire him out. I think this is a case of everything looking like a nail when you can generate lightning, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Everyone else thought so, except for Carmine, who was pretty sure we were a bunch of fools about to get ourselves killed (this did not stop her from joining us in our foolhardy plan). We probably should have listened to her. But instead we borrowed some cars from a very confused couple in case we needed to run, and Steve went to challenge Lord Grim with an electrified stick, two electrified gloves, and lightning somehow stored in his teeth. Sending Steve was the sanest part of the plan, since we figured Lord Grim probably couldn’t kill him when he was already undead. And anyway, as Steve pointed out, if he did die, we’d just have to get his body somewhere out of the sun and he’d revive tomorrow at dusk. He was absolutely sure of this, just like he was about jumping of of the helicopter. After less than two weeks of being a vampire.

The plan didn’t work. One part of it worked, in that Steve completely ignored the death gaze and, much to Lord Grim’s surprise, whacked him with a stave instead of falling over dead. But Lord Grim completely ignored lightning, Steve trying to drink his blood, and the fist-sized chunk of metal Carmine fired at his head, which bounced off. At this point, we probably should have given up on the plan, but Maksim decided to try running Lord Grim over with the minivan we’d borrowed. I didn’t see any of this because I was hiding behind a bush, but Carmine says that Maksim ran into some explosives presumably planted by the mysterious Lord Perfect (I heard them go off), but managed to steer the car, sans tires, onto Lord Grim, trapping him. This worked for about five seconds, but then he wriggled out from under the car. Maksim radioed us to leave, and was running back towards the other car when Lord Grim got him with the death gaze. Steve flew his body over to the car where Carmine and I had run before looping back to annoy Lord Grim enough that we wouldn’t follow us.

Before that, when Steve was fighting Lord Grim by himself, Carmine killed Lord Flex, who was standing at the edge of the challenge circle. She’s really pleased about this; killing a Lord, even a minor one, is quite an accomplishment for the resistance. The strange part is that somehow I ended up with part of his mantle. It’s completely possible, of course, just very improbable given how many people there were around. Anyway, I get really strong for six seconds, then back to normal for six, then strong again. This is the other ridiculous thing about today: I now have a superpower. In some ways, this is really, really cool and I want to start thinking up plans to use it (this would be a lot easier if I was in the habit of hitting people with sticks). But right now, it feels extremely strange. On the outside, nothing changes, but I keep noticing it happen, the strength coming and going. Over and over and over. I’ve got to get used to it eventually. I’ve got to get used to it soon or I’ll be a wreck from exhaustion because how am I supposed to sleep? It’s been a few hours and I think it’s getting easier to ignore. Maybe. But it’s still hard. The two minute drive from the street where Steve left Maksim to the field was pretty bad. Everything felt off-balance like a being on a small boat in rough waters, and I cracked the gear shift lever from gripping it too hard when the strength came. I think this is more like getting used to being on a boat; rather than ignoring the shifting ground, you shift your weight to counter it, only I have to adjust to varying amounts of force behind my movements instead of just the angle of the ground. Maybe it’s only an issue when I’m scared half out of my wits and full of adrenaline, but that doesn’t help much given my life now.

We didn’t take the incursion down. Lord Grim did. After Steve left off taunting him, he rounded up his people and went home through the pillar, and the bubble vanished. But not before he wandered onto the highway and killed about 200 people who were sitting in their cars waiting for the incursion to go down so traffic could start moving again. I think he was taking out frustration about Steve and wanted to use his power on someone it actually worked on. So he went and killed everyone he saw. This basically takes away any doubts: I wouldn’t have been sorry if we had managed to kill Lord Grim.

Possible Ways to Kill Lord Grim When Next We Meet

Maksim Drogonov, Captain TC-3, 2 days after Detroit incursion

More Power: We do not know if his “invulnerability” is absolute. Have not tried truly large explosives. Collateral damage risk is significant.

Tanks: He could not kill me by looking at the minivan I was driving. Same would apply to tank. But more so, because tanks have no windows, only cameras. Tank also weighs 30 times more than minivan, and is designed for running people over. He would not escape. Then, eventually, invulnerability would end.

Robots: Not as weapon, but are immune to death-glare. Can help with any plan.

Suffocation: Perhaps he must breathe? Fill nose and mouth with molten lead. Or put in air-tight room and wait. Maybe add carbon monoxide for faster.

Poison/Disease: Has been tried? But we have stronger of both.

Mental Attack: Perhaps mind is less invulnerable than body? Myrria has mental assault power, no?

Trickery: Demonstrate to court joy of heroin. Offer to Grim, but explain is injected, so must make skin vulnerable. Then, when distracted, chop head.

Addendum Regarding Poison

Deanna Needler, Analyst (General), 2 days after Detroit Incursion

An ideal poison for an invulnerable target would be artificial peptides made with Sulfur 35. The peptides would be broken into individual amino acids which would then be incorporated into his biology because that’s how digestion works.
Sulfur 35 has a half life of 87 days. Meaning that after that time, half of the sulfur from this source would beta-decay to chlorine. If the sulfur atom in question is serving in a disulfide bridge (as seems likely) the replacement with chlorine will completely wreck the quaternary structure.

There is no outside attack to fend off. His body would simply be falling apart from the inside due to being built from unreliable materials.

Addendum to the Addendum

Deanna Needler, Analyst (General) Day 3 after Detroit Incursion

On second thought, the unstable food poison should be reserved as a backup plan. It is very likely that Lord Grim would be effected by Sarin Nerve Gas, which is much more easily obtained.

Sarin does not need to penetrate anything, simply being absorbed by lungs. It also does not technically damage anything, just indiscriminately phosphorylates acetylcholinesterase, which throws the acetylcholine system out of balance.

Regarding the Expansion of Terminus

Wensleydale Prim, Political Analyst, day 50
Classified: Secret

At this point, it is clear that we should be seeking to expand Terminus to all the nations of the Earth. Had the Krakow Anomaly been left in place for seven hours, it would have devoured the entire planet. Even after three hours, it would have breached the mantle, likely resulting in an andesitic volcano that would render the interior of the bubble essentially impossible to operate in.

Even without the bubble expansion, a city-sized zombie army lead by a vampire who’d had time to study our world is a threat to far more than the country it lands in. And we are by no means confident that this is the most dangerous intruder we might face. True, ICBMs and strategic nuclear weapons can answer most threats, but if we resort to that, we have already abandoned all hope of diplomacy.

As such, I believe we should adopt a policy of seeking forgiveness rather than permission with regards to incursions outside of Terminus territory, moderated by our confidence in the incurred nation’s ability to respond on its own.

Nevertheless, we should seek to bring additional nations into Terminus as quickly as possible, avoiding this situation.

Bringing in new nations also means more funding. Given how quickly our contact teams are burning through equipment, and how fast our research team is growing, this may prove important. However, most of the richest nations on Earth are already members. Of non-members, I suspect only Sweden, Austria, Israel, China, Taiwan and South Korea will be able to make significant financial contributions.

While it might be nice to say “We won’t defend your cities unless you pay”, it is more important to defend the cities of countries which cannot pay. Therefore our leverage in extracting money should come from some other source. Perhaps seats in an oversight council (do we have one of those yet?).

China

China is by far the most powerful nonmember state, both militarily and economically. They are also the country most able to make matters difficult for us should we engage uninvited. As such, they are our top priority for inclusion.

I expect they will be somewhat concerned about Terminus as an American instrument, but somewhat mollified by the fact that the Russians will never permit that. We should offer them at minimum a seat on the oversight council (seriously: we should have one!). I expect they will be more worried about falling behind technologically, as member countries gain access to extra-terrestrial technologies. (For purposes of this memo, magic and psionics are considered technologies.) In fact, assuring full access to that may be the best way to convince them to spend money.

China will likely throw a childish tantrum on the subject of Taiwan. History suggests we should indulge them, as the Taiwanese are used to it and very tolerant. Perhaps each Administrative Division of Taiwan can join independently, or the island can join as a “geographic region”. The latter might be strengthened by including outright non-states, such as Catalonia or ISIL. (ISIL would also be a sign of American non-hegemony.)

India

India is our second priority for expansion. In addition to their enormous populace, they have the oldest recognizably continuous culture in the world. As such, they have the best chance of finding signs of previous incursions (as the vampire legends already hint at).

I do not forsee major diplomatic difficulties, but we must be careful not to demand more money than they can afford. Their economy is still struggling to modernize, and they have many urgent domestic issues.

Latin America

At present, our only Latin American member states are Brazil and Argentina. This should be among the easier problems to solve, as these countries are accustomed to maintaining good relations with the United States.

The region is organized enough that it might join as a group, if a suitable invitation were offered at an existing regional meeting. This would likely save time, as the nations in question are likely to raise similar issues.

The Arab World

Some reluctance might be expected from the Arab world, which sees the rest of the world as somewhat hostile and the United States especially so. On the other hand, Egypt is already a member, and has something of a leadership role there.

It will likely be useful to admit Israel and The Palestinian Authority simultaneously, to show our careful neutrality in that conflict.

Iran

Iran will be extremely difficult to reach out to, given their intense hostility toward the United States, which they tend to regard as pure evil. Allowing Russia to take the lead on contact may be helpful, but this will still be difficult.

It is worth trying, as the Iranian military is quite capable.

North Korea

North Korea may be a lost cause.

Green’s Prototyping Stream-of-conciousness

There’s a hole in the dome, there’s a hole in the dome, there’s a hole in the dome and this is an incursion from Jaket. My mind is already racing with ways to actually set up credible communications here (the drone went through, but radio signals don’t. Why? Something to investigate later) but we still have stragglers to deal with. Annoyingly. There’s half a dozen things to do to take advantage of this opportunity and we still have to deal with these makeshift Roman legions. (Which I’m feeling pretty lucky we survived, by the way, that was kindof an exceptionally close one, thank goodness for Ohkido and his flashbangs. And pressure helmet. I am… probably not taking my helmet off during an incursion, shit. Well, live (barely) and learn. In fact I should probably put it back on… except I left it over with the SHIV didn’t I. Damnit. Which is currently tipped over (and man I hope it’s ok, it’s covered with enough armor that it’ll probably be fine but damnit I need to work out a way for the dang thing to reload and we can think about that later). Ok, well, next time, helmets. Until we’re sure we’re safe.

Well, we have a bunch of knock-off romans to deal with first, and they’re already spreading out and I managed to accidentally take out my battlefield sight when sending the SKEYE to investigate the anomaly. Oops. Luckily, we have Myrria, who has grenades, and telepathy. We’re probably fine. Let’s do some mop up and I can get back to thinking about rewiring cell-phones later. And see if there’s anything I can get out of the computer of the wreckage of my SKEYE for better logs here.

Ok, so the stragglers are more or less mopped up, and my squadmates are doing some interrogating, let’s see what I can figure out how to do here. First things first let’s see what I can pick apart from the logs and figure out what the heck happened when the SKEYE went through the anomaly in the dome

Mach 2??? Well Mach 1.938 but who’s counting (the sensors on my robots, that’s who. Or what, anyways). And either the acceleration was extremely fast and short-lived or the speed of them was just… set to mach 2. What the heck?? I think some more testing is required here. I don’t want to use up all the cell-phones we have from everyone all at once (we need some of those to communicate!) but I want to make sure that I’m not just firing messages out into the void here. I can hack a couple of the ones I’ve collected (you have no idea how annoying it is to get people whose language I don’t speak to give up their cell phones. I’m sorry, Russian citizens of whatever the name of this town is (oops) but we can pay you back and also I need them) to test this. I don’t want to fly another robot through the dome and lose another one (I just have the GREMLIN left that can fly, and I can probably cobble something together from the broken SKEYE parts, they were trashed. Except for the sensor, thank fuck. Not sure how I got so lucky there, twice (even after all that fucking water damage). And the computer. Much easier to have Myrria fly up and toss them through the hole, as long as she’s strong enough to… wait no. Telekinesis, duh. Plus that allows for even finer control, pushing them through the dome. Let’s say… one pushed through the dome with as close to zero speed as possible, and one as fast as possible. Modern phones have accelerometers (thank goodness these are modern enough), and I can get them to constantly broadcast their acceleration at me. And when they speed off far away, I can figure out the blue-shift of their radio signals to figure out how fast they’re moving. That out to do the trick to figure out what the fuck is going on.

So… somehow it just adds velocity. And nothing else. There was apparently some resistance? So if an object is moving too slowly, or not having enough force behind it, it won’t go through. But once it goes through it just adds a velocity vector of Mach 1.94 (more or less, it’s hard to get an exact number here, especially with only two and a half trials), no matter the speed or acceleration (probably) of the object beforehand. That might make getting people out interesting, though still possible! But first, getting a radio signal out. Obviously, once other people are in range, we can have Myrria toss out cell phones with a high-frequency radio burst on a cycle, but there’s only so much data we can do that with, and we’re eventually going to run out of cellphones. Hopefully they can just send us replacements, and I can probably re-wire other electronics equipment to do that too but let’s see if we have something a little bit more sensible. And re-usable. We still have the backup parachutes, right? We don’t need those? I have something that I want to try.

Okay, so it turns out cellphones are not very heavy, and also wind turns out to be a thing. Oops. Losing a cellphone is no big deal (though it was broadcasting data, so worst case we’ll get a shipment of more, eventually as it’s… carried away on the wind. Oops) but losing a parachute is a bit of a problem. And losing the altimeter is a serious issue. We need more weight to keep it from drifting off-course as it lands back down here, and we need some kind of guidance system. At least the automation to get it to open the chute when its velocity reached 0 (according to the altimeter, which is the part that’s now missing except… hmmm, GPS does altitude, right? Duh. Why didn’t I think of that before?)… worked. Right. So one prototype down, let’s try that again. Also potentially we can have the chute open later, when it reached an altitude about halfway down.

Right. We want to open the chute the second time it reaches that altitude. Not the first. Oops. Though it did work, more or less? It ended up righting itself and we got it back, but I’m counting that as luck, not brilliance. Also possibly we want the chute to open higher than that, because it nearly tore itself clean off. Also I still am working on the guidance system to keep it centered. Would be better with better parts and equipment, but I’ll make do with what I have. Thankfully, I get to reuse this cellphone, which is good, because rooting these phones is annoying.

Okay, so, the issue with opening the chute higher is that, once again, we drift off course. I hope Terminus is going to enjoy retrieving all the presents full of barely-encrypted data I’ve sent floating away on the breeze, locators in them or not. Though this one landed close enough to the dome. The extra weight of the, well, bag of dirt certainly helps it land, but it’s not heavy enough. Unfortunately, it’s also way too heavy to be moved around with the guidance system I’ve got mostly built here, unless I cannibalize the gremlin, which I really, really, really do not want to do. (It’s my only flyer left!) I’m gonna just have to chance it. And also possibly apologize to Myrria for being our courier here. I just don’t have anything powerful enough to use as propulsion here. Though hopefully Terminus can send something, I’ll add that to the list of requisitioned materials. Let’s try this one more time.

Okay so it turns out opening the chute late works, I just need an excessive amount of duct tape to keep it from tearing itself apart. A lot of duct tape. Which I have now added to the list of things. Though admittedly, some of the Russian airmen have brought me some useful stuff. And more parachutes! With any luck, even if we don’t land the, um, transmission bot back inside the dome, there will be enough of the Russian army outside to toss it back in.

I wonder if there’s some way to make this go faster. Probably with enough materials, we could launch one of these every minute or so. That’s probably the way to go, here. In theory you could get enough to launch one every few seconds but that…

Aw, man. See now I have another idea, for a catcher on the other end, basically just a rail tube. Sending packets by carrier pigeon, hah! Works well enough if you have enough pigeons and they’re fast enough. I can send them that idea, though building out something like that and supporting it on top of a dome like this… it’s not feasible, is it. Not even remotely. Not in a short timeframe, anyways, though if we end up keeping this dome around, it might be sensible to do, eventually. But right now, I guess it’s time to stick to cellphones and bags of dirt and propellers on a parachute. Well, until I get better replacements.

Look, by now there have to be some army people outside, or at least will be. If this new friend falls outside the dome, with the only propellers I have access to (I am not cannibalizing the GREMLIN. Not unless I have to), eventually the locator will make it easy to find and be tossed back in.

Success! This time the new telecom… frankenbot landed inside the dome, not outside! Of course, by now we’re receiving Russian Military transmissions from right outside the dome, so needing it to land back inside is… kindof moot. But it works! And of course the disposable radios and pressurized air canister and tube they’ve brought us work too (why didn’t I think of using a popcan? Because it never would have fit, that’s why. And also they just do not have the range), but I like my solution. It works! More or less. And we now know that they’re getting communication from us, and aren’t going to firebomb us in two days. Which honestly if that was going to happen we’d have just taken the dome down, but still. We have plenty of time to stage an assault on Jaket and get our citizens back. And show these jerks up. The SHIV’s still intact, and battle-proven against these jerks, it’s going to be fun to use it against them in their own home world, and I’ll be really able to show folks what it can do on a longer campaign. I wonder if Terminus’ll let me splurge for an army of them to use against… ok probably not, but I can dream.

I think we should go to Jaket since they have an incursion detector

Specialist Rowan Minami, day 57, 2 hours after start of incursion 7 in Siberia

Current status of Jaketse forces present in Siberia:

The Jaketse forces have surrendered and gave up their weapons, which some of the townspeople are guarding. We gave medical attention where we could resulting in 54 wounded Jaketse soldiers and 12 badly injured and unconscious, but still alive. The unconscious ones are crowded into the living room of one of the houses with two men guarding them in case they wake up (we couldn’t leave them outside as they are dressed for a much warmer climate and would have gotten frostbite). The remaining ones have been given tea, provided by Antonina Zamaraeva (please reimburse her).

We will need to decide what to do with the wounded Jaket soldiers: take them prisoner and let them recuperate in a hospital, or send them back to Jaket (where they will get worse medical care)? And what about Sakhin, Maroz, and Asin: we have the opportunity to send them back to their world, but they may make it harder for us to operate in Jaket, as they know a lot more about our capabilities than anyone there. .
The leader of the Jaketse forces, Sir Ghiyej [mɛˈɾa:θ ˈsɔ.ɲɛ ˈɣi.jəʒ] (Sonyeh translates to more like Lord, but, no), is still alive (though his lieutenants are not, nor is his lacertael occidendum magnus), so I have been interviewing him. He’s somewhat cooperative when threatened, but not very helpful as he often doesn’t seem to understand my questions, coming from a very different context.

We recovered the control orb, so nobody here is teleporting to Jaket or taking down the incursion unless we decide to. On the other side, the soldiers left behind to guard the pillar have orders to shut down the incursion in about a day (I’m not sure what’s the time difference to Jaket so it’s hard to be sure when “next dusk” means), if they haven’t heard back from Sir Ghiyej. They’ll send scouts through first to see what’s going on, so we’ll have warning before they decide to shut down the connection. The orb has a magical interface, which lets me switch it between modes much faster than doing it by hand. I’m pretty sure the pieces of the outside move the same way whether I’m moving them with my hands or with magic; we’ve made some videos of it for further study. .
Also, we recovered some magical artifacts from Sir Ghiyej! He says they were made by the mad artisans, but they definitely look magical. One is a fancy-looking mirror which doesn’t reflect anything, and the other is a banner with the Ghiyej family crest on it. The mirror can make a twenty-foot sphere of really, really bright light, bright enough to char skin in a few seconds of exposure. The light-sphere lasts for 24 seconds, which seems kind of excessive. It can make these spheres 4 times before needing to be recharged in direct sunlight. The sunlight thing makes me wonder if this would be particularly effective against vampires, but we can test that against a Mouseula later. The banner, when unfurled, plays some dramatic orchestral music. I think it’s from Lord of the Rings, except that how would the banner know how to play it? I’m not entirely sure what it’s for, but everyone says it sounds really inspiring whenever I unfurl it.

Really important linguistic note:

The verb root [nʊsæɾ] does not just mean “fight”. It means specifically an honor duel. If someone asks you to fight them using that verb, you are supposed to wait for them to make a speech about honor and the grand tradition of dueling. If you shoot their pet dinosaur before the speech, they will call you a traitor and try to stab you. Someone please interview Sakhin about Jaketse etiquette so we don’t repeat my mistakes.

Purpose of this incursion:

This is the second time Jaketse forces have invaded another world, as far as we can tell. They seem to be under the impression that the pillar would lead to the sky-world. I’m not really sure what they mean by this, unless it’s some kind of religious thing. It probably doesn’t matter, but will someone ask Sakhin about what the [ˈe.sa lɛˈxu.sa ˈðiːɾin] is, just in case? They don’t actually seem to think this is the sky world, anyway, as it’s much too chilly. In any case, they came here today for the same purpose as the Quincy incursion: taking slaves. Time seems to run the same in Jaket as it does here; the incursion happened about seven weeks ago for them as well.

Sir Ghiyej came here on the orders of a high-ranking bureaucrat, [ˈseː.faʃ zəˈnʊ ˈka.dɛ dɛˈvyːn]. Administrator Devin gave him a time and a place that the pillar would show up, and instructions on how to activate it. As far as anyone I’ve talked to knows, there have been no other incursions from other places to Jaket, nor expeditions to other worlds, besides the one two months ago, in Quincy. That is, after the Quincy incursion word got around the empire about the weird slaves from somewhere else, and we would expect other successful incursions to generate similar gossip. The lack of such gossip means that either there were no other incursions, or they were disastrous and so the Jaketse government is covering it up.

We should consider visiting Jaket:

Administrator Devin is the key in this. He possesses an artifact made by one of those mad artisans, which apparently predicts where incursions will be. It was created several centuries ago, and nobody could figure out what it did until two months ago, when it somehow informed Administrator Devin of the impending incursion (Sir Ghiyej doesn’t know how exactly it does this), leading him to send Sir Avenat in with a few tenths of soldiers. Obviously, we want this device—if it works in our world (the bone spurs do, so why not?), we would be able to evacuate civilians from upcoming incursion zones, and maybe even be able to shut them down before anyone comes through.

We know from Sakhin’s account of the Quincy incursion that it gives at least three hours warning. However, it seems likely that there’s a significantly longer window, as this incursion is about ten days’ march (something like 300 miles) from the previous one. Jaket is roughly 700 miles across, about the size of France, and uses mounted couriers as its fastest way of delivering messages across long distances. That is, Devin could not have sent a message to Avenat any faster than he could have journeyed there himself. Mounted travelers go around twice as fast as those on foot, so we can call it ten days’ ride to cross Jaket, and five days between the two incursions. Based on that, I would estimate that the artifact warns Administrator Devin of an incursion at least two days before it happens, perhaps more, but it could be a much shorter window for a variety of reasons (Administrator Devin traveling a lot and being in the right place by luck, or having another artifact which enables significantly faster travel, like the bone spurs). Still, it seems worth considering an expedition to Jaket to retrieve this artifact. We would have to close the incursion in order to do so, as Administrator Devin is outside the Jaket bubble. This should not be a problem if we manage to retrieve the artifact, though, as we can then use it to detect the next incursion and return through it. (If we do so, we may want to try observing the pole without touching it for a while, to see if anyone notices it on the Earth side. But it might go away by itself after a while, in which case we would have to wait for the next incursion.)

Potential Trade Goods in Jahket

Deanna Needler, Analyst (General), 7 hours after (into?) Siberian Incursion

As our upcoming Jahket expedition will be operating without supply lines, it would be useful to bring trade goods for which local assistance could be purchased. Such goods should be compact, durable, and worth more there than here. They should also be possible for Jahketi commoners to understand the value of, and probably shouldn’t stand out too much.

An extreme of compact value, and of good value ratio, would be lab-grown gems. Sapphires of over a centimeter across with a faceted cut can be purchased for under $10. As the Jahketis do not have artificial gem technology, they will likely regard a sapphire as a sapphire. We might as well send a box of sapphires and rubies, as there is little downside, but they do present issues for trade. First, the typical commoner cannot pay anything like the ancient value of such a gem. We would be forced to either sell well under value or to sell to the extremely rich for local currency – and the extremely rich are likely our enemies. Also, if we trade away many gems, the price is likely to become locally depressed. This might not hit us, but it will hit those who trusted us. Finally, such gems are easily tied to us. After we leave, assuming we don’t completely topple the social structure, anyone holding such a gem would be a target. And they might anticipate that, and refuse to take them.

For pricing information on more mundane goods I turned to the Pricing Edict of Diocletion. Jahket is not exactly 4th century Rome, and a price edict is not exactly a price list, but it’s the best I can find.
According to the edict, 5 denarii buys roughly a liter of wheat, which bakes roughly 2 meals worth of bread. Let us handwave meals accordingly…

A single “very fine” sewing needle costs 4 denarii. Modern sewing needles likely qualify and pack over 1000 to the pound, so a pound of needles would be worth 4000 denarii. But each needle is small enough to be sold to a small farmer. Furthermore, needles are practical goods which won’t lose value from overexposure, and can be easily hidden from secret police.

At the valuable end, a pound of silk, dyed purple, costs a whopping 150 thousand denarii. And that’s a Roman pound, which is about three quarters of an American pound. This is roughly twice the value for weight of gold. In order to make quantities manageable, I propose bringing silk ribbon in a variety of colors. (We cannot assume that purple is the color of wealth there as it was in Rome). Even so, this may run into the same issues as gems.

Cheaper cloth… is still quite expensive. The price list is hard to read, as it’s full of untranslatable units and commentaries on quality, but I think a plain linen shirt is over a thousand denarii. In general, cloth and clothing tend to be extremely expensive in pre-industrial communities. Exactly matching local fashion sounds impractical, so I suggest bringing a few bolts of denim. It’s not an exact match for what they have, but it’s very practical. Many spools of strong thread would also be appropriate.

It would be wise not to depend entirely on cloth, as it is possible that some magic in their world changes the economics. Unfortunately, the edict is unclear on the best alternative sources of value.

Spices might seem an obvious choice, but we would need to find the comfortably exotic ones. Anything they can grow locally would not be very expensive, and anything they’ve never heard of will be hard to sell. I don’t see this as workable.
Nails might be worthwhile. They’re compact (albeit heavy). I can’t find ancient pricing data for them, but I’ve heard various stories about them being expensive. A quick check can’t confirm any of those stories. Worth a shot.

Paper was very expensive (or entirely unavailable and its nearest equivalents were expensive) until fairly recently, and likely is in Jahket as well. It may be something of a niche market, though. Still worth bringing a few reams. They’re nice and compact.

While it’s not strictly a trade good, we should bring a bunch of candy. I doubt we’ll get a good price for it as formal exchange, but as a gift it may improve attitudes considerably. We should be careful to store this candy separately candy for our team’s consumption.

What about money? Most of the people we’d be looking to buy from are probably not using it, as public monetization is a pretty recent development. Still, it did, and probably does exist. Ancient money varied from metal-based (gold, silver, copper and bronze) to so-debased-it’s-basically-a-fiat-currency. Gold and silver are still very expensive here, and probably not worth tracking down large quantities of for a long-shot. We might as well bring some plain discs of copper and bronze.
In summary, proposed trade goods:

• 100 small lab-grown sapphires of various colors
• 5000 sewing needles (~ 5 lbs, < 1 cu ft)
• Silk ribbon, in 1 inch x 20 yard spools, 100 total (10 each of roygbiv+cyan,white,black)
• 10 bolts of plain denim (2 yards x 100 yards)
• 520 standard thread spools
• 1000 “common 8d” nails (~10lbs)
• 10 reams (5000 sheets) of paper
• 20 lbs of copper cut into 1 inch diameter 1 ounce discs
• 20 lbs of bronze cut into 1 inch on a side 1 ounce squares (different shape so the team doesn’t confuse them by accident)
• 5 “pantry size” square jars of M&Ms (~15 lbs)

Operational Priorities in Jahket

John Munch, Chief of Operations, 17 hours after (into?) Siberian Incursion

I would very much like to give you a simple set of directives here, to explain your point and purpose in this foray into enemy territory. However, I know from experience such situations never develop the way command wants them to. So the following list of priorities and directives will be accompanied with explanations of the reasoning behind them, to make sure you understand why I’ve made them your priorities – and why you might want to modify them if circumstances change or differ.

Your first and foremost priority is to stick together and keep each other alive. You may be in hostile territory without reinforcement for weeks or months, and every man you lose is a man that cannot be replaced. Some casualties are to be expected in such engagements, and some scouting parties will need to happen, but make sure to keep everyone together as much as possible.

Additionally, there are many things that I would prefer you not do, but Lieutenant Colonel Ohkido is authorized to take whatever actions he sees fit to keep the team, and civilians once you retrieve them, together and at operational efficiency. Please try to piss off the locals as little as possible, but if they refuse to deal with you for supplies you need, you’re authorized to take them with as little loss of life as possible – though only as a last resort. You’re representing the people of Earth here, and want to put as good a foot forward as possible. Hopefully, after that word will spread, and the people of this world may be much more likely to deal with you for whatever supplies you need rather than having to take them – but do try to make sure it never comes to this.

Second, the incursion-detecting artifact needs to be found and obtained and brought home via whatever means you can find possible. I know there’s a sizable body of civilians in dire need of rescue, and you will be heading to save them first, but that artifact is still the primary objective of this mission. Each of these incursions is a potential disaster waiting to happen, and this artifact could give us the edge we need to make the loss of life and material property as minimal as possible – and potentially stave off disaster. Additionally, it’s likely the best way you have to get home. Barter or trade for it if you can, but take it by force if you must.

If, somehow, you find a way home before retrieving the artifact, and Lieutenant Colonel Ohkido still has good reason to believe the artifact is still retrievable, you are to send the civilians and some of the support staff home, as well as any relevant data you can find, but you are to stay to attempt to recover the artifact. I know circumstances can change in the field, and if Ohkido believes such an attempt to be fruitless, it’s far more important to come home safe than to waste your lives on what you cannot achieve – but we need this artifact, and we need our scientists and researchers looking over it as soon as possible.

Third, the recovery of the civilians. This is likely to be somewhat delicate, but we can’t allow the people of Jaket to continue to believe taking our people is something that we will allow without retaliation. If a diplomatic approach works to make sure to recover our citizens safely and make sure that no further raids will take them again, then this is preferred, but I find such an outcome highly unlikely – and I think it will be far better to go in with a stronger bargaining position. To that end – you are to find where the civilians are held, find an important military target on or near the premises, and if they won’t at first simply return them to you, prove what lengths you’re willing to go to to retrieve them. They will be much more likely to turn our citizens back over to us with minimal loss of life once they realize what we’re capable of, and it will put us on a good footing to open further diplomatic relations with them.

If they are unwilling to return our people to us, or trade (cheaply) for them and agree to never take them again, after a show of force, then you are authorized to take back the civilians by whatever means necessary – even if this results in the loss of some of the civilians. Even though the Jaket incursions are relatively easy to defeat compared to some of the others, their attempts to enslave our citizens still complicates our operations in them, and the saucer is not fast enough to get you there instantly. It needs to be made clear to them, via whatever means necessary, that this will not be allowed to continue.

Fourth, diplomatic relations. We’re sending with you a large variety of modern trade goods that our analysts expect will be non-dangerous, easy to understand, and worth quite a lot to them. You are to use these, if possible, to set up diplomatic relations with their government, as one method to keep from continuing to raid us. Alternatively, they can and should be used to trade with their people for food and water and other material goods in case of a protracted stay. It is unlikely, unless we get a better handle on how the incursions work and learn to control them, that long-term diplomatic relationships with their government will be of particular import, and so the priority should be to preserve goods for trade for water and food – but diplomacy is certainly a way to accomplish our goals here, and should be pursued if reasonable.

Any other operational priorities in the field are to be determined at the discretion of Lieutenant Colonel Ohkido, who has full authority to do whatever is necessary to perform the above priorities – and make whatever changes are necessary to them at the time.

Summary of the Dhaka incursions

Sean O’Brien, day 70, one day after incursions 9 and 10 in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Incursion 9 contained mostly creatures which drink blood

The first incursion contained a lot of strange creatures, some of which match the footage of the Norman Wells incursion. There was a mass of milky tentacles spread about the area around the pillar, which slapped anyone who got close but didn’t seem to be doing much else, and there was a skinless humanoid which took the orb and which might have been responsible for the whole thing. It said (in Polish, how did it speak Polish?) that it gained power from drinking blood, so it may be a different sort of vampire.

There were several giant eggs, more than twice as tall as me, with four limbs like the legs of a bird and one giant eye above a wide mouth with many sharp teeth, as well as swarms of hand-sized insects which gather in swarms to cover their victim in sticky webs so they can’t escape, before draining them of blood. The eggs also drink blood.

There were a lot of skinless wolves which absorb blood through their surface. Possibly the skinless humanoid could do so as well. This explains the lack of blood left behind in Norman Wells despite obvious signs of violence: the wolves took it.

Almost everything in the incursion consumes blood. However, I don’t think they are all vampiric. Holy water burned through the flesh of one of the dead wolves, but the insects did not appear to be harmed by healing magic.

All of these were quite dangerous to people who got near them, but I think the major problem was actually the insects. The larger creatures can kill much faster, but it was the middle of the night so most people were inside and therefore more accessible to swarms of small flying creatures than they were to wolves who can’t open doors. The time of day probably reduced casualties a good bit, since there were fewer people on the streets, and entering buildings presented some difficulty for the attacking creatures (not much for the eggs, which can smash through walls, but that still takes time). We should consider setting up a system to alert people that an incursion is happening so they can retreat inside.

Incursion 9 anomalies

Combustion didn’t work inside the incursion. I don’t know how it did it, but we couldn’t light any flames, and some of the guns didn’t work. I’ve been told these are the ones that rely on ambient oxygen to propel the bullets, so it sounds like there was something odd going on with the oxygen levels. But we could breath perfectly well. Maybe it was only effecting inanimate objects?

There was also a magical anomaly. Whenever I did magic, I could feel a presence trying to talk to me. I don’t know what it was, or what it wanted. It felt similar but not exactly the same as Myria establishing telepathic contact; perhaps the difference is the telepathic equivalent of a voice? Like with Myria, I could refuse the connection if I tried, but after that I used magic sparingly to avoid provoking it.

Summary of incursion 9

First we went to check on the pillar, in case the orb was still there. It was near the edge of the other incursion, surrounded by the large creature with tentacles. The orb was not there.

When we asked about the control orb, witnesses told us that a flying man, covered in blood, had taken it away in the opposite direction from the other incursion. There was a swarm of insects flowing from that direction, so we followed it to a building with gaping holes on the ground floor and the first. Insects were pouring out of the hole in the first floor, so it seemed worth investigating.

Corporal Musial flew in and killed one of the egg monsters before being grabbed by another one, which started drinking his blood while the insects covered him in webs. The rest of us were unaware of this because we were busy with several wolves which had emerged from hole in the ground floor, as well as a pair of egg monsters, followed by two more wolves leaping from the first floor onto Captain Drogonov. Once we had dealt with them, Carmine entered the building and went up the stairs, where she encountered the skinless humanoid, which cast a spell to temporarily blind her. At least I assume that’s what happened; she says it waved its arms and said something in a language she didn’t understand, and then her eyes stopped working for about a minute.

Captain Drogonov through a flashbang through the hole in the side of the first floor, which basically stunned everyone in the room, allowing us to kill the skinless humanoid and the two egg monsters, and retrieve the orb and extricate Musial from a large amount of webs and confused insects. Musial then drank the blood of the skinless humanoid and the three (now dead) egg monsters.

I think the skinless humanoid was somehow causing all the other creatures to be there. Musial says there were two eggs when he entered the room, but a third one abruptly appeared out of nowhere. He could have just missed it, but I don’t think so. For one thing, they were somewhat impermanent; most of the bodies vanished a short time after the end of the incursion. For another, there are not many reports of creatures crossing over through the pillar, but we saw a swarm of the insects coming from the building where where the skinless humanoid was, which would make sense if it was creating them, or calling them from elsewhere. It’s likely a magic-user of some sort, and we don’t really know the bounds of what magic can do.

Incursion 10 contained another vampire necromancer

The incursion contained a vampire, similar in appearance to the one in the Krakow incursion, who had assembled a group of around 300 zombies by the time we arrived. Like the other vampire, he used magic.

The zombies were all clustered on one side of the incursion, mostly contained by a makeshift barrier of cars. From what I’ve heard about Krakow, we would have expected the zombies to have spread out a lot more in the time since the incursion went up, given their numbers. But until just before we entered the incursion, the other incursion had been up, providing an impassible wall which contained the zombies. There were no zombies in the other incursion despite many dead, so we can surmise that the zombification area inside an incursion does not extend outward (which makes sense, given nothing else can get out, either). The group of zombies included some of the skinless wolves, which only makes sense if the zombies were also in the overlapping zone. It’s possible that a few zombies wandered into the overlap, but the more likely explanation is that the vampire responsible for their creation entered the overlap shortly after arriving, before creating any zombies.

This would have been a major problem had we gone into this incursion first. The vampire had the sphere when we first saw him, and it seems a safe assumption he had it the whole time. If he did in fact enter the overlap with it, there would be no way of taking down his incursion until the other one had first gone down. We need to consider this if there is ever an overlapping incursion again. It is possible that one incursion cannot be taken down until the other one is first removed, in which case we would want to send a second team to try the other incursion. It is also possible that both incursions might become locked, if the two spheres end up in the overlap, in which case the only way out is for someone on the other side of one of the incursions to decide to close it.

Incursion 10 anomalies

Small objects ignored gravity, continuing to move in whatever direction they were pushed. We did not investigate what exactly the boundary is, but grenades and bullets ignored gravity, while humans, cars, and zombies stayed on the ground with no apparent bounciness. Electrical devices did not work at all, and the effect wiped the memory on our cameras. This is a bit concerning regarding our electric parachute auto-openers—perhaps we should open parachutes a bit higher to give us a chance to open manually if electronics aren’t working, or even land outside and walk in, so as not to present a big floating target to anyone on the ground.

Everyone’s senses were greatly enhanced for the duration of the incursion. Distance didn’t have any effect on visual acuity; objects several hundred feet away were as clear as those within a few feet, as long as they were within the incursion bubble. We could hear everything inside the incursion, all at once, but were somehow able to pick out individual threads of sound. Also, we could understand everything anyone was saying, even if it was a language we didn’t know, or even necessarily recognize. The enhanced hearing has persisted for Corporal Musial, probably due to his ears being removed and then regrown during the incursion, but it may just be a vampiric quirk. Lastly, everyone could see magical auras, at any distance, even if there was something in the way which would have ordinarily blocked their line of sight to the magical object. Magical auras were also visible on supernatural creatures, namely zombies and vampires, which made cleanup very easy as we could keep perfect track of all the zombies. There are no active zombies left, so there should be no area of zombification like there was in Krakow. It also let us keep track of the vampire, which could have been very difficult if he was able to turn invisible like the one in Krakow did.

Incursion 10 summary

Corporal Musial approached the vampire, who was surprised to find another vampire in here, and even more surprised to learn that Musial is from this world. He gleefully confirmed that Musial was “untutored”, and then took control of him using magic, forcing him to tell the truth and not make any attempts to escape. He then questioned Musial about the nature of this world, and asked for recommendations as to who else to take prisoner who would be a useful source of information, while not being much trouble to contain. Musial explained some of the technological capabilities of this world, focusing on weaponry and the planned firebombing of incursions which did not go down in a timely fashion. He then convinced the vampire to disassemble his zombie army so as to establish a friendly diplomatic foundation for his next visit (this was accomplished by directing some of the zombies to target other zombies rather than humans, and shrunk the group of active zombies to around fifty over the next several minutes). I am unsure whether to be impressed at Musial’s apparent ability to sincerely believe whatever is convenient, or concerned that he was completely confident in Earth’s technological superiority when the other vampire had just demonstrated the ability to take complete control over him; but whichever it was, it worked.

The other vampire ordered Corporal Musial to fly to the incursion pillar and temporarily kill himself by removing his head. I think he was planning to take Musial prisoner, along with some civilians. He probably didn’t realize that the language barrier would be a problem once the incursion was down, or perhaps he had a way around it. In any case, Captain Drogonov, Carmine, and I followed them by car, arriving just in time for Carmine and Captain Drogonov to shoot at the vampires, temporarily killing them both. Captain Drogonov then permanently killed the hostile vampire by decapitating him and then driving a stake through his heart, while we revived Musial with blood. The compulsion to remove his head was not removed by his death, or that of the other vampire, so I had to dispell it; there are no remaining magical effects that I can see on him, but Musial should be evaluated for any lingering mental effects. After that, we dealt with the rest of the zombies before bringing the incursion down.

I think that all the vampire’s magic was necromancy. He used magic for three things—giving orders to Corporal Musial individually, giving orders to groups of zombies, and re-growing Musial’s ears after he tore them off (presumably so he couldn’t hear any more commands, but have we checked whether he actually needs ears to hear?)—all of which affected undead targets. Re-growing ears in a few seconds might indicate worryingly powerful magic (healing magic could re-grow a human ear, but it would take at least an hour or two), but I think it’s more likely a side effect of vampires not running on normal biology, so healing them might be easier. In any case, all three spells looked similar to each other, so they were probably the same school of magic. They looked different from healing or air magic in the same way that healing and air differ from each other, so necromancy must be another branch of the same overall system of magic, rather than a power inherent to vampires. However, vampires may have some means of resisting necromantic commands, hinted at by the comment about Musial being “untutored”. It may be wise to keep Musial away from anyone from that world, until we can find out more about this tutoring and how he might resist being controlled by necromancy.

What happened to Corporal Musial brings up a new kind of threat we need to discuss: how to deal with teammates who have been compromised, or anyone else being controlled by magic or other means. While I don’t think that necromancy can be used to control living creatures, it would not be surprising if there is another kind of magic which can, not to mention telepathy or a mantle or something else we haven’t encountered yet. In the case of magic, most spells can be unworked by another mage, so a person controlled by magic can be freed without violence, although this doesn’t always work and requires getting fairly close (around 30 feet). As for the others, we can research possible counters, although we won’t be able to test them until someone is compromised again (or once Myrria gets back, in the case of telepathy). There is also the problem of impersonators, such as Lord Changer, but this is mostly solved by establishing passphrases to be used when someone is suspected of being an impostor, although this won’t work against shapeshifters or illusionists who are telepathic or can force someone to tell the truth.

Summery of Incursion 11, Myit Chay, Burma (condensed)

Jasmine Watts, Analyst, day 75 (22 hours after Myit Chay incursion)

• Burma is not a Terminius member nation, and the Military Junta has threatened to aggressively protect their airspace, but their ability to actually catch the saucer was nonexistent, and deployment was unhindered.
• the incursion contained infernals, predominantly 38 Sanguinehunger and small number of Bloodmites.
• Contact 2 landed in the incursion zone after 20 min, and the incursion was shut down with help from local forces in 25 min
• initial estimates at 150 civilian casualties. (the abundance of local monasteries to shelter in helped reduce casualties)
• no talking or spellcasting creatures were encountered, and the bodies did not vanish over time, indicating that they were not summoned.
• insubstantial motes of light floated around the incursion, gathering near living things. the motes appeared mostly white, but some had a slightly colored tint, and varied in size from about 0.5 to 4 centimeters. they appeared harmless and any additional effects are unknown.
• Contact-2 was arrested by local forces, and negotiations to extract both Contact-2 and samples of the invaders were successfully concluded after 20 hours with substantial international pressure applied by India.
  

Personelle File: Juniper Hargrave

From a recommendation letter sent to Abigail Combs, 52 days since the initial incursion:

… and look, Abby, I know she might be a bit of a handful and ask far too many questions, but honestly she’ll probably do well working with you all. She’s been bothering me about getting in touch with you ever since she found out I used to go to school with someone who worked for terminus. She’s hungry to work on new science, that’s why she went into particle physics, and she apparently worked on puzzling out that scroll almost non-stop for a day before she managed to cast it. This is the sort of thing she wants to do, as she’s told me at least 7 times – she wanted to help figure out what was causing the incursions, and she wants to work on whatever you all find. I never should have told her that I knew you in college. But in all honesty, she’s right – she’s clever and smart and will apparently stay up all night working on something even when you send her home. The hard part with her is giving her enough of a mystery to keep her attention – but whatever the heck this magic is, and whatever has been going on in the world certainly qualifies. Besides, ever since she got it into her head that she had an “in” to work for Terminus, she’s been practically wasted here…

From an email to Alexander Barca, the interim head of Terminus, detailing the members of the newly formed Contact-4, 62 days since the initial incursion:

…Finally, we come to Juniper. Her combat marks are low (though she did manage to pass her firearms certification, if only barely), but she rounds out the team rather well. The recent near-death of Captain Maksim and subsequent revival by O’Brian on Contact-3’s latest mission shows the clear benefit of having an extranatural healer on each team, and Juniper was by far the most enthusiastic of our current magical-trained researchers at the prospect of doing fieldwork, and one of the more proficient as well. Additionally, she speaks 4 (5?) languages: English, Polish, ??, and ??, and is a well spoken individual who comes off as genial and friendly, as opposed to the gruff demeanor of most of our operatives – she may be our best bet on Contact-4 to conduct diplomacy if the need arises. Finally, her scientific background and general background knowledge will help to analyze unusual situations on the field, and should be a general asset to the team in the variety of situations they will end up in. She’s shown some great camaraderie with the rest of her team members, and should do well on Contact-4.

From a report on the health of Juniper Hargrave by Medical Officer Carlos Alvarez, 72 days after the initial incursion

Despite everything in my background trying to tell me that it’s impossible, I can find nothing wrong with Juniper. Despite being practically at ground zero of a nuclear explosion, the treatment designed by O’Brian and ??? appears to have removed all traces of radiation and burn damage from her, and she’s now the picture of health. The implications for medical treatment…

…she seems to be a bit shaken by the death of her teammates, and that she came so close to death herself, but her mood doesn’t seem to be too affected – I’d still like to schedule her for a psych eval before putting her back in active rotation, but from my point of view she’s perfectly healthy and ready to resume her duties.

From a psych eval of Juniper Hargrave, 72 days after the initial incursion

…as stated in my original assessment prior to her deployment, Juniper is clearly an enthusiastic and driven individual, focused on learning more about her world and specifically about the incursions. Despite her near-death experience, and the deaths of her teammates, this enthusiasm has not diminished, which perhaps shows a bit of worrying recklessness…

…as far as I can tell, Juniper is still stable and focused, with little to no trauma from the recent events. However, I can see no reason not to deploy her if needs be, but I would suggest that she only be used as an alternate, rather than a primary member of a contact team…

From an oral report by Eddie Mills, recorded 76 days after the initial incursion

…I’d met her around the base a couple of times, but hadn’t really gotten to know her, but since Holden had to take a day off to go to a funeral, she was sitting in with us in case we had another incursion. Clearly one of the clever types, though not so good in a fight, but she promised she’d get us back up if we went down…

…after that the incursion went more or less like normal, if you can call fighting off giant grinning egg-things from hell normal, up until about halfway through. We were making our way to the center and one of those big egg things got the drop on me and took a really nasty chunk out of my arm. Well as soon as that happened, Juniper was there healing it lickety split, almost as good as new. But when I turned to thank her, her eyes had glazed over and she was standing there all limp and blank. I know now she was off talking to the demon thing, but at the time we had no idea what was going on…

…but no matter what we tried, we couldn’t wake her, and we had to get that incursion closed. There wasn’t anything we could do but leave her with the rest of local burmese authorities to take care of her and press on to the pillar… …they took away our radios and things when we were done so we couldn’t report back, and took us all into custody together…

…Juniper told Captain York that something had whispered to her when she cast her magic and that the whispers filled her mind and dragged her out of her body…
…look, I can’t remember exactly what she said happened, alright? I’ll do my best, alright?…

…she said she had a lot of trouble explaining what she saw, all right? There were a lot of hand gestures and shapes when she tried to explain, and the look in her eyes got a little wild when she thought about it, some kind of terrified and intrigued. I don’t know what exactly she saw, but it very well seemed to be beyond our ken…

…yeah she said, what was it, that it’d “curse her line for 12 generations” if she didn’t make a deal, though she couldn’t get a straight answer out of him about what that meant…

…yeah, she said that this was the best deal she could get, and she said it took some real fast talking on her part too, only a tenth of her soul in exchange for the ability to summon demons…

…York told her in no uncertain terms that she was not to summon any and she nodded and said she didn’t have any intention of doing so – at least not until they got back to the lab…

…I gots no idea why she started getting sick. She seemed perfectly fine at first, but maybe it’s just her body not doing so well without her soul in it. It was a real peculiar sick too. It started with her fingers and toes feeling all tingly the way it does when you sit on your arm, you know? We thought it might have to do with how she was sitting, or resting, but apparently it got worse and worse no matter how she shifted. She said it was moving up her legs and down her arms and getting worse…

…the Burmese folks didn’t really want to help us, though, but by now she was twitching a lot from the pain and muscle spasms, and they finally gave us some painkillers and more water, but as soon as we fed them to her she threw them up along with lunch…

…they finally came in and gave her a shot of something that knocked her out real quick, but then they took her away and wouldn’t tell us where they were taking her and I didn’t see her until they were letting us go…

…when I finally got up all close to her her skin was all clammy and cold and she was covered in sweat and she wouldn’t stop twitching, it was pretty damn scary…
…do you know how she’s happened to her, sir? I’ve been worried about her, I really hope she’s ok. I hope that demon didn’t trick her or something. I really hope she’s ok.

From an email sent by Medical Officer Carlos Alvarez, 77 days after the initial incursion

…you bring me back a patient I saw fixed up days ago, and tell me she’s missing a tenth of her soul, and that she’s not responding to magical healing. What do you expect me to do with that? But alright, there’s something weird going on with her, and if you all can’t figure it out that’s my job. Let’s see what medical science can determine. But next time please try to take better care of the people I help fix up, alright?

From various reports and emails by Medical Officer Carlos Alvarez as pertaining to Juniper Hargrave, recorded 77-80 days after the initial incursion

…I’m just guessing here, and I’m waiting on more bloodwork, since the centrifuge reset on me for some reason, but at a guess this isn’t due to the loss of her soul. Losing her soul would probably result (assuming my guess is correct) in the diminishing of bodily function, but from what I can tell her body is in overdrive, filling her blood and nerves and muscles with… something. She might be unconscious, but her body is working overtime… …To: maintenance@terminus.org Can we get a technician in to check the MRI, please? For some reason it shut down in the middle of scanning a patient and it will not turn back on. …chemical tests keep coming back strange, Sam. Her immune system is working on overdrive, but there’s no obvious bacterial or viral markers. Her body is clearly full of some sort of peptide or protein or both with an unusual composition, but the centrifuge stopped in the middle of the run again and I wasn’t able to separate out her blood. Hopefully, third time’s the charm… …after the centrifuge reset on me the third time I tried three other centrifuges and all with the same result, and the technician says there’s nothing wrong with the first one that she can figure out. Nor with the MRI for that matter. And when I tried a sample of someone else’s blood as a control, it worked perfectly fine. The only reasonable conclusion here is it’s something to do with her…

…You won’t believe it, but it’s electrical currents! Her blood and body seem to be absorbing electrical currents! Don’t ask me how that’s possible Sam, I don’t know yet, but it explains the centrifuge. Which means if we want to sample it we’re going to have to centrifuge the old-fashioned way. Speaking of which, do you know where we can find a hand-crank centrifuge? …after finally managing to separate out the novel proteins and sequence them, we found what I’d already more or less expected – whatever new proteins are in her body have sequences in common with the electric eel. At this point I don’t think this has anything to do with the Burmese encounter at all, though we should keep all of contact-2 in quarantine just to be safe, but at least it explains what’s going on…

…the blood and genetic samples from before the Mombasa incursion are perfectly normal. The ones collected afterwards are contaminated, even the ones drawn after all the radiation was purged from her system. And by contaminated I mean either complete and utter nonsense or filled with strange growths and in at least one case it contained strange tiny creatures, all of which I’ve sent to xenobio to study. We managed to heal Juniper of the radiation, but apparently there was some sort of mutagen left in her blood, which seems to be turning her into some sort of human battery of all things. A genetic sample of her now compared to her baseline show a number of significant differences. There isn’t much I can do to flush out a mutagen that we originally failed to detect, and it’s pretty clearly too late by now anyways, but we can keep her body from fighting itself while she finishes, well, mutating – which it seems to mostly be finished already. We’ve already been applying immuno-suppresants, but we’ll increase the dosage of them until she’s finally done with whatever is happening to her. With any luck she’ll be out of the woods soon.

Report by Samantha Kendall on Juniper Hargrave’s new abilities, 88 days after the initial incursion

After sufficient testing and practice, we have determined what we think are the extent of Juniper’s new abilities and restrictions:

• Electricity storage: Juniper seems to have become, for lack of a better term, some sort of human battery, or capacitor. She can store high amounts of electrical energy, more than enough to kill a normal human, and seems to be unaffected by electrical shock – though there is a limit to her capacity.
• Electricity projection: Juniper can expend some of her stored electrical energy in the form of, well, a blast of electricity. The voltage from this attack isn’t too high, only enough to kill an unshielded human a third of the time, though with practice Juniper hopes to increase her voltage output. Additionally, Juniper is able to modulate the current and amperage of her blasts, which can potentially be used to make her attacks much less lethal. Repeated use of this ability in a short period of time at full power seems to exhaust her quickly, even if she still has stored electricity inside her, though she can make weaker blasts of electricity by expending less effort.
• Electricity generation: the amount of electrical energy generated from Juniper’s electrical blasts seems to be in excess of the stored amount she expends. Her more powerful blasts clearly consume the energy of her own biological processes, as it makes her more tired, she can make weaker blasts that hardly seem to exhaust her at all. In fact, she seems to be able to charge herself with these weak blasts, though it takes longer than charging from a battery or other electrical source would.
• Electrodependence: Juniper seems to slowly absorb the electricity stored inside her, and when she has none stored she becomes tired and lethargic. On a full charge it seems to take around 12 hours for her entire charge to used up, at which point she becomes exhausted until topped up in some fashion from an electrical source. The obvious conclusion here is that her body has adapted to use her stored electricity to run her bodily functions, and cannot fully function properly without it. However, with the recent discovery that she can recharge herself even when she has no stored electricity whatsoever, she should not need to use an external energy source except when rapid recharging is required.

Terminus Director Hamahona Akarana, Initial Memo

Hamahona Akarana, Terminus Director, day 80

Not everone is able to make it to the general assembly, and some points are worth repeating, so here’s the recap.

I’m well aware of the adage against switching generals mid-campaign, and intend to get thoroughly acquainted with Terminus before making large changes, as well as keeping General Barca on staff to continue his excellent work.

That said, I do plan to put our new and vastly expanded budget to imidiate use. In addition to rebuilding and re-outfitting our Contact teams and creating dedicated excursion teams, we’ll be hiring additional engineers and experts to speed development on the saucer flight simulator, as well as investigate the saucer itself. The bulk of the expanded resources, however, will go twords expanding R&D into the artifacts and powers encountered in incursions, in search of the game-changing advantages needed to build versatile contact teams and prevent further disasters.

Strategically, our focus needs to be on getting off of the back foot. The results from the Jaket Excursion could be an enormous step forward, on either neutralizing one incursion, or detecting all incursions in advance. In this vein, we will be focusing on establishing contact with, exploring and neutralizing invading civilizations.

We know the stakes are high, and we’ve got a tough job ahead, but we have the skills and resources of the world at our disposal, and nearly every nation on earth is united behind us. we’ve had losses, and we’ve made incredible achievements. We’ll each keep doing our jobs, keep solving problems, and keep anticipating new ones, and we’ll see this through.

It’s an honor to serve with, and lead, Terminius.

Preliminary analysis of the slime

Adriana Bellini, xenobiologist, day 90, four days after incursion 12 in Arak, Algeria

We have completed a preliminary analysis of the slime, which was about 15 cubic feet in volume, a mottled brown, and fairly springy to the touch. It could move at about 8 inches per second. We have plenty of video records thanks to curious civilians (the so-called “poop slime” is now famous on YouTube), but very little physical samples, thanks to the overenthusiastic application of incendiary grenades by Contact-2.

The slime most closely resembles a sponge in that it is a largely undifferentiated mass of muscle-like cells; an mRNA analysis of different samples found no evidence of specialization. It does not have a nervous or circulatory system as far as we can tell, nor a digestive system. This would explain how the slime arrived in batches, two additional masses of slime being incorporated into the whole as soon as they arrived through the incursion pillar.

Unlike a sponge, the slime contains a network of iron filaments which spread through all the samples . Flexible and springy, they are 50-300 micrometers across. It may be the nervous system, or act like muscles, explaining the slime’s surprisingly quick movement. The metal structure may also be responsible for the radio jamming coinciding with the slime’s presence.

We can make guesses about the slime’s native environment. Some of its enzymes denature at 58 C, so the ambient temperature is lower than that, although we won’t know the enzymes’ desired range until we find out what they do. The slime comes from an environment rich in oxygen and nitrogen, and is carbon-based, though it burns better than we would expect.

From: Deanna Needler
To: All On-Site Personelle

I mentioned to Maksim that Sentinel might benefit from long-range solar surveillance UAVs, and that some of them only weigh 75kg…

And now he’s in the gym trying to hold a 75kg barbell above his head while standing on one foot and lightly tapping various things with his other foot.

Somebody strong should probably go spot him.

Some of the regions on Mantle-Earth and guidelines for interacting with them

Wensleydale Prim, political analyst, day 90 (one day after incursion 13)

As you know, we recently opened diplomatic relations with Sentinel, an organization which is roughly Mantle-Earth’s equivalent of Terminus. Sentinel is a branch of the military which acts as a police force within the Fractured States, specializing in mantle-related incidents. We made contact with them yesterday when their San Francisco was connected to our Baltimore, and have initiated an exchange program: three citizens of Earth as well as Contact-3 member Ashley Carmine (originally from Mantle-Earth) went to San Francisco, and three San Franciscans as well as Sentinel operative John Arbor stayed with us. Next time you are connected to a safe place on Mantle-Earth, try to communicate this using magic or via an incursion anomaly so we will know to bring the four visitors into the incursion so they can return home.

After interviewing John Arbor about the sociopolitics of his home, I have compiled a list of places we may encounter in an incursion and suggestions as to how to proceed.

Fractured States: attempt to contact Terminus via magic or incursion anomaly

The Fractured States encompasses the East and West coasts of the United States, the middle having become the Hive States. Their borders are slowly shrinking to the north and south due to the expansion of the Battlegrounds, though Sentinel tries to prevent that.

An incursion from the Fractured States will most likely be well-planned, and include several Sentinel operatives as well as the four visitors from our side. If the visitors are not all present, request that next time they come in person, even if they do not wish to return yet, so we can make sure they are not being held against their will. In either case, try to contact Terminus so we can bring our visitors to the incursion, where they can return to their home dimension. You may also encounter Terminus operatives in England or the Hive States, as they are planning to ask other countries to keep an eye out for incursions so they can participate.

Hive States: establish diplomatic contact

The Midwestern United States was infected by a retrovirus in 1954 which caused everyone living there to develop insect-like characteristics. Attached is a drawing done by a sketch artist advised by Arbor, so you will be able to recognize residents of the Hive States. Arbor assures me they are no longer contagious.

The Hive States are on very good terms with the Fractured States, although cultural differences means that interactions between individuals of the two countries are often tense. They developed their own language after their altered physiology made spoken English difficult, but written English is still in heavy use so there should be no trouble in communicating. Mention that we are allied with Sentinel and the Fractured States. They are fairly isolationist and will probably not want to participate in an exchange program, but they may be interested in trading or sharing information. The biologists would appreciate it if you could get some samples, but this would probably be taken as rude.

Winter’s Domain: do not enter

An area covering most of Canada and some of northern Russia, Sweden, and Norway is encased in ice, and has been since 1943 (that is, 72 years ago; the year on Mantle-Earth is currently 2015). The theory is that an ice-related mantle mutated when it transferred to the person now known as the King in Winter, becoming unexpectedly potent. Presumably Winter is still alive, as the zone is still frozen. It does not pull heat from its surroundings, but objects thrown across the boundary freeze almost instantaneously.

Do not attempt to visit Winter’s Domain, as you will promptly freeze. Although this warning is probably pointless, as the most likely scenario leading to an incursion from Winter’s Domain is that Winter himself opened the incursion, and has already frozen the Earth side of it.

Battlegrounds: hostile, attempt to shut down incursion immediately

The American Battlegrounds extends through the southern US, Mexico, and most of South America, as well as the part of Canada which is not covered by Winter’s Domain, and consists of autonomous city-states ruled by a mantle-bearer. The most organized region is western South America, where the New Inca Empire maintains a tenuous control over a group of tithe-paying cities. The scope of a city-state varies by region; in most of South America many Lords must maintain control of nearby farmland in order to feed themselves, while in the southern US they can rely to some extent on trade with the Hive States States. Leadership changes are frequent, as Lords often seek to acquire new territory and possibly the mantles of the incumbent leader. What we saw in Detroit was a fairly typical event in the Battlegrounds: an attempted takeover by defeating the current Lord of the city in single combat. They will probably set up a challenge circle soon after arriving, and wait for the Lord of the city.

This suggests a straightforward way of resolving incursions from the Battlegrounds. If one of you can defeat the challenging Lord, most of his/her followers will defer to you, and you can send them back through the pillar with minimal-to-no collateral damage. Keep in mind that if you lose, the Lord will think he/she have won the city, and not be inclined to leave, so don’t challenge unless you are fairly certain you can win.

England: establish diplomatic contact

England does not have mantles. Their ruler, Monarch, has a mantle which cancels them within an area which includes the UK and some surrounding ocean. England is on good terms with the Fractured States, but given their pointed lack of mantles, they may be less friendly to people with noticeable noticeable powers or other oddities. Try to initiate diplomatic contact with whoever is there, mentioning that Terminus is allied with Sentinel and the Fractured States. England is very stable and might be a good trading partner.

There is also a chance that Monarch’s mantle will not apply inside their side of the incursion (telepathy doesn’t pass through incursion barriers), in which case some of the people inside it will suddenly learn that they have mantles, and may not know how to control them. Only about one in a thousand people has a mantle, so it is unlikely that a particularly dangerous one will show up in an incursion, but it is a possibility you should be prepared for.

France: do not enter

Everyone in France is under mind control. It is caused by their leader, the Tyrant, and covers exactly the exact boundaries of mainland France as of 1951, when Tyrant took over. Arbor wasn’t able to tell us much about what the mind control does exactly, besides that nobody from France ever leaves, and nobody visits (for obvious reasons). Nobody knows what would happen if the boundaries of France were to change, because nobody can invade without being mind-controlled and the French can’t invade anyone else without leaving the mind-control area.

If you suspect that the people coming through the incursion are French, do not cross into the other world as you may become mind-controlled and unable to leave. It is possible you will encounter a lot of French refugees coming through if the mind-control does not extend through the incursion barrier, and they decide to escape. Do not stop them—what can the Tyrant do to us if we are not in France? It is also possible that the mind-control would be present on our side of the incursion instead of theirs, the same way that the magic is flipped; however it would probably not have any effect unless our side of the incursion is also in France. Therefore, we should be cautious regarding incursions in France until we can develop a counter for mind-control.

Africa: probably hostile

Report to Mila Harris on Liko, the detainee from the Auckland incursion

Ingrid Neuman, day 156

This report was compiled after the first long-term conversation with Liko, our detainee from the Auckland incursion, that remained amicable for more than a few minutes. His command over the language is still rather rudimentary, but it was finally sufficient to convince him that amicable conversation would be rewarded with better food and some entertainment. The two of them managed to talk for several hours, with a few breaks to rest and actually give Liko the promised rewards. The full recording of the conversation along with translation subtitles should be available in a couple of hours. But as a summary, the most relevant findings follow:

Personal Background:

Liko, as the medical team has essentially already concluded, was born and grew up in a low-gravity environment – specifically, on a moon he calls Pindal, orbiting around a gas giant which in turn orbits around a rather large red star. Liko has lived in his habitat on Pindal for his entire life, and as best we can discern works as a maintenance and construction drone operator. Sam spent some time building a rapport discussing his personal life and interests, but of course most of that discussion has little tactical relevance.

General Historical Background:

Apparently, the universe that Liko comes from contains an Earth – but an Earth that seems to have diverged from our own much earlier than Sentinel-Earth did. Liko recognized a satellite image of Earth, showing Europe and Asia and Africa, but did not recognize any of our polity borders, and the few historical events Sam described were met with a confused look. Liko knows little of Earth history, and seemed flustered when asked, and so we did not push the matter. I am sure there are a number of analysts chomping at the bit to attempt to interrogate him on every historical detail they can muster, but I would recommend that our team continue to build on our currently rather delicate rapport with him first, before some other overeager scientist or historian ruins months of our hard work.

Regardless, any attempts at finding similarities between our Earth and theirs will be complicated by the fact that, in addition to numbering years differently than we do, around 800 years ago, Earth formed a single world government, developed FTL travel, and began to spread to other planets and moons, colonizing and extracting resources as they went. At the peak, there were apparently hundreds of worlds that had humans settled or working on them. Unfortunately, about 150 years ago, about 10 years after Liko’s home habitat was established, some kind of civil war broke out, and over the course of months, resupply ships began to arrive much less frequently, and then not at all.

Pindal Historical Background:

Liko’s home habitat, as well as the half-dozen others on the moon, were not designed to be self-sufficient. They are designed to be extensible – a spiderweb network of enclosed domes with various specialties, connected by enclosed tubes that also carry water and air and power and waste between them, but the colonies themselves are reliant on shipments from earth and other colonies. Liko’s habitat was apparently the only one that had been supplied with general construction devices – a technology that he describes as being able to convert raw materials into nearly arbitrary physical objects – as long as there is a blueprint for it. However, the company that had provided them to their workers had locked them to only create blueprints from a specific pre-programmed set. A set that sensibly includes various mining equipment and replacement parts for the habitat, and less sensibly the military robots and weaponry we observed, and even less sensibly does not include the ability to construct more such construction devices, or the parts to build them. And since the construction devices do not make their refined objects instantly, and time on them is precious, the colonists of this habitat concluded that rather than sharing the limited construction time of these devices, the only sensible thing to do was to use a large fraction of their precious constructor time to create the pre-programmed military robots and use them to prevent the other colonists and miners from accessing them.

Surprisingly, despite this obvious advantage, enough of the other habitats have sufficient static defense to be able to hold off these robots, as well as having jamming equipment that can prevent operators from giving orders to them. This will not disable them, but removing the human from the equation apparently makes them easier to defeat in combat. This has led to a stalemate that has lasted for generations.

Liko’s Perspective of the Auckland Incursion

From Liko’s account, someone discovered a pillar in the middle of one of the small domes of their habitat, activated it, and when they came through, they were confused, surprised, and immediately attacked. Fighting off their assailant and returning home, they found their habitat in chaos, as the dome had ruptured power and water and air lines all throughout their habitat, wherever it intersected them. Given that they viewed this as some kind of attack using unknown technology, they responded in the way they were most used to – by attacking back. And once they realized there was an entire dome of breathable atmosphere on the other side, full of verdancy and unusual technology, their goal of extermination expanded to include colonization.

Further Notes

Sam attempted to explain to Liko that the incursion was not intentional, but Liko is as of yet unconvinced. I do believe with enough time we will be able to explain this to him in a way that he believes, but as of yet he is still rather confrontational with us, only complying in return for rewards. Any direct attempts to determine tactical details of his habitat and technology or even how many people live there were met with silence or rudeness.

When shown a picture of the combat suits used in the Russian incursion, Liko did not recognize the design, but did recognize the insignia as belonging to the global Earth government. It took some indirect questions, but we are reasonably certain that Liko believes no habitat on Pindal has any such suit.

Conclusions and Recommendations

I am reasonably certain that there will be more tactical data about Pindal and its inhabitants that we can convince Liko to tell us, given sufficient time. However it seems likely that most of this rather specific information will be useless to us. Given that both incursions from this universe we know of likely came from different worlds, the likelihood of another incursion being from Pindal as opposed to one of the many other colonies is rather small. Additionally, it is likely that the incursion may have destroyed Liko’s habitat beyond repair, or at least opened it up to attack by the other stranded colonists on Pindal. Instead, it is my recommendation that we do our best to develop a working relationship of mutual trust with Liko, so that we can learn from him whatever details he may know about the advanced technology from his world, as well as whatever cultural details we can. I expect our scientists are going to be rather excited and desperate to learn whatever details they can about their physics and technology, to the point where Terminus makes it a priority, and knowledge of their language and culture will go a long way towards making the next incursion from this world an amicable one.

Screaming jars are very energizing!

Liam Harding, analyst (occult) day 105

As you may have forgotten, we recovered seven jars from the vampire during the Krakow incursion. The jars were not magical nor psionic, could not be contacted telepathically, and for some reason emitted a faint screaming sound. Nobody was sure whether they had anything to do with the zombie plague, so they were quickly put in storage. But after encountering screaming ghosts from the same world during the Falklands incursion, we had a new and testable theory about what the jars contained: more ghosts. After setting up a ghost containment system, we opened one of the jars and found that it did not contain a ghost, but some vapor whose screams faded as it evaporated.

##New Policy Proposals From Maksim Drogonov 1 day after Falklands Incursion

• All field personnel to have long hair, so can be soaked in holy water
• All non-vampire field personnel to wear holy object touching skin. Those without religion to be issued religious necklace from large religion of their choice.
• All teams to carry increased quantity holy water balloons
• PR department to encourage truck loans
• Dept-of-doing-nice-things to reward truck guy (and to be created if needed)
  

Minami’s log of events during the two months spent camping in Jaket

Day 8

We’ve set up camp twenty miles north of Shekhasa. Close enough we can visit to talk, but far enough that they don’t feel like we’re threatening their doorstep because to them the distance is a day’s journey rather than an hour. The negotiation sessions are finally winding down. They’ve agreed to let us take the incursion detector with us, as well as keep everything else we stole from Zenu Kade Devin. Apparently it is okay that we stole it, according to an obscure term in the ancient code of honor. We should probably read that thing sooner rather than later, to avoid any more problems. I don’t want to get us in trouble with yet another mishandled honor duel.

There’s eighty two refugees here so far, and forty three more on the way from Athetin that should be arriving tomorrow, and six that might be in Areza. We’ve been focusing on constructing our camp: first thing was a fence to keep out the wildlife, and now we’re starting on better housing. Mostly it’s the soldiers doing the construction but we’re trying to get the civilians involved, or at least the ones that are healthy enough, and that the work doesn’t trigger bad memories for. That doesn’t leave a lot of people, but hopefully there will be more as they spend time in a safe place with food. We’ve got to establish a routine, and make people feel like they’re doing something. Otherwise we’ll go nuts long before we find a way home.

The village about a mile away seems reluctant to approach but I’m hoping we can set up some kind of trade with them, for food at least, and maybe information. We picked the spot for defensibility and not soil quality, and even if we farming started now, the supplies will be running out within a couple weeks. So we will need their food. It’s good we’ve found so many of the civilians this fast, but I can’t help but think that even with all the planning, we’re not prepared for a long wait with this many people. Everyone is clamoring to go home and we can’t do anything about it. Also, we really should have thought to bring a therapist.

Day 10

The refugees from Athetin are here, and we have an actual carpenter, Hudson Allen. He claims our “weak attempt at a fence” is “structurally unsound” and demands it be rebuilt. I’m not going to stop him, he’s one of the few people with any semblance of enthusiasm and it’s even somewhat contagious. The Athetin refugees also include another doctor, Miles Chester, who specializes in nutrition. Even though the plant life here is pretty different from home, I’m hoping he’ll be able to get everyone fed up properly. First we’ll have to figure out which plants around here are even edible, though. We didn’t think to bring a botanist, either, and I don’t recall one on the list of missing civilians.

We also got a visit from the leader of the village, Lashnara Rena Agaron. I’m not sure what to make of him. He says he doesn’t want any trouble with us, and reluctantly agreed to trade for food. I tried to get him to tell me more about this region but he wasn’t having it. I think the bureaucrats might be paying them to keep an eye on us, that would explain the dinosaur Kelly Graham reported passing by the river yesterday.

Day 11

Hudson was right about the fence: a couple of these pig-rat creatures got in through a hole in a section that hadn’t been rebuilt yet, and gnawed holes in three of the spare tents before we caught them. This evening, a messenger came from the capital saying they’ve located four of our people in Areza. That’s over a hundred miles away, so they must have ridden the round trip to get a message this fast. They’re actually taking us seriously.

Day 14

A trading caravan stopped by today. They didn’t have much food, but they were happy to take three packets of needles for some nice wood, a lot of cloth, and some shovels, which we can use to dig a proper latrine system. They also sold us some seeds, so we’ve started a garden. Mostly root vegetables, and something that sounds a lot like kale except that it’s blue. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to tell when it’s ready to eat, but it feels good to take a tiny step towards self-sufficiency.

Day 15

The civilians who were in Areza arrived. Three adults and a nine-year-old, Thomas, who refuses to speak. I do not know what to do about this, and we only have two intro psychology textbooks in the archive. We really, really should have brought a proper therapist. Anyway, that makes 129 civilians here and three confirmed dead. Nineteen unaccounted for. I hope they find Alison’s dad soon, though she seems less hopeful every day. Anyara says they’re still looking, and we should have enough time. It was more than six weeks between the first two incursions, and we’ve only been here for two weeks of shorter days. John Brown, the anthropologist, is desperately trying to get the villagers to talk to him, but they’re steadfastly businesslike. At least they show no reluctance to sell us food.

Day 18

Another trading caravan. I think we’re getting a reputation. Their leader let us take a look at his topographical map (we took pictures, which feels a bit like cheating since he didn’t understand what we were doing), so we can start plotting the best routes for when the incursion detector goes off. I think he gave us a look for free because Dr Harrison set his brother’s broken arm, and also patched up a couple of minor injuries among the rest of the travelers. We should definitely keep that up next time someone stops by; we have much better supplies, and just treating people won’t share our technology. I’m not even sure we shouldn’t be sharing modern medicine, though, or at least the theoretical bits (they don’t have the infrastructure necessary for making antibiotics). Unlike the guns which we’ve just handed them, medicine wouldn’t give them much battlefield advantage, but would do a lot of good for common people who live here.

Day 20

There’s an outbreak of a pretty nasty respiratory thing going around. Like the 24-hour flu, but with more coughing. Magic is helpful for keeping it contained, but it doesn’t do nearly enough. It’s so limited in this world, and I’m not very good at it. A couple of the refugees are interested, but none of them have caught on yet. We probably caught it from the traders, one of them was coughing. Ohkido suggested limiting contact with outside groups to prevent this happening again, but that might make the civilians feel trapped here more than they already do.

Day 23

The emperor sent an envoy to try to get us to trade more guns. It might have been a bad idea to make the first trade. Politely declined their offer, and explained that we were in quarantine (everyone has seemed better since yesterday, but we may as well be cautious, particularly when it’s a convenient excuse), then sent them away with some paper. I have a feeling they’ll be back.

Day 25

A couple of women from the village stopped by. They offered food and gossip in exchange for needles and a shake-light, and having one of the doctors take a look at a sick child. The gossip wasn’t particularly useful, but John Brown was delighted, and at least we’re starting to get friendlier with the villagers, even if it sounds like their leader doesn’t approve.

Day 26

Some men showed up last night and tried to break into the camp. They got a lot closer than I would have liked before getting caught and chased off by a patrol. I haven’t heard anything about bandits in this region—this close to the capital, there would likely be military retaliation—so they must have been targeting specifically us. None of the soldiers recognized any of them before they ran off, but I can’t help but wonder if they’re from the village, and the visitors yesterday were scoping out our defenses.

Day 27

This time the emperor sent a more emphatic envoy asking us to come talk to him about the weapon-artifacts. We traded two magazines in exchange for his bureaucrats continuing to search for the last seventeen civilians. I don’t like the pattern we’re setting but we don’t have a lot of choice. At least the Jaketse already have the concept of something using up finite ammunition, even if they think of it as artifact charges, so they don’t feel betrayed when the guns stop working after a while.

Day 29

There was another attack last night, and this time we got a prisoner. He refused to say anything at first, but Myrria got into his mind enough to prod him into explaining. He’s from that fort we attacked just after we got here, the one where we found Hannah Butler. He and seven companions snuck off in the aftermath of the battle and have been trying to track us down to exact revenge. I’m not sure how they were actually planning to manage that, and I don’t think he is, either. The others are still out there, and I’m don’t know what we should do about it. On one hand, these men are deserters from a military outpost, so we could inform the emperor and he’d probably send some soldiers to deal with them; but on the other, we don’t really want to do anything that would make the emperor think we are inconvenient. We know we can beat his army, and he knows we can beat his army, but we both also know that we are dependent on the willingness of his people to trade with us. But this group of men probably don’t know that, so perhaps the threat of the emperor’s army is a credible one to them.

Day 30

The refrigerator we were keeping Myrria’s blood supply in broke down. Hank and Tanya fixed it, but not before the blood spoiled. It wasn’t going to last forever anyway, there was only about ten days of blood left. So we’ve bought a goat. A large goat. Jane Bray says it should have about as much blood as a human, if goats here work the same as goats back home do. We could kill the goat and store all its blood in the fridge, but we’re going to try keeping it alive for the milk, and bleeding only it when Myrria needs to use her powers. She doesn’t drink as much blood now that she’s learning English and doesn’t have to rely on her telepathy to communicate.

Day 31

Finally a change of pace from Green. Around lunchtime he stormed out of his workshop and went tearing through the supplies until he found the spare robot parts he packed a month ago. Althea and Gordon said he shoved all the unused bones out of the door and won’t even look at them, he’s feverishly slotting together the robot parts with the long curvy bone knives he’s been making. So it’s going to be a robot, or something mechanical at least. We really should have guessed. But what can he possibly need this many knives for?

Day 32

Another civilian confirmed dead. Eli Sloane. That’s five of them. A hundred and thirty four in our camp and twelve unaccounted for. Twelve that we’re going to have to leave behind if we get the chance to go home. Anyara says they’re still looking.

Day 33

That caravan from two weeks ago stopped by again, on their way out to Areza. They were happy to buy more needles, albeit for a slightly lower price than earlier, some curiosities, and surprisingly, some of Helen Marin’s baskets. I had assumed that the civilians would be largely useless in our trade operations, and seriously, basket-weaving? But now I see we should be looking into everyone’s hobbies to see if there are other crafts that might sell.

Day 35

It’s been nearly a week since we saw any sign of the aggrieved soldiers, so I guess the threat of the emperor sending his army to punish deserters worked. I’m a little worried what they’ll do on their way back to the fort, presuming that’s where they go, but I didn’t hear anything from the traders who stopped by today, and they came from the same direction as that fort. They had books! Mostly poetry from a really prolific writer in Athetin, but stashed in the back was a falling-apart medical text. It’s a bit archaic, so we’ll probably have to get someone from the village to help decipher it. I’m interested in what it has on medicinal plants; most Jaketse technology may be far behind my world, but you never know what an entirely different biome might have to offer. We paid for the books with shake-lights and some paper; they weren’t as interested in sapphires now that they’re becoming more common around here, and they have plenty of customers who value writing materials.

Day 36

Another envoy asking us to trade again. There’s still twelve civilians unaccounted for. Two more magazines won’t make much of a difference to our stores, or the Jaketse military’s strength, but they can buy a lot of difference for the people they find.

Day 37

There’s an outbreak of something over at the village, and they asked us for help. It’s good that they’re starting to trust us, or at least trust our reputation of having medical knowledge. Three of the doctors went, and I spelled them when they got back, but they’ll be quarantined for a couple days just in case.

Day 39

We’re getting a third of the price for sapphires that we did three weeks ago, and half for bronze and copper discs. (The baskets are selling well, but uniformly cheaply. We can’t live on baskets.) This is not a good trend. Maybe we could start charging for medical care; we’ve got enough of a reputation that people might actually pay. It will be hard to convince some of the doctors to actually draw a line about paying, but we could still keep up the education. The doctors have been pushing germ theory on anyone who will listen, which isn’t much of anybody, though they did get the villagers to start washing their hands a lot more, which is something.

Day 41

Green ran out of robot parts and had to disassemble his SHIV. It’s really unsuited for the terrain so we don’t actually need it, but there’s not a lot of robot parts left after that if he needs more. I don’t want to know what happens if he runs out of materials. At least his leg isn’t made of robot parts, so he probably won’t try to cut it off again. If anyone comes along with scrap metal, I’m buying it, just in case. Two more civilians arrived yesterday from a small town to the east, Sanasir, where they had been kept by the local nobles.

Day 43

The booksellers stopped by on their way out of the city, and they bought most of the remaining paper! We got a good price for it since they’re confident they can find scribes who will use it, so we’re set for food for another week without trying to sell more steadily-devaluing sapphires. The merchants had an illuminated copy of the ancient code of honor, so we’ve been trying to read that. Good to finally get a handle on the legal system around here, but it’s extremely slow going since the code is an epic poem detailing the life of the first Emperor of Jaket, with legal bits mixed in among the fantastical exploits of the Emperor and his companions. The phrasing is completely bizarre in many places, and I’m not sure if it was normal grammar for the time, or contortions to fit the meter. I think we’re going to consult some modern legal scholars before we can interact with the Jaketse legal system in any meaningful way.

Day 46

We finished the third round of cabins. I think we’re getting better at this. Most of the refugees are in a state to help out, and we’ve got experience from building twenty cabins before this. If we keep this up, we’ll have proper shelter for everyone by the time the cold season comes. Except that we’d better not still be here in the cold season, because we will be out of food and trade goods long before then.

Day 48

Green is still working on his device. It’s finally starting to take form: the snake’s ribcage encloses the main computers, and there’s a lot of spikes sticking out. Are they legs? Why so many? I’ve seen videos of those soccer-playing robots, and it’s clearly difficult to get a robot to walk without falling over, so I’m not sure how he’s going to manage it. I’m worried what’s going to happen to him if we have to leave soon. Something is controlling him, something that lives here. If we rip his mind out of his reach, does he go back to normal, or is he still a puppet just with nobody to pull his strings?

Day 51

The food situation is increasingly worrying now that we’ve used up our windfall from selling the paper. The garden is actually producing food, which is good—we harvested some of the radishes today, and the local variety of potato seems to be doing well. But a couple of root vegetables isn’t going to do much when we have over 200 people to feed. We get worse and worse prices for the needles and sapphires the more we sell them. The cloth sells fine, but we still have only a finite amount of it. Unless we get a lot better at farming or find something else to sell, we’re going to be in trouble in about six weeks. Dr Chester suggested we sell some of the antibiotics, but I’m not so sure. They could certainly get a good price from the right person (if we even find that person), but we can’t make more of them and we don’t have a lifetime of antibodies to the diseases here.

Day 53

Three more civilians were found in Vasenya, which they hadn’t thought to check before because there’s not a lot of slave-trading in that region. Paying out a few more guns two weeks ago was worth it. A fourth one got sold with them, but she died a couple of months ago. Once they arrive, we’ll have 139 of the 151 civilians, and six missing.

Day 56

We’ve finished collecting samples of most of the plants mentioned in the medical text. I don’t know which of them will be useful but we can hand them over to actual biologists with proper lab equipment and they’ll figure it out. Cultivation will have to wait until a couple of incursions from now, since we’re not trying to bring about 200 potted plants with us on a cross-country race to the incursion. But if I’m right about the pillar hanging around on this end until someone activates it, they’ll be able to prepare everything we wanted to buy before they open the incursion.

Day 59

Green is awake! He’s coherent, and fortunately knows what his robot does, even if he doesn’t remember building it. He didn’t believe us at first when we told him how he’d been out. But the robot—it can turn invisible, and repairs damage to itself by stabbing people with its swords (I’m not sure how that bit works exactly)! We found that second part out when it killed Myrria’s goat, so we’ll have to get a new one. The robot is truly amazing, and also has a truly excessive number of legs, eight of which are also swords, because apparently three or four swords wasn’t enough for the immensely creepy skeletal spider. People’s reaction upon seeing the robot ranges from (occasionally) awe to (more commonly) downright terror, but Green refuses to hide his creation away in a Jeep. I’m going to put a tarp over it next time we have visitors, though, or nobody will want to talk to us ever again.

Day 63

Internal Email to Terminus Director Hamahona Akarana

PR Director Abigail Bently, Day 117

Alright then, I’ve checked with my team, and they’re rather more apprehensive about this one. Spinning Myrria was easy enough, all you have to do is present her as adorable and keep an eye on social media and you end up with plenty of excellent fanart, among other sorts of reactions. And a lucrative action figure and plush line that sells well to the 13-18 demographic. (And the 18-32 demographic, for that matter.) Making sure no one was going to scream and run from her, or heaven forbid, shoot her thinking she’s an enemy, was child’s play, compared to selling the monstrosity you’ve put in front of me as a friend of the populace.

Nonetheless, after conferring with my team for a while, here are my recommendations.

The first step we need to take is that we need to make the first move and get ahead of this. It’s been hours since the Islamabad incursion, nearly a day, and the cat is already out of the bag. Someone managed to take pictures (several someones, really), and, there’s simply still far too much speculation on social media right now about what exactly the “twisted abomination of bone and metal” that we brought back even is. Luckily, there’s already a contingent of people who have already guessed that it’s something that Green made, which Janet has been subtly encouraging, but they’re in the minority, and the rest are spouting all kinds of madcap conspiracy theories. If we want people not to attack this thing on sight, we need explain exactly what this is, and quickly. I already have a team working on composing a press release as we speak. It will explain the gist of what happened to Green in Jaket, and just how we managed to end up with a giant robot made out of bone. The exact details are up to you however, as it’s up to you how much you want to let us declassify, but it’s my recommendation that we be explain everything clearly and succinctly, here. Otherwise, the conspiracy nutjobs are going to go nuts about any detail you leave out, and they’re already causing us enough problems as it is.

Second, we really need to do something about how that thing looks. No matter how much we blast the newswaves with the fact that the giant walking spider skeleton is friendly and not dangerous, civilians are going to be terrified of it. After seeing it up close, I can confirm that it is, to put it mildly, absolutely shocking and imposing to see, even when it’s not moving at all. I can only surmise that when it does start moving it will look far worse. I have some image specialists who can work with Green, if he can spare the time, to see what modifications we can make to that thing, Obviously, it’s going to be rather difficult to truly make it look more than palatable, but anything that will soften the impression on initial viewing will go a long way to keep the civilians we are trying to save from running in fear.

Beyond that, there isn’t much we can do at least for now. Once that robot manages to have a combat encounter or two, we should be able to use the captured footage to show it saving civilians and defeating dangerous invaders, and leverage this into quelling the worries of the populace and trusting the giant robot made of bone. I know our operatives in the field usually have more important directives on their minds, but if you could recommend to Green that he makes sure to capture some footage of his robot saving some civilians, this will go a long way in helping my team and I in our work.

Lastly, it needs a name. Something friendly, but still in keeping with the theme, so as to make the robot more approachable in the eyes of the populace. Coming up with such a name is proving rather difficult, and my team is currently workshopping ideas, though as of the moment the best they’ve come up with is “Arachne”, or “Mr. Bones”, either of which still need some polish.

Expect to have a more detailed plan, including the name, on your desk tomorrow.

Notes from brainstorming session regarding techbane aura

Present: Maksim Drogonov and Deanna Needler

We know the aura drains batteries. What about:

• Hydrogen fuel cells?
• Radioisotopic thermoelectric cells?
  • Ones powered by nuclear waste that we want to get rid of?
• Capacitors
  • Charged objects (both positive and negative)
  • Just one charged object
    • If it kills only one half, we can violate charge conservation. How do we abuse this?
    • If it kills both, we have another communications medium. But we’ll need to test it in a bubble.
• Separate pieces of lithium and copper which have not been placed in an electrolyte (tested: no effect)
  • One zinc-plated and one solid copper nail, with only one of them stuck in a potato
  • Both stuck in a potato
  • Both embedded in a potato after someone who had not been told the purpose of this flung them around randomly
    Basic principles:
• Assuming we can bring charged objects into the field, do they still attract/repel each other?
• If we have a long wire with both ends outside of the field, will it still conduct electricity inside?
  • If not copper, what about a tube of salt water?
  • If either, run two next to each other and see if they experience a magnetic attraction
  • If either, can we induce currents according to Ampère’s law?
• Do optics function normally?
  • Does the field produce EM emissions, possibly low-frequency?

Shielding:

• Can a small electric device continue to function inside a solid box of:
  • Lead?
  • Copper?
  • Iron?
  • Steel?
  • Rubber?
  • Glass?
  • Carborundum?
  • Holy Water?
  • Wood?
  • Birch?
  • Oak?
  • Yew?
  • Hawthorne?
• Can a small electric device continue to function inside living tissue?
  • Living plant tissue?
• Can a small electric device continue to function in a double-layer vaccuum flask turned to the outside (such that the all pathes from Maksim to the device either go through hard vacuum or go outside the dead zone)
• Does magical electricity resistance allow devices to keep functioning?
  • Or does that break them itself?

Biology. We know that nerves continue to function…

• What about dead nerves?
  • Should be triggerable without voltage source by injecting potassium chloride, but double-check that outside the field first
  • Maybe double-check by splicing in a chemoreceptor, just in case things have gotten really weird
  • If dead nerves work, what about nerves that have been extracted from their tissue?
• Do electric eels still zap?
• Do hammerhead sharks still electropercept?
  • Is there anything smaller and easier to handle that we could test this with?
  • How about duck-billed platypodes? They’re cute. And probably easier to train.
    • Maksim insists that hammerhead sharks are also cute
  • Neither sharks nor platypodes can describe their experience. Perhaps Myrria can assist?

Theory: The Aura produces random currents

• Test: Place a copper wire and a gentle sprinkling of fine iron dust inside the field
• Test: Place a loop of wire partly in the field and a ammeter outside of it
  Theory: The Aura recognizes technology
• Test: Can Myrria detect the aura thinking?
• What sorts of simple electronics can we produce by accident?
  • We can order someone to assemble it without understanding, but the perspective of the person giving the orders might attatch.
    

Progress Report from the Genetic Analysis Team

Our attempts to reverse-engineer psionic mutagens have gone much faster since Juniper Hargrave’s samples became available to us. Unlike in Myrria’s case, we can compare before-and-after.

We can say with reasonable confidence that the mutagen added 513 novel genes, modified 278 existing genes, altered promoter regions for 1324 existing genes, and made roughly 13000 modifications to non-coding, non-promoter regions. We remain confused as the the function of the latter modifications.

Nevertheless, this is sufficient to begin mapping a rough transcriptome.

We used a PCA analysis of a gene interaction matrix to find structure in the novel genetic material and identified several clusters separable by low-order graph cuts. Two are of particular interest: one contains 642 genes, 304 of the novel, and 292 of those also present in Myrria. We suspect this contains the actual machinery of psionics. The other is only 64 genes, 48 novel, and appears to serve as some sort of break.

It was a surprise to find such a clear set of blanket neuro-inhibitions amidst the novel genetic machinery. But they were simple enough to track completely, and that is indeed what they are.
It seems the psionic powers are held back from being as powerful as they could be. This might be to prevent buildup of dangerous metabolytes, or possibly to prevent their lab experiments from becoming a threat to them. Whoever “they” actually are.

With this in mind, we set out to block the system temporarily. We developed a monoclonal antibody against a key receptor that activates the “breaks” system, sequenced it, and replaced its fixed component with something less stable (and which does not trigger innate immune response).

After checks in simulation, tissue culture, and lab animals (on which it had no effect) we convinced Juniper Hargrave to try a dose of it. She confirmed enhanced psionic abilities, with increased range and a much greater ease of sending large bolts of lightning at once.

She also exhibited improved articulation, clearer emotional signaling, and generally increased personability. As a more rigorous test, we had her recite several monologues from both Shakespeare and Screenrant’s “20 Best Monologues in Movie History” list, both on and off the drug and video-recorded them. We had the performances evalutated by blinded volunteers, and found that her acting was enhanced by the drug p<0.03.

With this experience in hand, we were able to convince Myrria to try the drug. She experienced boosts to her psionic and mental abilities across the board
Both experienced a feeling of general malaise after taking the drug, which we suspect is the result of toxic metabolyte buildup within the brain. This went away with a good night’s sleep, and could probably be removed more quickly by magic.

The non-psionic mental boosts, while predicted by strict molecular modeling, were something of a surprise. As best we can work out, the psionic breaks cause cognitive impairment in related abilities at all times. Psions don’t experience this because it’s cancelled out by separate and more complicated cognitive enhancements (more than cancelled out in most cases, judging by Myrria’s and Thristh’s accounts of their native world).

This suggests that the mutagen-makers could very easily make powerful mental enhancements that don’t involve psionics. And, indeed, we have seen an example of this.

Techbane Aura Testing, Rounds 1 and 2

Deanna Needler

Despite the reticence of the Atlantic City Aquarium to lend us a hammerhead shark and an electric eel, we went ahead with tests on Captain Drogonov’s new anti-tech aura.

We went to an open field, far from anything we might damage. Captain Drogonov sat down, and we marked a 35ft radius circle around him, based on the observations from Antarctica. This gave us plenty of space to leave interesting devices. We surrounded the ring on the outside with cameras, some with optical zoom lenses. Once ready, the captain transformed and then immediately untransformed.

As best we can tell, fundamental physics in the volume is unaffected. Static cling clings. Copper conducts. Inductive currents induct. So long as we’re dealing with strands or balls of metal, all of Maxwell’s laws are confirmed to within +/- 10%.

Which isn’t that surprising. Nerves continue to function, after all. Chemistry is unaffected. Nothing collapses into neutronium or expands like a way-too-dense ideal gas.

Any manufactured electronic device in the sphere ceases to function, though. And any power source loses its stored energy.
This includes batteries, capacitors, fuel cells and radioactivity-powered thermoelectric cells. So at least we do have a new way to deal with nuclear waste.

A jar of octane placed 10cm from an octane-based fuel cell was not emptied, however. So that gives us a way to carry energy.

Strange as this sounds, it seems the mantle has an explicit concept of a “technological device”. This was one of our theories before we started, but one of the less likely ones.

Captain Drogonov felt up to a second test, so we tried to narrow down the definition of a technological device. We chose capacitors for our test, since they can be evaluated afterwards and don’t require us to badly juggle roofing nails while standing on a pile of potatoes (though we may yet find ourselves doing exactly that).

A metal ball with an electric charge will keep that charge, as before.

So will a metal plate.

So will two metal plates with opposite charges, held apart by attaching them to long wooden stakes driven into the tough earth.
So will two metal plates with opposite charges, separated by a sheet of styrofoam.

But if we write the word “capacitor” on that in black sharpie, the electric charges neutralize.

It’s enough to drive a scientist to drink.

Prearranged messages for communications spell:

• Holy water (vampire/ghosts/other)
• Ghosts; please send a telepath and also some tanks of holy water and a hose in case negotiations don’t work
• Send a telepath
• Jaket; bring trade goods/diplomats/prisoners that want to return
• Jaket; bring translator but not other stuff
• Send Cubish speaker
• Send diplomats
• Send diplomats and a telepath/universal translator
• Sentinel; visitors, diplomats, whatever they want to take home
• Zombies; make a perimeter before we bring this down
• Contagious-bite creatures; make a perimeter
• Other reason we need a perimeter
• Flying things, we need a sky perimeter with nets
• Evacuate a 1/5/10/50 mile radius then tell us
• Lord Grim; send stuff we wanted to try on him
• Send doctors
• Send explosives
• Send priests
• Send military reinforcements
• Military reinfocements with holy symbols
• Military reinforcements with ear-blockers so they can’t hear verbal commands
• Send the entads [more specific once we know what they do]
• Send entads but not the incursion detector
• Toss in a lot of sedative gas
• Robots; electricity doesn’t work so we need manpower to steal them
• Power armor; electricity doesn’t work so we need manpower to steal them; also doctors
• We are keeping it open on purpose
• Send the excursion team [they have supply sets we can then summon after evaluation]
• Do your best to burn everything based on knowledge of terrain; we will close incursion in 8 hours from other world unless you say more or less time via radio

Update on Terrance Scott

Mila Harris, Chief of Intelligence, day 133 (nine days after incursion 19)
To: Hamahona Akarana, John Much, Peiro Benelli, Jasmine Watts, Artifact Security team, HR.

The Director’s current policy against forming new pacts makes it all the more important to keep an eye on sources of infernal conjury. as such, I’m happy to announce that the situation with Maidstown resident Terrence Scott quietly offering his pact-gained conjury for hire in the private sector has been resolved. Mr. Scott firmly declined our initial offers, stating an intent to sell access to his sponsor so others could make pacts themselves. while he couldn’t be arrested for consorting with demons(as the witchcraft act was repealed in 1951), he was facing a number of other charges, including Treason. The Treason charge was unlikely to stick, but was for collaborating with a foreign power(hell) that had made an act of war against Great Britain. Mr. Scott was also the subject of an unrelated investigation into his suspected activities trafficking class-A controlled substances, and related charges including child endangerment and possession of an offensive weapon. To avoid legal repercussions and evade the protests and death threats by religious fundamentalists once his situation became public, he eventually accepted a contract at Terminus, with the cooperation of the British government, offering immunity from the treason charge and results of the drug trafficking investigation after a 9-month contract working as a consultant researcher at Terminus is completed. By the time his contract is complete we will hopefully have a better picture as to the containability of infernal conjury, and possible legal regulation of infernal magic.

A Mission of Redemption

Dear Terminus;

If you are reading this, then I am dead. Or in a coma, insane, possessed, dragged bodily into Hell or otherwise unable to de-activate the timer on my computer that is sending you this email.

I would have asked you for safety advice, but I am fairly certain you would have told me not to make the attempt. And, when I refused to listen, you might have send armed men to stop me. But it is my duty to try.

I plan to – no, by the time you read this I have – contacted the archdemon Aldramach. And offered him a path to redemption. For the power of repentance is without limits, and even he can return to the light.

I see now that all my life has lead to this moment. When I earned the title Doctor of Divinity, my thesis was on repentance. For many years as both lay-minister and ordained, I reached out to those who thought themselves lost forever. When magic became known, I learned it in the hopes of healing body as well as soul. When I was caught in the Leeds Incursion, I wondered if there was a Purpose in it (beyond my use of holy ground and holy water to shelter as many of my neighbors as possible). When that horrible abomination of a scroll came flung through my window, I knew at once what it was.

And why it had come to me.

I will make no deal with Aldramach. I will fear no threat from him. He may threaten to curse my family for ten generation, but I have no children and expect to have none. He may threaten to curse my body, but that is grass. He may threaten to curse my soul, but it is protected by One far greater than he.

He may, of course, refuse to listen. I will persevere as long as I am able.

Still, I have taken some safety precautions. This email will reach you automatically, and should have attached video and audio recordings of my attempt from multiple angles. I do not know if there will be anything to see or hear, but I will attempt to narrate aloud what I can for your benefit. My body is surrounded on all sides (including above and below) by holy objects and waters, in case it becomes possessed or some sort of portal.

Should you wish to investigate my physical remains, you will find them at number 106 Back Grange Ave in Leeds.

I very much hope to survive this process. If you are reading this, I most likely have not.

Nevertheless, I have faith.

Aftermath

A four-armed man stood outside, watching the clear night sky, the full moon casting a pale light on the darkened yard. He was soon joined by a vampire.

“What’re you doing out here?” Said Steve.

“Smoke break.” Said Sycamore.

“You don’t smoke.”

“Well duh, I don’t want to get cancer.” He took a sip of water.

They both stood in silence at that.

“How’re the new arms treating you?”

“It’s surprisingly mundane. I guess I can hold more things now, not that that helps me much. I tried using more than one gun at the same time, but my accuracy was shit with two guns, let alone three or four. I guess I can hold a rifle in two hands and hold my shield in the other, but egh, I’m a terrible shot with a rifle.”

The corporal waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t he sighed “That’s not what I meant.”

“Hm?”

“I meant how are people…” he gestured wildly. “treating you now that you’re, y’know, different.”

Ohkido shrugged. “Like I grew an extra pair of arms.” He held the offending limbs in front of him. “With claws.”

“I’m asking because I heard-”

“I worked as a riot cop, also I helped babysit a hundred and forty odd civilians in a world with no toilets, I’ll live.”

“How about you?” Ohkido asked after a pause.

Steve crosses his arms, a grim expression on his face. “I’m not allowed to play dead anymore.”

“I’m surprised it took this long to add that to the list.”

“Scared the crap out of some intern, it was hilarious, up until I got reprimanded. Some people are just too sensitive man.”

“You dumbass. You’re going to get into some real trouble one of these days.”

“I already promised not to flay myself! I swear, they’re sucking all the fun out of being a vampire.”
“Why-?”

“No, no, think about it! Half of my face with no skin, right? The other half with like a partial mask or something? Fucking baller Halloween costume!”

Ohkido sighed.

“No cosplayer is going to be able to compete. Oh, you spent a month carefully assembling your costume? That’s nice, I inserted knives into my body for my cosplay.”

“And I suppose dressing up as Dracula was too complicated for you?”

“Hm.” The vampire gestured dramatically. “What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets!” He declared, then looking at Ohkido expectantly.

“I don’t know what you’re referencing.” He said after a few seconds. “Is it… from an anime?”

“No, it’s from a… nevermind, forget it.”

Ohkido lowered himself onto the grass, Steve followed shortly after. For minutes they both stared at the stars, Ohkido occasionally sipping water.

“Why a shield?” Steve said.

“Huh? Oh. Well, I had some experience with it, and I figured some extra protection might help. Besides, they asked me what I was comfortable with.”

“Oh, I thought there might’ve been some deeper reason.”

There was silence for a bit. “I fought in Iraq. I was a corporal back then, and I was my team’s medic. The team I was assigned to had some good people in it, including an old friend of mine, Nick. Nick was a combat engineer, and a mad genius who could perform acts of borderline black magic with a couple of pounds of plastique and whatever garbage he could find lying around. Anyway, the war was an ugly and senseless thing, not that I really thought about it much at the time, and we ended up fighting enemy combatants while seriously outnumbered and outgunned. We were forced to hole up in a police station. We kept getting shot, it was like a goddamn siege, we were suppressed all to hell and couldn’t stick our noses out to save our lives.”
“So Nick, right? He gets this glint in his eye, and he starts pulling apart a riot shield he found. A minute later he took the bare shield, glued it to another shield and hands the double layered monster to me. My commanding officer at the time had a penchant for some slightly unorthodox strategy, so when his combat engineer started breathlessly explaining that, no really the medic needs to go outside under enemy fire with a goddamn shield, he actually listened. Under the protection of the piece of mobile cover and my sidearm, I was able to advance, take out key enemy combatants, allowing the rest of my team to come out and support me. A lot of us didn’t make it, a lot of people that I knew died that day, Nick included. Then I got promoted, under the recommendation of my commander, who issued me a new shield to keep on my person.”

“We didn’t see much more action after that day, except for one skirmish, but my shield saved me then too. I still have Nick’s frantically improvised shield at my home.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do you want to know something? I hate giving orders. I know it’s stupid but I hate feeling like I’m inconveniencing somebody by dumping work that I feel like I should be doing onto them. I use a shield because it lets me stand in front. After I went home I decided to retire, I had a lot of medical training, so I’d figure I’d try to be a doctor, get away from the war and military and dumb senseless violence. But then the Incursions happened, and before I had a chance to properly retire I was asked to participate in Terminus. Asked, not ordered. I could’ve turned them down, but I didn’t, it wasn’t just the US anymore, it was the whole world facing this crisis. So I accepted, and took command of a team of three other people. I stand in front, and they don’t say anything, for which I’m grateful. They’re good people, I know we’re getting in more and more serious trouble, but I’m glad I’m allowed to protect them.”

We parachuted through the side of the Incursion, trying to stay low, but to parachute closer to the center. Didn’t really work out, we got separated, not that it mattered though. To say that ‘Freckles’ was carving through the horde of zombies like a hot knife through butter would be doing a serious injustice to the terrifying act of slaughter being conducted by the spidery skeleton.

I hate vampire Incursions. The spreading horde of zombies needed to be stopped quickly or it would kill the whole damn city. We needed the orb, which I figured would be on the vampire, so I sent Myrria scouting ahead, taking a look at the Pilar from the vantage point of the buildings, which would also give her cover from the bottom up.

In retrospect, it might’ve been the absolute worst order I ever given. No guarantee that the orb would be with the vampire, no guarantee that the vampire would even be taking cover or hiding, no guarantee that they wouldn’t just sense Myrria through some unknown magic.

So we lost contact, because obviously we did. She had obviously been killed, and then we were spotted, because we had been making our way to the center so we could either close the Incursion or signal for holy water.
It was odd, feeling your life force drain away, but that was the only way to describe it. “Green! Smash the door!” I barked, and the terrifying robot was sent smashing through the front door of a small clothing store, and we quickly followed. I threw a bag of flour on the floor near the entrance, in case the invisible vampire decided to walk in, then we holed up. Taking cover and waiting.

“Myrria is most likely dead.” I said, my grip on my Gun was white knuckled. “The vampire must’ve followed immediately after, considering where are in relation to Myrria’s last known location.”

There was whispered discussion. Minami said that with Green’s help she could maybe revive Myrria.

“There will be brain damage, but even that’s fixable through magic!”

Before I could reach a decision we were hit again, without warning. Weaker then the last time, but judging from the sounds that Minami and Green were making, it had hit all of us. “Is he in here?” I asked, turning around frantically trying to see through invisibility.

Minami, of course, seemed to reach a conclusion. “He’s targeting us through the walls!”

“Doesn’t he need line of sight?” I asked.

“He’s targeting an area and negative energy goes through walls!”
We were hit again, our lives squeezed just the tiniest amount. We didn’t have a ton of time.

“Green! How many of us can Freckles carry?”

“Two! At most!”

There was no time. “Green, Minami, get on the bot and run towards Myrria’s last known location, Freckles is faster then the vampire, so his spells will be weaker, revive her and wait for the holy water. Green, if you can’t revive her, exsanguinate her and inject her with this.” I handed him a syringe filled with dead blood.

“Is this-?”

“NOW!”

They left, the smarter choice was probably staying inside, waiting for the vampire to chase after them, then quietly sneak after them. But that would’ve left them exposed to the full brunt of an elder vampire’s magic. That wasn’t allowed. So I ran out the door and started yelling like a madman.

“Come and get me you bastard!” I watched the footage of Steve taunting Grimm, and sure the vampire couldn’t understand him, but he was probably getting the message anyway.

The vampire must’ve been fairly confident in its invisibility, because while I was getting hit with yet another spell, I could hear him cast. So I shot him.

Two spells in quick succession: the first one blinded me. The second one tried to hurt me. I shrugged it off, somehow, then shot him again.

Funnily enough he tried to blind me again, not realizing how he was giving away his position. But I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to kill him this way. He could easily heal off the damage with necromancy, then keep casting spells, so I took my next shot with my double barreled pistol. The shot would’ve been devastating enough to drop him, had the shot not gone wide.

There was no time for a following attempt. After a third ineffectual attempt at blinding me, the Vampire cast a spell that filled my world with noise and pain and heat.

From Terminus Analysis’s Slack

Hey, what if I make a demonic pact and ask for divination?
Alternately I could ask for the ability to see through invisibility
We’re pretty desperate to deal with invisible mages

Does invisibility hide you from radar? There are portable radar systems that can detect a person at significant range, e.g. //istccorp.com/spotterrf/
Sonar, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to work well enough out of water

Hm
Flour is a classic, but this seems better, and also more on-brand for Terminus
Expensive, though

if you’re going for magic, the school (maybe there are other secret ones) you’d want is probably second sight, it has see through invisibility (also concealment) as DCM 6, you could get a couple instances of range on there since I expect you actually have a lot of ranks in spot (unlike knowledge arcana, which augment senses runs on) still, it’s going to be hard to cast, I’m guessing Steve’s spellcraft check is something like +10-11, meaning he can cast a short-range version of the spell on about half the tries on the other hand, he’s mostly going to be doing this when we’re running on the vit drawback, and the “see through invisibility” is high DCM but only one effect, so it’s very vit-efficient and he can keep trying without worrying about getting tired. (only thing is I’m not sure how the range actually works, given there’s an implicit range of the seeing through invisibility, this works much worse if you have to add another instance for every 20 feet you want to see, and range only effects who you can give this ability to)

Sonar, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to work well enough out of water Okay, it looks like you need radar if you want to detect the position of a target at significant range, but you can get cheap proximity sensors based on ultrasound - which are almost certainly not fooled by invisibility. For example, //lastminuteengineers.com/arduino-sr04-ultrasonic-sensor-tutorial/

Supposedly works out to 4 meters; I’m guessing in practice it’s less. Just tells you whether it’s pointed at something and how far.
Whereas the compact radar is claimed to be able to locate a person out to 450 meters in a 120 degree field of view, but might not see through invisibility and costs $12k (or did in 2012)
I have no idea how or whether this translates into UD rules
Am now mildly tempted to email the company that makes these SpotterRF systems and ask them which model is most appropriate for vampire detection in the field
UWB is kind of the in-between option here.
~$800 dollars for an antenna that can range things, get three and triangulate
Can’t remember how far those work at

I’ve seen claims for high-power ultrasonics making 20 meters through air. Which might make it possible for a rich city to blanket itself in coverage.

I doubt radar will work, since it’s basically light-based. I suppose it’s worth checking, though.

I’m trying to find specs on high-power silly string, but nobody wants to tell details. (Paint will become equipment and invisible, but silly string is one really long object)

I doubt radar will work, since it’s basically light-based. I suppose it’s worth checking, though. Lots of things that are transparent in the visual spectrum aren’t transparent at other wavelengths.

Or if it’s mystically calibrated to the concept of sight, things that are different from what a biological eye does might work
I think there’s some chance.
Electroreceptors don’t work so well out of water either
You just need to arrange to fight vampires in the ocean, that will make everything easier

I think one priest can end that fight
I can’t find good data on silly string, but elephant’s toothpaste is way more powerful than I’d given it credit for. And should be pretty easy to make stronger still.

elephant toothpase dosen’t seem like it would hold togeter vwry well, and if you can hit something with a foam jet, you can probobly hit it with a super soaker or a rifle.

If we’re using a super soaker we might as well use a flamethrower
They deal more damage

super soaker is realy hard to get off of yourself.

Napalm

right.

napalm would tend to do collateral damage

If we’re using flamethrowers then we’re fighting zombies which means we’re fighting vampires

if it takes down a vampire better, it does less colateral damage.

That

…….right

I should have the first summery of the Mongolian disaster up tonight or tommorow.

Kay

is restraint foam available?
I guess that doesn’t matter
we need something that like…. hits a lot of squares a lot of times
a frigging full auto water gun

Sentinal has a guy who makes it, and the’ve recently started industrializeing production.

Next visit we’ll ask for some
Can’t hurt to have more options

Possible kill of Tango-2 in Gurvanbulag, specialist confirmation needed.

Message from General Nyambayar(Mongolian armed forces) to John Much and Terminus Office of Operations, day 155(two days after incursion 22)

Ground forces in Gurvanbulag recovered a partial torso, calf, and partial head suspected to belong to tango-2 after the air strikes. can we get specialist confirmation? If we can verify that it’s the target, we’d like to evacuate the city and douse it in holy water before nightfall.

Laser Weapon technology ready for manufacture and use.

Mortimer Hammermeister, Analyst(R&D), day 167, five days after Incursion 24 in Salta, Argentina.

Investigating Mutagens

by Deanna Needler, Analyst (General)

We now have a large number of unlabeled mutagens. There are tests we can run:

• As before, we can test their activity against various tissue types to see what they effect. At minimum, we succeeded in dividing brain-related from body-related on 3/3 attempts (though we mischarcterized brain-related as “psionic”, having not yet realized super-intelligence was a possible mutation).
• Similarly, we can apply the mutagen to an omniexpressive lymph cell and measure the resulting mRNA activity.
• We can filter for RNA, then denature, reverse transcribe, PCR, and sequence it. We will not easily distinguish structural from targeting, but we don’t necessarily need to.
• Anything microchip-like can be mapped with an electron microscope, similarly to the techniques used for cracking dedicated RSA hardware (and perhaps the NSA can assist us there?).
• We can always perform crude tests, such as chromatography or generic image-processing of micrographs.

Understanding any of this will be difficult, but there are two things we can do that don’t require that.

First, we can cluster them. With a few tests, we should be able to identify which mutagens have approximately the same effect. We can do the tests on the reserve samples of the used Vatican mutagens and identify super-intelligent, four-armed and geckochimaric clusters, assuming the newly-acquired mutagen collection includes those.

Catalog of new wildlife after the Townsville disaster

Samantha Palmer, Parks Australia (Department of the Environment and Energy), day 175 (7 days after Incursion 25)

We think we have identified most of the non-Earth wildlife which escaped from the Townsville incursion. While the ecological impact remains to be seen, efforts to contain or neutralize the truly disruptive creatures are going well.

Thank you for sending Thristh over to help; his knowledge of Cubeworld creatures and telepathic abilities have made him invaluable in categorizing and handling the new creatures.

Bioengineered creatures from Cubeworld

Viperwasps: As you know, they are extremely deadly ambush predators which wait underground until they sense someone coming, and then stab them. Thristh refused to approach one, stating that he had met them before, and being stabbed twice was enough. We are sending some samples from a dead one we found to make sure it is a clone of the others you found. You said they can’t reproduce asexually, right? As long as they can’t, and they are in fact all female, there should be no long-term environmental impact, since they keep picking fights with alligators and losing (though they do rather a lot of damage to the alligator in the process).

Electric toads: Bulbous amphibians about a meter tall which ambush their prey with high-voltage electrical discharges. Perhaps prey is not the correct term—we have yet to observe an electric toad eat a creature it has killed; we’re not sure why they do it. They will probably not survive more than a few months in the wild, as they have a tendency to seek the same sources of freshwater that are inhabited by alligators, and while they put up a surprisingly good fight, the alligator still won on all three occasions we have seen. We are planning to capture a breeding population to prevent the species from going extinct, although we have not figured out adequate protective gear—we know you have experience with electrical attacks, so do you have any ideas?

Radio-wasps: These insects show a surprising resemblance to the Chrisididae family of wasps in their sparkly-looking texture and iridescent wings, except that they are 28-35 cm in length, and much more venomous than most wasps. They are strangely attracted to radio waves; as far as Thristh could figure from an injured one we managed to capture, they expect the radio waves to lead them to prey, though they do not attack electronics directly. Most of the radio-wasps have taken up residence in Alligator Creek, and have spent the past two days menacing satellite dishes and laying eggs in dead pets while the residents sensibly stayed inside. The situation should be resolved within the next few days, as we have finished testing a radio-baited giant flyswatter. Later, we can study what hatches from the animal corpses we retrieved.

Possible giant gorbrasch: There is a large blobby creature several meters long which has been making its way into the desert. It shares the ability to vary its number of limbs with a creature Thristh called a gorbrasch, but is several times larger than expected, and is abnormally good at jumping when in its five-legged configuration. We don’t know what it wants; the creature did not respond to Cubish projected through a loudspeaker, and though Thristh offered to go talk to it telepathically, we do not feel the need to approach it quite yet. If you manage to develop a tranquilizer you think would work on it, please let us know and we would be happy to test it out, but for now we will continue to keep an occasional eye on the giant gorbrasch by helicopter.

Giant insects with knife-legs: A flock of large chitinous six-limbed creatures has been roaming Mount Louisa and Vincent. They stand roughly as tall as a large child, and scuttle around on four legs and two arms, all of which are pointed and quite sharp. They also have an impressive display of spikes on their bodies, although we’re not sure what they’re for: when ambushing prey, they simply slash and stab with their knifelike limbs rather than making use of their spikes. They can burrow underground as well as being very good at climbing, meaning they have two avenues of ambush. We determined that their teeth are venomous, but this hardly seems relevant given that their knives are also venemous, and sufficiently deadly all on their own. These creatures are posing a major problem to the two infested towns, and reproduce quickly, laying eggs in the corpses of their victims. The eggs quickly hatch into a larval form, and spend the next day or so eating their former home as they grow into their adult stage. So far we have only witnessed this twice, as we started burning the bodies after that; however they have probably laid eggs in animals as well, which are harder to track. Thristh has never seen these before—does anyone else on your side have an idea of what these creatures are or how to stop them?

Soldiers: There are two more deliberately hostile types of creature. We found four plant-based beings in the wreckage, with some kind of device embedded in their arms. From your descriptions of the Holy See incursion, we expect they are antimatter-emitting weapons. A bomb-disposal unit packaged up the corpses in what they claim is a perfectly safe box; please let me know the best way to send it to you so I can stop being responsible for a box of antimatter. There were also several humanoid creatures with very large eyes and batlike ears, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying weapons. At least three of them survived the flood, and were discovered taking potshots at the Search and Rescue helicopters. They were killed before they could do too much damage, and we recovered some of their weapons: one shoots lasers, and the other, which we suspect might be antimatter-based, causes rather large explosions. We found another of the possibly-antimatter guns abandoned several kilometers from the edge of the flood, so it’s possible that more of them survived; since they are out of ammunition, they should not pose much of a danger to anyone.

Mutated native wildlife

Two days ago, we began to get reports of creatures native to Australia developing strange characteristics. I understand this is a result of the mutagens released into the floodwaters, and new mutations may crop up over the next few weeks. Some are mainly physical—like the aquatic kangaroo or the platypus which has a pink and yellow exoskeleton (as well as retaining its internal skeleton)—but there are also instances of creatures developing unexplained powers.

A fire-breathing wallaby was found to be responsible for a small fire on Mount Stuart yesterday, which unfortunately burned several of the vulnerable eucalyptus paedogauca there. The wallaby was taken into custody by Park Rangers, where he has been happily floating balls of fire around his enclosure. To be honest, we’re not sure what to do with him—clearly he can’t be let loose to set more things on fire, but building a long-term home for him will be tricky.

A floating emu was reported yesterday, although the sighting is unconfirmed as the man who reported it was clearly under the influence of drugs. The man described the emu’s flight as ponderous, and moving somewhat sideways rather than in a straight line; also, the emu’s head was pointed towards the ground at roughly 40 degrees away from upside down. Following an intern’s unauthorized blog post about the emu, there were several more reported sightings of the floating emu, one as far away as Bunbury, in Western Australia. I would dismiss this as people making things up for attention, but we are talking about an emu with supernatural powers—who am I to say an emu can’t teleport over 4000 kilometers if it feels like it? Does this distance of teleportation sound plausible to you?

Kansas double incursion

Sean O’Brien, contact 3; day 177, one day after incursions 28 and 29 In Kansas City, Missouri

Summary

• Successful negotiation with the crew of a ship from the FTL world.
• Doing magic on the same plane as the FTL world results in being unlucky.
• Aldramach has a rival, Baalam, who delivered scrolls and invited us to talk.
• Difficulties closing the infernals incursion because we could not find the sphere.

Magic in the FTL world

It’s somewhat suspicious that the second incursion appeared only a minute after the first. It seems very unlikely that people on each world decided to activate the pillars in such close proximity. There could be time manipulation, but time seems to run at the same pace on our world as it does on Jaket or mantle-Earth, and anyway, if you can manipulate time, why is there a delay? Both times, the demons were involved, and in this incursion, they arrived after the FTL world did. I think they were waiting to activate the pillar until they got an indication that another world had already connected to us (I’m not sure how they would know, but demons seem a lot more flexible about planar boundaries than we are), with the goal of gaining access to another world of potential pact-makers. This doesn’t explain the Dhaka incursion, where the vampires connected second, unless they, too, are trying to use our world a s bridge to other ones, and have a way of detecting incursions on our plane. It doesn’t explain why the double incursions have been close enough to overlap, though. But the Dhaka incursion had a delay of several minutes and the overlap was smaller—so perhaps the location incursions will connect to on Earth moves around slowly? Anyway, both the pillars were in the overlap, so we knew that the orbs as well as any visitors must have stayed inside the overlap, unlike what happened in Dhaka.

We entered on the edge of the first incursion, at a point outside the overlap so we could identify one of the worlds based on how magic worked before entering the overlap. When I finished the test spell, I got a sense that the universe was displeased with me, and I would now be unlucky. I realize this sounds silly, not to mention imprecise, but it’s all I’ve got. When I cast more spells later on, I could feel the amount of bad luck had increased, and it didn’t seem to fade with time (at least not on the order of hours). I have no idea what the implications of this bad luck are, or if it ever goes away. Juniper tried tripping me a few times to see if anything interesting happened, but as far as I could tell it didn’t make a difference—maybe the bad luck never goes away, or maybe it doesn’t care about small things like tripping. In any case, the drawback to casting in the FTL world is that you accumulate bad luck, which presumably matters in some circumstances, only we don’t know what they are.

The second world to connect was the infernals one, which sent blood demons (mainly bloodmites). In the overlap, the sense of bad luck persisted, vanishing when I left the plane by visiting the other side of the incursion, and returning when I crossed back to Kansas City. So I would expect that the whispers usually present in infernals incursions would also have applied in the overlap. I did not test this, as it seemed rather risky when the bad luck could very well make it harder to resist the whispers.

Contact with the crew of an FTL ship

The pillar from the FTL world was in a church, where we found the crew of the smuggler’s ship Littleship (I don’t think that’s its official name, but that’s all we heard them call it) being yelled at by a priest who thought they were demons. While there were demons in this incursion, this group was quite clearly human, and not very pleased at being sprayed with holy water. We should add Diashu to the list of greetings and stress that we are trying to be nice to visitors even if we can’t understand them, provided they are not attacking. This could have turned out quite badly if the crew had taken more than mild offense to the holy water—Corporal Musial said they were starting to discuss violence when we arrived.

We had no way to explain the demons, and they seemed really dubious about this being a different world, but the pamphlet and phrasebook convinced them to let me and Ms Hargrave visit the other side so we could send for holy water and a translator. It might be useful to add sections to the phrasebooks for explaining different worlds to each other. Once we had finished the communication spells, I returned while Ms Hargrave stayed there with most of the crew, to minimize the time she spends on the same plane as Aldramach. She says it was hard to communicate anything since they don’t share a common gestural vocabulary with us, but they swapped music for about half an hour before sending her back over.

Once Griffin Salmer and Yao Lu, the translators, showed up I didn’t have a lot to do with the negotiations, so I’ll leave it to them to explain the details. Corporal Musial suggested we could simply take the crew prisoner and try to retrieve their FTL drive in pieces to study it, but that plan was deemed potentially dangerous as well as against Terminus’ stated goal of diplomacy with other worlds. Instead, we requested the media compilation assembled for Sentinel. I’m not sure if they will be able to use it very well—we should prepare a translated version of our technology manuals for next time, if we can figure out the vocabulary.

I’m moderately concerned about information exposure. I think the immune-boosting spells I did once the infernals incursion shut down probably took care of anything they might have picked up from us, so I don’t think they are likely to start an an epidemic back on their world. But they did overhear the conversation Juniper and I had with the pulse-keeper through the church window, or at least the pulse-keeper’s half of it. They asked Ms Lu some concerned questions about who Baalam was and what it had to do with pacts, blood, and souls, but I’m pretty sure the pulse-keeper never explicitly stated that Baalam is a demon, or that any of it has to do with magic. Anyway, we were very careful to prevent them from getting ahold of any of the scrolls, so I don’t think we’ve accidentally spread magic to their world.

Baalam

The archdemon Baalam wants to talk to us. I really can’t tell whether this was an honest attempt at diplomacy or a transparent bid for more pacts. Like in Invicta Park, the demons were delivering scrolls. They were not attacking anyone, besides the occasionally violent scroll delivery methods such as shoving them into people’s mouths. This is odd considering their behavior in previous incursions, and what we know about their fundamental natures and instincts. In Invicta Park they had a similar task of delivering scrolls, but also attacked people. Either Baalam has more control over demons than Aldramach does (and is therefore more powerful?), or Aldramach wasn’t bothering to restrain them while Baalam wants to appear to make an effort at diplomacy.

The scrolls are very similar to the ones from Invicta Park. They have a different demon’s name on them, as well as messages not part of the spell. The messages are in English, with poor spelling and basically nonexistent grammar, and seem to be trying to convey the idea that talking to Baalam is a good idea. I think the messages are actually an attempt at English specifically (as opposed to the language the pulse-keepers speak, which everyone can understand) since Corporal Musial also reads them as English, and the pulse-keepers’ universally-understandable speech is not at all messy. As far as I could tell, there were no spells on the scrolls themselves, but spells can be hidden. Someone who hasn’t been exposed to demons should probably anyone who read one of the scrolls for compulsions or other effects.

There were several pulse-keepers flying around invisibly, trying to convince people to use the scrolls. It’s unfortunate we don’t have intelligible recordings of this, but to the best of my recollection they were saying things like “abandon your faith and surrender to the soft embrace of diplomacy!” and “partake of the niceties and create a mutually beneficial arrangement, or be destroyed”, which sounded a bit silly to be honest. When we tried asking for more details, the pulse-keeper insisted we talk to Baalam directly, and wouldn’t give a straight answer as to what would happen if we contacted Baalam, besides that blood and souls were acceptable payment for pacts. Specifically, it would not confirm that Baalam’s desire for diplomacy extended to letting people call up for negotiations without the expectation of making a pact. I don’t think it was being sneaky or misleading; I get the impression that the pulse-keeper didn’t know the answer, as if it had been given instructions before coming here and did not have any direct link to Baalam at present.

The incursion was open for a long time because we were unable to locate the orb. This wasn’t much of a problem on the inside, since the demons weren’t hurting anybody. The holy water drops cleared out the bloodmites which had already arrived, and newcomers were pretty well contained in an improvised pool of holy water built around the pillar. We mobilized most of the residents to help search the ground and gather up scrolls for disposal, while Captain Drogonov and the fire department searched the roofs (we thought an invisible pulse keeper might have dropped the orb somewhere inconvenient). Corporal Musial would have been much faster at searching roofs, but was the holy water drops forced him to stay inside—could we get him a rain suit to use in these situations? We did not find the orb, but after over five hours of searching for it, the incursion was shut by someone on the other side. I have no idea why they decided to close it exactly then, as they weren’t getting any new information. Nobody was crossing back over, and if Baalam had had a way of communicating with the demons on our side of the incursion, I would expect the incursion to have closed around the time the holy water drops started. Perhaps the supply of scrolls ran out?

Suggestions for future double incursions

There are a couple things I think we handled wrong about the double incursion aspect of this. Firstly, once we had tried some magic on the edge, we should have woken someone up and told them about how magic caused bad luck and that we were probably connected to the FTL world. That way, if we took down that side of the incursion first, they would be able to tell someone that which world it had been, and conclude that the incursion still up contained demons (assuming we managed to send messages about both worlds). This wouldn’t have made a difference in this case, but it could theoretically be useful. In this case, we could have even sent people in on both sides to identify connected world using magic and possibly report later, with minimal danger to them since we knew all visitors would be confined to the overlap.

Summary of discussion about the goals of the Infernals

Liam Harding, day 137, two days after Incursion 20 at McMurdo Station, Antarctica [but pretend that some game mechanics are visible, so we can take them into account]

What does the demon lord Aldramach want?

• Blood and XP. Both were acceptable forms of payment in the pact he offered Juniper. ◦ Blood is a lot less valuable than XP—one soul is apparently worth the same as an entire sea of blood.
• Nobody gets combat XP in Infernals incursions. This is probably a characteristic of the plane: it happened in all incursions from that world (so it is not an anomaly), and did not happen when demons came through from the vampire world (so it is not a feature of demons). A theory is that Aldramach is stealing the XP.
• When the blood demons drink blood, they do not get heavier, indicating that the blood is sent somewhere else (e.g. Aldramach’s personal sea of blood), or it mysteriously vanishes in their non-biological processes.
• Do the pain demons similarly absorb something Aldramach wants? But what? There are probably more kinds of demons which might harvest other things.
• Aldramach wants more pacts, but was not attempting to initiate them at first. The demons only started delivering scrolls with the means for contacting Aldramach after Juniper made a pact with him, indicating that Aldramach learned something that made him switch his strategy from just killing people to also delivering pact offers. It could just be that we are a species capable of learning magic, or it could be something more specific.

What was going on with Norman Wells?

• The remains left in Norman Wells is significantly less than you would expect from eighty people (and even less blood, but we know now that the heartbeasts absorb it).
  • Were the people kidnapped? That’s kind of surprising—the bloodmites and Nerveshredder can coordinate as packs, but they mostly take down prey rather than carrying out a (mostly) bloodless abduction. Perhaps they were under more direct control by Aldramach?
    • Or maybe they were just eaten by something really thorough.
  • Assuming they were kidnapped, what does Aldramach want with them?
    • More pacts. Force the captives to learn magic, and then make a pact. Does consent matter for pacts or can they be threatened into it? Chief Harris points out it doesn’t matter, as a social structure could be arranged to manipulate people into genuinely wanting to study magic and make pacts. But if he knew that Earthen humans could learn magic and pact with him, why wait until after Juniper made a pact to start more aggressive recruitment on Earth?
    • XP farming from blood sports (assuming Aldramach indeed takes all combat XP). Aldramach would want to set up a breeding program first, to ensure a steady population even as captives died in battle.
    • Blood. Likewise, Aldramach would want a breeding program to ensure they didn’t die off from excessive blood loss. However, blood loss may be less of a concern, as you can quickly replace blood using healing magic, which the demons might have access to.
  • A problem with the past three theories is that Adramach would have done this a long time ago, if he had physical access to humans. Either he hasn’t and will be starting now, something went wrong with his farming operation and he needs replacements, or he took these 70-ish people for an entirely different reason.
    • Maybe he wanted them for information.
    • And not just in the learning-about-our-world-so-as-to-plot-its-downfall sense. People get a lot less XP on his plane, and therefore learn a lot slower. Maybe he just wanted a few engineers to redesign his palace.
  • We will ask the biologists to run DNA tests on the scrolls delivered to Invicta Park, comparing them to the missing people from Norman Wells.
    • If there are matches, we will know that at least some of the people were in fact taken, as opposed to eaten.
    • If they all match people from Norman Wells, perhaps Aldramach does not have other humans around. Or perhaps he is messing with us.

There are demons in the vampire world, how did they get there?

• The demons in the McMurdo incursion could have been summoned by a vampire mage, but there was no further evidence of a mage being there at all. So the demons probably live there.
• Is Aldramach in control over the demons in the vampire world? None of them tried to deliver scrolls to the researchers, but maybe they just didn’t have any.
• The demons drink blood, and the vampires drink blood, but vampires can drink blood from demons and not the other way around. The vampires have the advantage here. Maybe they summoned a population of demons to breed for food?
• Brief digression on food economics in the vampire world. The short of it is that the vampires have access to healing magic, and therefore do not need very many humans to sustain themselves, provided they are careful in magically repairing the effects of blood loss.
  
• The vampires may have made pacts in order to gain access to a wider variety of magic; however, this must have happened a while ago, as they have had time to develop it into a version which non-pacted people can use. This fits with Juniper Hargrave’s observation that summoning magic is simpler than air or healing—the vampires could well have figured out summoning first, and used that to contact Aldramach.

Is Aldramach behind the incursions? Probably not

• He would probably visit a lot more if he was, given his new recruitment strategy
  • Perhaps causing incursions specifically to his plane is difficult or resource-intensive.
• Why change his strategy from kidnapping to murder to invitation if this is his plan all along?
• The pillars use the same material as the spheres from Cubeworld, they seem like a much better candidate for being the masterminds.
  • But then why haven’t they been either visiting more, or blocking us off?
    

dspeyer: Final (?) Commendation for Corporal Zbigniew “Steve” Musial By Captain Maksim Drogonov …

After the matter of Lord Grimm was resolved, at least for the time being, what remained was the matter of “Lord Infernal” and Aldramach. The Battlegrounds would make fertile recruiting ground for the demon-lord. Many there are in desperate need of power, and once some have sought out demonic magic, this need will only increase. We could not allow Aldramach to seize de-facto control of Mantle Earth.

But Lord Hush, an associate (or vassal) of Lord Dragon, had placed “Lord Infernal” under his protection. I tried to explain why this was a very bad idea, but was unsuccessful. I searched for a way to capture or kill Infernal without making an enemy of Lord Dragon, and was not able to find that either.

Corporal Musial, who had clearly worked out the same logic, solved the problem for me. He eliminated Infernal in a single sword-stroke, clearly without my orders.

As such, I was in a much better position to offer reparations to Lord Dragon, since it was an officially unsanctioned act.

And when it became clear that the only weregild Lord Dragon would accept was an ambassador to go with him to Lord Corpse, Corporal Musial volunteered for that as well. Our successful management of the incursion was his accomplishment.

Final Report and Summary of Capture of Lord Changer

Reese Westbrook, Assistant Chief of Operations, 170 days since incursion 0

Background: During her debrief, Ashley Carmine reported to us the existence of Lord Changer, an individual from Sentinel-Earth with the ability to shapeshift. Their potential existence on our Earth was identified as an immediate potential security threat, but with no obvious way to follow up or track such an individual we had to settle for informing relevant law enforcement officials and leaving the case minimally staffed.

First break: Illegal department store changing room footage recovered by police officers trying to ascertain how they lost the drug mule they were tailing showed footage of shapeshifting in a changing room. This was immediately reported to Terminus by their superior.

Initial Reconnaissance: After ensuring that the law enforcement officials aware of this footage would not speak of this to anyone else under pain of treason, review of their records by the analysis team loaned to us by Sentinel indicated a relevant pattern going back three months. A single criminal organization had a highly unusual number of unknown individuals who were observed delivering drugs or weapons or other contraband to their enclaves, and then these individuals were never seen again. Analysis sensibly surmised that these individuals were in fact Lord Changer.

Terminus agents (who were kept uninformed of the nature of their subject for infosec reasons) were tasked with tailing individuals who made drops at these locations, and over the course of five days were able to tail three individuals who, after delivering whatever goods they were transporting, walked or used public transit to travel around town for a while, went to a fast food restaurant, ordered an unusually large amount of food, consumed it all, and then traveled to a large shopping center, at which point the tails lost track of them. From this, we were able to establish a basic pattern of behavior.

Operational setup: A team of agents was dispatched to Detroit, and told to wait for further orders. The pair of Sentinel agents loaned to us were also dispatched to Detroit, with their mission explained to them in the interest of diplomacy and determining if they were infosec-capable assets. As part of a Terminus outreach program, a few Terminus agents with magical healing specialties were sent to hospitals with helipads in towns near Detroit.

The Terminus agents were provided with flashbang grenades and tranquilizer rifles. The analysis team loaned to us by Sentinel, using their domain expertise and the single instance of footage, were able to guess that, so long as they weren’t ready for it, flashbangs would have a similar effect on Lord Changer as they would on an average human. Additionally, they would likely be just as susceptible to tranquilizers as an average human, potentially even be more so given that their mantle appears to move body mass around. Erring on the side of caution, the darts were filled with extra-strong doses, with the magical medical team standing by to heal up any mishaps should Lord Changer go into cardiac arrest from an overdose, as well as any other unintended civilian injuries.

Operational execution: At 9:24 AM <170 days since incursion 0>, an agent tasked with tailing organized crime members informed operations that he was tailing someone that was not in the law enforcement database and acting in a manner that analysis determined was likely to be Lord Changer. All parties on the OP were notified of their change in status, their cell phones temporarily confiscated, and transported in helicopters to a location nearby Lord Changer’s position on standby. Lord Changer entered a local McDonalds at 10:43 AM, at which point agents were ordered to move into position.

At 11:01 AM, agents stationed near the window Lord Changer was sitting at threw flashbangs through the window. The flashbangs shattered the glass, giving a clear shot to the snipers in the nearby buildings. Lord Changer was stunned by the flashbangs as predicted, downed by the tranquilizer darts, and subsequently speared through both legs and lifted into the air by Operative Whipcord.

The area was cordoned off by Terminus and local law enforcement, and all citizens held while drone and bodycam footage was reviewed, but by 11:26 AM all citizens were released, as we were certain we had managed to capture Lord Changer. They were placed in the specially constructed holding cell, guarded by a half-dozen agents including the two loaned to us from Sentinel, and transported to Terminus for interrogation.

Interrogation and Analysis notes re: Lord Changer

London Dan, interrogation specialist, 170 days since incursion 0

Alright folks, here’s the deal. Honestly, this is one of the easiest interrogations I’ve ever had to do, mostly because he was so dang cooperative. From talking to them enough and getting an idea about their background, it’s pretty clear that they’re used to just knuckling under whatever big lord happens to be in power at the time, because they’ve got a better life expectancy being a loyal lieutenant as opposed to being in charge. (Not that they really have the intelligence to be a good leader anyways, but I get the distinct impression that the battlegrounds tend to be ruled by the strong, not really the clever. Probably not a great vacation spot.) In fact, they’ve offered their services to us several times, and it’s pretty clear they’re sincere about doing so. I’m sure figuring out if we want to take them up on that offer is going to give operations a lovely headache, given the potential upside and potential downside, but that’s thankfully not my department. Enjoy!

In any case, In addition to giving us loads of goodies on the Detroit mafia family they’d been working for (and boy am I looking forward to reading about that in the news tomorrow), they gave us some nice chewy details about Tucson. They’d been there for long enough to serve under both Lord Holocaust and Lord Grimm, and while I did manage to collect plenty of details about the “old guard”, I’m sure operations is a lot more interested in the current set of players there. I’m sure the eggheads in analysis are compiling a much more detailed dossier as we speak, of all the relevant people past and present and their powers and weaknesses – but for quick perusal, I’ve got the details on Lord Grimm and Lord Perfect.

The more straightforward one first: Lord Perfect. It took some back and forth with the sentinel analysis team piping questions into my ear that I had to couch in slightly less abrasive and straightforward terms (you’re welcome!), but analysis has apparently pieced together how they think his mantle works (and I’m sure they want me to stress the “think”, here, apparently a ton of things with mantles are hard to be certain about in all cases, and I guess they’d know). Lord Changer wasn’t smart enough to piece this together themselves, but from the relevant instances I was able to ask about, analysis thinks he’s some kind of precog, apparently. That’s how he can do things like plant explosives in the right place at the right time, and always be in just the right location to not be hit, etc. They’re not sure if he’s aware that he has a precognitive power, just that he probably has one. An additional and relevant note for analysis and operations to chew on is that he never triggers his explosives remotely – that is, his precognitive power is limited to only things he can see. Regardless – the fact that he’s a precog probably explains how exactly he was able to find the pillar and be ready with Lord Grimm and mooks.

Next up, and far more mysterious, we have Lord Grimm himself. Unfortunately, there’s a lot less to go on here, despite my careful rephrasing of analysis’s incessant questioning – they just don’t know as much about him to help analysis make much in the way of conclusions. From what Lord Changer can tell, their strength tends to wax and wane to some degree, though the pattern is (mostly, we’ll get to that in a moment) unclear – sometimes he’s incredibly strong, sometimes he’s just unusually strong, and very very rarely he’s normal human strength, but as long as he’s stronger than normal, he’s immune to whatever damage has been thrown at him – the only times he’s ever been accidentally injured have been when his strength was at perfectly normal levels. The only “pattern” that Lord Changer was able to notice, and analysis was able to determine, is before major fights, Lord Grimm would go into some room that was otherwise kept locked, and would always come out extra strong and impervious.

Demon Research Facility Design Notes

By Deanna Needler

The core facility shall be a 20x20x3 meter box with total mass not to exceed 400 tonnes. Its walls shall be of Carbosilicate ceramic, except for large windows of Aluminum Oxide. Both shall be bulletproof and explosion-proof (for reasonable sizes of explosions).

The box shall be suspended in a pool of holy water by 60 nylon ropes each 2cm in diameter. The box may also have a small number of lateral support lines to prevent swaying. Since nylon is water-permiable, the box will be surrounded by holy water on all sides. Furthermore, the pool shall be 7 meters deep, so that any breach in the wall results in a floor-to-ceiling holy water flood.

Entry to the box shall be by extending rubberized walkway. A vertical entry by swimming would be more secure, but several key staff raised strong objections to having to work in swimwear.

The box shall maintain its own atmosphere using Carbon Dioxide splitters. It shall be powered by batteries, brought in periodically via walkway. It shall have a data connection to the outside world via laser, shining through a window and a space of water. This may limit our bandwidth, but a large number of lasers and IP-level Error-Correcting-Coding should provide an acceptable level.

All points within the box shall be visible from the outside through the windows.

The box shall contain remote-controlled gun turrets and claymore mines to allow both targetted and general destruction of demons without requiring the assistance of personnel within the box.
The space from which the rubber bridge is extended shall be known as the vestibule. It shall have a single door which cannot be unlocked while the bridge is extended. It shall contain an incinerator/compactor for dealing with trash generated in the box (including dead batteries).

Personnel leaving the box as well as materials they bring out intending to keep shall be checked for demonic contamination, means TBD.

Separate from the vestibule, the rest of the space immediately outside the tank shall serve as an observation room. The outer walls of the tank shall be made of thick plexiglass, so that obeservers have good angles to see in through the windows. The observation room shall be close enough to allow Agent Myrria to use Soulgaze and Read Thoughts on beings in the box without entering it herself.

A crumpled note tossed into Juniper’s trash bin from her attempt

to write up a report explain the real rules for how physics works. At least as she understands them.

After some discussion and observation of Reverend Rauls, along with my own experiences, I have determined that space is a lie an illusion not real a misguided way of looking at the world something that doesn’t operate the way we think it does. Essentially, position in space is distances between objects are it’s so simple why can’t I explain it where you are isn’t necessarily exact, but depends on perception belief knowledge about your position. When Reverend Rauls takes a step, he picks up his foot in one dimension place area location, and puts it down in another. That’s how walking works normally, that’s how you walk all the time, he just crosses the intervening space a different way. Why is that so hard for you all to understand?? The place he puts his foot down just happens to be in a different location, which is why he ends up there. While I <don’t seem to be able to keep trying and failing why the heck can’t I manage it myself??? can’t quite do the same, watching him enough I understand why he can’t go very far. While space doesn’t operate on the same principles everyone else thinks it does as I’ve seen, our observations at least superficially approximate correlate with how things actually work.

Mutagen Inventory

By Deanna Needler

I have completed a first-pass analysis on the mutagens brought back from cube-world. With the biology team, we devised 9 novel assays plus then neurons-vs-other-tissues assay from the Vatican Incursion. We the performed these assays on both the Townsville mutagens and the reserve samples of the Vatican mutagens.

I Performed PCA both on all the assays and just the new assays. Sadly the eigenvalues failed to fall off sharply, so visualizations will be of limited value. Nevertheless, I graphed both the first to eigenvectors and the neuro-assay against the first non-nueral eigenvector.

I also clustered the mutagens into 15 clusters using k-gaussians with a full covariance matrix. The number 15 was chosen from a combination of Myrria’s memories and heuristics too tedious to explain. I was not able to validate the clustering in any useful way, so take it with a grain of salt. Still, I did find 15 groups of widely varying size (13 if you don’t count the groups of size 1):

Group size: Which groups 1: 5 6 2: 0 3: 13, 14, 3, 8 5: 2 (Four Arms) 6: 7 7: 1 8: 4 9: 10 (Gecko) 11: 11 12: 9 (Super-Intelligent), 12

The prospect of 11 super-intelligence potions is a highly encouraging one. I admit to wanting one myself, and I suspect Mr. Hammermeister will as well, though perhaps we should validate a few things first.

Inventory of things found in the mystery cabinet

Liam Harding, analyst (occult); day 184, 8 days after incursions 28 and 29 in Kansas City, Missouri, US (3 days after the “Koala 2.0: Electric Koalaboo” Reddit incident)

Subject: Telepathy

From: Deanna Needler
To: Juniper Hargrave

Now that I’ve analyzed the mutagen data from Corporal Stein, I think you should consider taking a Telepathy mutagen.

I’m pretty confident that I’ve got a few of those identified.

• They’re closer to the reference Telepathy than any pair of known-different mutations are to each other
• They’re 2x closer to the reference Telepathy than they are to any other references
• Telepathy seems to be pretty common, because
  • It was the 1st one Corporal Stein drew
  • The 3rd, 4th and 5th all failed due to repitition, and they were all closer to Telepathy than to Boost-Int (the 2nd he drew)

I think this mutant power would be a good fit for you because:

• It’ll give TC-3 a telepath, something the team currently doesn’t have, which will be really useful in breaking language barriers (e.g. with FTL people).
• It should combine nicely with your existing electrical powers, both being rooted in (for lack of a better term) Charisma. Corporal Stein became notably more charismatic after receiving it (though later mutations took that away and more).
• The biggest known downside is strength loss, which will cause you very little inconvenience.

Besides, think of all the things you can learn when you start shlurping raw ideas out of other experts brains! :-)

Plan to Assassinate Aldremach

Classified. Not for Corporal Hargrave’s Eyes
By Deanna Needler

Assuming:

• Blood drunk by a bloodmite summoned via an Aldremach pact goes to Aldremach
• Bloodmites drink all natural components of blood (plasma, red cells, white cells, platelets…)
• Blood which has been separated into components and mixed back together is still blood
• Blood with genetic modifications of less than 0.1% with no effect on cell morphology or cell surface proteins is still blood
• Aldremach has a corporeal body with a generally vertebrate-like anatomy and biochemistry
• Aldremach must physically touch his blood pool in order to empower his spells with it

Then we can modify some B cells (any sort) to manufacture tetrodotoxin, an extremely potent voltage-gated-sodium-channel antagonist which can be absorbed through the skin. Then we also knock out the cells’ apoptosis mechanisms and set its reproduction rate to maximum, using the same techniques that we use for manufacturing monoclonal antibodies. We will have effectively created a custom form of lymphoma that excretes deadly neurotoxin.
We mix these B cells back into the blood and feed it to a bloodmite.

Even if the bloodmite does not transmit already-created tetrodotoxin, it will still transmit the B cells because they are blood. Said cells will then reproduce exponentially in Aldremach’s blood reserve. Even assuming said reserve is extremely large, they will soon dominate it, and will soon produce a high concentration of tetrodotoxin.

Note that B cells do not have voltage-gated sodium channels, so they will not be affected by their own toxin. A small fraction of T cells do have those channels and will presumably be destroyed. This will probably have no noticeable effect.

(Why B cells and not T cells or macrophages? B cells are common, have no vulnerable channels, are not at risk from HIV if that is present, and are known to form highly aggressive lymphomas.)

We will need to chill the blood sample between recombining it and feeding it to the bloodmite to prevent excess toxin in the sample from killing the bloodmite.

Critique of Plan to Assassinate Aldremach

Classified. Not for Corporal Hargrave’s Eyes
By Sargent Piero Benelli, Occult Manager

It’s likely this could be foiled with sufficiently powerful Healing magic to grant immunity, assuming that Aldremach has access to Healing. Another risk is that Aldramach could manage to work rituals with a very minimal amount of blood contact, although given the quantities of blood in question, that seems difficult. If this works it will likely only be due to surprise, although if it fails, we still may have created a very large bio-hazardous area in hell that could prove difficult for other infernals.

Authorization of Plan to Assassinate Aldremach

Classified. Not for Corporal Hargrave’s Eyes
By Director Hamahona Akarana

What You’ll Want to Know If You Encounter a Tele-Pillar

For maximum public distribution. Please translate.
By Captain Maksim Drogonov of Earth

1. If you activate a pillar, three things will happen:

First, a matching pillar will appear somewhere on Earth.

Then, a pair of interdiction spheres will appear around both pillars. Such spheres are roughly a kilometer in radius. They allow matter and energy to pass in but not out. If a physical object is across the sphere boundary, it will either be pulled inside or cut. Consider any vital machinery that might be cut before activating a pillar.

Finally, you will be brought to the matching pillar on Earth.

2. The people of Earth are friendly, but may be suspicious of you at first. We have been unlucky with regard to who among your galaxy have found pillars thus far.

The people of Earth believe in trade. We will pay particularly handsomely for science and engineering textbooks, and less handsomely but still well for any technology we do not possess. In return, we can offer a wide assortment of selectively bred plants, art in all media, the miscellaneous luxuries that a dense population allows, and natural resources if they happen to be inside the sphere on our side.

While our technology is generally less sophisticated than yours, we are no pushovers. If you are contemplating some form of conquest, remember that you will be accompanied by whoever was around at the time and armed with whatever you can carry, whereas we are a heavily industrialized world with a population of billions. Better to be friendly.

3. There is a small chance that the interdiction sphere will grow after it is established. If this happens, it will cut everything in its path into molecule-thick slices. If so, bring the sphere down immediately.

Similarly, there is a small chance that the pillar will appear on Earth in a place where an interdiction sphere is very harmful, such as a swiftly flowing river.

If the Earth people are in a great hurry to shut down the connection, it is because lives are at risk. Co-operate. No benefit of keeping the link open is worth all those people dying for.

4. Once the connection is established, you can go back and forth as often as you like. You can also close the connection, which will bring down the sphere and restore connection to the rest of the world. To do this…

5. We do not control the pillars. We don’t know who does.

6. If you wish to stay on Earth, you may do so. You will be treated as an honored guest. However, it will likely be tens-to-hundreds of standard days before you can go home, and your return could drop you anywhere in this galaxy.

7. My people may wish to know what has become of me. I am located at ____ and am being treated…

Operative Instinct gives a verbal report about the cruise ship

Day 204 15:23 UTC, ~7 hours after incursion 37 on the cruise ship Iona

“Good, uh, it’s afternoon over there? Right. You’re Operative Instinct? Great. I’m Henry Baumgarten, analyst. I’ll be taking your report. How are you doing?”

“Tired, worried, my hair smells like zombies, and I kind of want to never have to think about today again,” Astrid ticked off on her fingers. “But hey, at least I’m alive!” she added with a forced smile.

“Well, you’re going to have to talk about it for now at least. Sorry. We’ve got the cameras of course, but they don’t pick up everything, so I’m looking for your observations, whatever stood out to you.”

“Okay.” She had expected as much, same as last time. “But before that, do you have any word on Sargent Stein?”

Henry shrugged. “No idea, sorry. You’d probably know before I did. Alright, if you would start with your arrival on the cruise ship Iona?”

“We were all aiming for the ship, but Captain Flanagan and Sargent Stein went off into the water. Of course, Stein was okay since he can move really fast when he’s in that other dimension, you know?” Henry nodded. “—so he just flew onto the ship, right through the wall, and went to see what was going on. The Captain said he wasn’t going to drown and we should go ahead and find out what the monsters were while he was swimming to the ship. Oh, right! Before that, the ship’s captain told us that there were some kind of monsters on the lower decks. He didn’t have any more details, just that the engineers who were sent to patch the hole in the ship ran into something and didn’t come back.

“It was zombies, but you already know that.” Astrid frowned. “Now I’m realizing how bad of a situation it was. There were so many people injured and dying, and the ones who died near the zombies would become zombies themselves, and make the area bigger… There were surprisingly few zombies compared to regular dead people, I guess a lot of them died before the zombies arrived. Or maybe the zombies were made after the ship started sinking rather than being brought in, I don’t remember seeing any that looked more like the vampire than—”

“There’s a team working on the reconstructing the timeline based on our models of the zombification aura,” Henry interrupted. “I’m more interested in what you observed. When did you find the vampire?”

“Right.” Astrid took a sip of tea and tried to organize her thoughts. The English love for the beverage evidently transcended worlds; just like on her previous trip to England, she had been plied with tea before being set before a videoconferencing setup to report. “Well, it wasn’t for a while, not until after we’d got some engineers down to patch the hull. And we found some ghouls first, or anyway I think they were ghouls. They were a lot smarter than the other zombies, they would hide on the ceiling next to doors and wait for you to walk in so they could ambush you. It wasn’t a problem for us because I could sense the trap.”

“We’ve recovered a few of the ghouls. And the vampire?”

“He was also on the ceiling, but it wasn’t an ambush. He was scared of the water. I knew they had a problem with running water, but I hadn’t actually seen the reaction. It was… extreme. The water was only a couple of inches deep on that side of the boat, but it was rising. Nobody had been able to patch the hole the pillar left in the boat because of all the zombies, so the ship was sinking. It was really slow, but the water was coming in. Whipcord went and got some engineers to start patching it once we’d cleared out the zombies in that area, and Sargent Stein and I were looking for more zombies when we found the vampire. Stein got him with a laser and I tried to shoot him but missed and hit the wall instead. It was the outside wall of the ship, so water started coming in. It wasn’t a lot of water,” she added quickly, “not compared to the hole on the other side, that one was about as big as me. But I still felt bad about it, we were trying to stop the ship from sinking.

“The vampire spoke, then. He said, ‘freeze.’ In English! I thought the vampires didn’t speak English. He was casting a spell on Sargent Stein, but it didn’t work so Stein walked up and started hitting him with his axes. At that point Whipcord showed up, since I’d radioed her that we’d found a vampire.

“Oh! I forgot to mention, the vampire was invisible. We were using the sonar goggles to see him, which worked fine. I couldn’t see his face, but most of the time it was clear from his body language that he was absolutely terrified of the water, he would have done anything to get away from it. I’ve never seen anything like it, it almost made me feel sorry for him.” Unless that’s just… No. No, it wasn’t. The compulsion wore off hours ago.

“Anyway, he was clearly having a bad time with all the running water, and apparently he spoke English, so I told him we would get him out of here and have a talk, if he would let us temporarily kill him. It would be fine! We could feed him some blood later, right? It… sounds a bit ridiculous, doesn’t it. I probably wouldn’t have gone along with it if I was a vampire, but it seemed worth a try. And it actually worked I think, well, it probably gave him the idea to order me to help him instead of just…”

There was a long silence.

“What happened then?” Henry prompted when it was clear she wasn’t going to start talking again.

Astrid sighed and looked down into her empty teacup. “I said already that the vampire had tried to put a spell on Sargent Stein? After Whipcord arrived and stabbed him with her tail, he did a spell on her, too. He said ‘kill that one’ and pointed at Stein. I don’t think he knew what to make of him, with his extra arms and how his face works and all. But she didn’t attack him, not yet anyway. She went after the vampire, helped Stein to pin him down so he couldn’t move his arms for spellcasting, and I poured my water bottle on him. It’s holy water, for basically exactly this scenario, or for drinking or whatever else we might need water for. You don’t want to worry about whether you’ve got the right bottle when you’re fighting a vampire! Anyway… I thought the spell hadn’t worked on Whipcord, either, since she wasn’t trying to kill anyone besides maybe the vampire, but then she looked confused for a second and then stabbed Stein with her tail and he fell over and didn’t move and he was bleeding—

“She said she’d resisted the compulsion the first time around, but then it came back a few seconds later and it just took over and she—she killed him.” Astrid paused, a frown of concentration on her face. “No, saying it took over isn’t right. If it was anything like what happened to me, she just… it just suddenly seemed like a good idea to kill him. She looked horrified right afterwards, I think the compulsion must have faded as soon as she saw he was dead, and she realized that she didn’t actually want that, not anymore…

“I was about to run away before he could tell Whipcord to kill me too, but his arms were free now, so he did a spell and told me to get him away from the water, and I—I had to. But it wasn’t like my body was being controlled against my will, and I was trying to stop myself. I wasn’t a puppet. My priorities had changed; the most important thing was now to get the vampire safely away from the water. I still had the same goals as before, just some of them had been superseded the new one. Obviously I wasn’t going to be able to accomplish all of my old goals anymore, since I couldn’t bring the vampire to safety at the same time as running away from him or knocking him unconscious. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of,” said Henry slowly. “Do continue.”

“Let me try to explain it again. It’s really weird to look back on, even though it made sense at the time. I know it made sense at the time. I can remember feeling that it was very important to bring the vampire upstairs and away from the water, and— No, I can remember that I felt that way but there isn’t any motivation attached to it anymore. It’s…” she shook her head. “God, that’s strange. I look back and I can’t remember why I thought it was a good idea, I can’t even think of any reasons I could have come up with to explain it at the time, never mind good reasons. That was just a couple hours ago! I should be able to remember why I was doing things just this morning, don’t you think?

“Anyway. The compulsion changed surprisingly little about me, at least as far as I could tell. I was even aware that the urge to help the vampire was artificial, that I hadn’t had it thirty seconds ago and the situation hadn’t changed suddenly to make it a good idea—well, in a way it had, I had fallen under a compulsion—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do it. I don’t think I could have thought my way around the compulsion if I’d tried to, but I guess it might be possible? But other than making me suddenly want to do different things, it didn’t really affect anything else about me. It was all a consequence of trying to accomplish my new goal. I was still afraid of the vampire, but willing to tolerate his presence in order to get him to safety since that was really important. And I still considered Whipcord my ally, mostly; I only had to oppose her because she was mistakenly attacking the vampire. I didn’t attack her because it wouldn’t have been very effective what with her regeneration, the compulsion didn’t make me stupid. I was trying to explain to her what I was doing, but she had her hands over her ears to stop the vampire from doing any more compulsions. That was a good idea, I should have thought of that.”

“The compulsion made you want to protect the vampire?” Henry asked, frowning in concern. Zbigniew Musial’s account of the time he’d been compelled had been less than enlightening, and in any case he had been explicitly ordered to act in the other vampire’s best interest. But here was a chance to start pinning down exactly what that kind of magic could do.

“Not… exactly. Yes, I was protecting him, but it was a practical concern more than anything, I think. If Whipcord managed to knock the vampire out, it would make my job of getting him upstairs and away from the water a lot harder. He was pretty skinny, but I’m not really built for lugging people around, especially with the water rising. I had to carry him upstairs in the end, since Whipcord got past me when we were running for the stairs, and stabbed him again. I would have tried knocking him out if I thought that would make it easier to move him, but I figured Whipcord wouldn’t help me carry him so it was better if he moved on his own. I was already worried she might accidentally kill him permanently, since wounds from her tail can’t be healed supernaturally, and vampires only heal supernaturally. Hm, does that mean—? No, I’m pretty sure I was concerned about the vampire permanently dying before he got me with the compulsion.”

“Oh… kay,” said Henry when Astrid had been silent for several seconds, tapping her fingers on the table and looking into the distance. “After the vampire compelled you, what happened after that?”

“I tried to get him out of there, of course! Told him there were stairs at the end of the hall that would lead away from the water, and he just stuck himself to the ceiling and curled up in a ball. He was having a panic attack about the water again, he was only able to focus for a couple seconds at a time before he’d break down. I was kind of annoyed, because here I was trying to help him and he was totally ignoring me! And how was I supposed to get him down the hall when he was floating out of my reach? But then he worked up the nerve to get closer than eight feet away from the water and bolted out of the room. He got about halfway to the stairs before Whipcord caught up to him and dropped him. I’d tried to stop her, but she got past me no problem since my mantle didn’t give me a choice about dodging her.” Astrid laughed, shaking her head. “This is actually the first time it’s been a problem, usually dodging people who are charging at you is an advantage. Anyway, the vampire was unconscious so I had to carry him up the stairs. The compulsion wore off at deck 11—everything else happened on deck 6—so I locked him in one of the cabins after draping him with a very obvious bedsheet. That way it would be easier to find him again if he was still invisible when someone came to collect him.

“Then Whipcord and I went back to clearing out the zombies, and Captain Flanagan somehow managed to revive Sargent Stein and kept him alive until he could put him on an emergency helicopter. We made sure Whipcord was far away when he tried it, just in case the compulsion was actually still active and she tried to kill him again when she saw he was alive. About half an hour later, the evacuation started, and we kept searching for survivors and zombies. That took about two hours, by which point they’d gotten the hull patched well enough that the ship wasn’t sinking anymore, so some of the crew stayed to drive it to the nearest port. The rest of us left on the last of the rescue boats, and came here.

“So, I guess that’s it. I didn’t find anything particularly notable besides the vampire and those few ghouls. If you’ve got more questions, give me a second, I’m going to get more tea.”

Memo to Piero Benelli from Saffron Murray and Thomas Park, Analysts (occult), day 227

We’re starting to think our Spark might be in league with the demons. The Assistant to the Spark of Bodies and Strangeness was soundly against demons, so we’d been assuming that all Sparks are, that they are fundamentally opposed to demons. But what has ours done? Connected us up to a lot of other worlds, including one with demons. In effect, connected all those other worlds to the demons as well! What did They think would happen? This is not the action of a being which opposes demons.

So either our Spark just doesn’t care about the demons—maybe because They’re powerful enough that They don’t see the demon lords as a threat, even if there was a rise in pacting. Or They’re actively working with the demons. Our Spark could be using the pacting potential of our world to pay for power—exactly what Asher Smallidge was doing by mailing people scrolls, but on a much larger scale.

Summery of I-45&I-46 and aftermath

(transcribed and edited from paper notes by Analyst Grahm, based on meetings with command staff and senior personnel)

342 total dead. 186 dead from death rituals. 83 dead from zombies. 48 dead from Infernals. 11 dead from spellfire. 5 dead to friendly fire. 9 cause undetermined.

Most of the casualties were from the analysis buildings and third barracks, which were hit by the majority of the necromancy auras, and subsequently filled with undead. due to the abundance or counterspell-capable personnel, variety of personal talismans, and manually activated sprinklers, the Occult Analysis building was largely untouched. the additional security personnel in the command and Intelligence building helped hold off the Zombies and Infernals and mitigate casualties until personnel could be evacuated to the armory. I-45 was centered in Artifact Custody, and was closed by TC-5 and a large number of other on-base personnel. I-46 was centered in Mechanical R&D, and was closed in under a minuet by Mortimer Hammermeister and Ashley Carmine, giving their lives in the process.

the Artifact Custody building was destroyed, and the rubble is both Biohazardous and structurally unsafe. stay out of the area marked in red tape. there was little damage to the rest of the buildings, and we expect to be able to return to semi-normal function within 12 hours, with what staff are ready and able to continue work. army councilors are being flown in and will meet with everyone who was on base within 24 hours. They will be available on an ongoing basis to anyone who wishes it. anyone in a non-critical role may immediately take 2 days off, and those who chose to continue working during this time will receive combat pay multipliers during this time.

Jesse DuMont promoted to acting head of Artifact Custody Chen Bi promoted to head of Mechanical R&D Jasmine Watts promoted to Terminus Assistant Director

We all recognize the incredible Bravery and courage of those who went above and beyond, at great personal risk, to defend Terminus and Humanity at this desperate hour. know that for your efforts and sacrifices you have the gratitude of all the peoples of the Earth.

list of those up for special commendation:

• Mortimer Hammermister [DECEASED]
• Ashley Carmine [DECEASED]
• Owen Lloyd
• Paul Lloyd
• Piero Benelli
• Alicia Freedman
• Rafael
• Sean O’Brien
• Jesse DuMont
• Alexander Hitch [DECEASED]
• Myria
• Johnathan Mann
• Lakshmi Nan
• Lenard Lenardson
• Noel Peitro

“To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late; And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods…”

– Thomas Babington Macaulay, in ‘Horatius at the Bridge’

The worst cabinet is actually a portal to the realm of nightmares!

Liam Harding, Analyst (occult). Day 234, two days after Terminus headquarters was attacked

We return to my favorite awful magic item: the Worst Cabinet, a wooden box offering a one-in-718 chance of getting the thing you wanted. The cabinet remained undamaged during the incursion two days ago, protecting its contents—including the largely-unwanted gift of antimatter we received from Cubeworld—from the incursion-wide lack of electricity. It also contained an electric stopwatch, which kept running through the entire incursion, leading us to suspect that wherever the contents of the cabinet are kept, it is not on the same plane as the cabinet itself. Attempted X-raying of inside the cupboard showed a perfectly reflective surface not unlike the planar boundary at the edges of Cubeworld, just beyond the wooden surface of the drawer.

Myrria volunteered to explore the cabinet, enjoying the use of a plane which, like Cubeworld, does not contain a sun. Not needing to breathe, the only danger she faced while waiting to be let out of the cabinet was boredom. Inside the cabinet, Myrria tried some spells to ascertain the magic drawback of the drawer and found that it did not match any of the planes we have previously visited. She reported a vague sense of something accumulating each time she cast a spell, but couldn’t tell what it was, and said that it persisted upon her return to our plane.

Was this amorphous feeling the extent of the magic drawback of this eighth plane, or was Myrria’s exotic nature preventing her from experiencing it? To find out, we searched for a suitable test subject, and found Jessica Sinclair, Terminus’ youngest mage. Being a rather small fourteen-year-old, she can fit in the cabinet with room to spare for a rebreather and a couple of oxygen tanks.
. The Cabinet being what it is, I had Frank run some math and we calculated a 96.5% chance that we could retrieve her before the air ran out. But we could extend the state of moderate asphyxiation by about 40 minutes using contingent healing spells, raising the chances of getting her back alive to 99%. Past that, there was a chance of resuscitating her and correcting any brain damage with magic, and if all else failed, we could try turning her into a vampire. After four test-runs with her curled up in the safe while I frantically opened the Worst Cabinet, we were ready to go.

Jessica returned from the cabinet after only 17 minutes, a new record. When she woke up—having taken a sedative after completing the magical tests, in order to conserve oxygen—she reported the same sense of something accumulating that Myrria had, adding that the amount which was added with each spell seemed to be the same regardless of the spell’s school or complexity. Like Myrria, she could still sense the accumulated metaphysical substance on our plane. Casting additional spells here did not add to the feeling. Unlike Myrria, who does not sleep, Jessica had very vivid nightmares while in the cabinet as well as last night, which she spent in the infirmary under observation. Outwardly, the nightmares look a lot like sleep paralysis occurring for about thirty seconds as she falls asleep.

Memo to all active Contact Team personnnel

John Much, Chief of Operations, day 234 (2 days since I-43 through I-46)

Regarding Evil

A Memorandum for General Consumption from Operative Myrria

I don’t think I have ever properly expressed how grateful I am that I was transported here to Earth, and not to one of the other realms I have since encountered. It’s not about the various luxuries here, but about the people. And I don’t just mean the heroes I am honored to work with every day, but the entire population. Even the criminals here aspire to a sort of decency that is terribly rare in the universe.

And I fear it leaves you unprepared to confront evil.

If you view beings through a lens of self-interest or even emotion, you will miss what they do for dark principle or by nature.

The most obvious application of this is the infernals. Their nature is slaughter, pain and blood. They do not have self interest or even a sense of self preservation. Their masters seem to be slightly more person-like, but not much. There may be use to setting them against each other, but there can be no peaceful coexistance. It simply isn’t who they are.

Less obvious are the vampires. But consider: when one sees a free human city, his thought is not “an opportunity to conquer territory for my own aggrandizement” but “this is improper and unnatural: I’d better do something about it”. When one arrived with a plan to attempt diplomacy, he couldn’t bring himself to do it, but procrastinated until something went wrong, and fell back on his army-of-zombies habit. When Master Hammermeister, may he rest in peace, urged a truce to fight against a common enemy, the vampire he spoke to interpreted it as surrender, because an alliance-of-equals with mortals simply couldn’t fit in his head.

There are two kinds of doubting another’s personhood. There is the kind that is an ordinary belief, amenable to evidence. (Some of my most harrowing memories from before coming here involve judging such situations.) Such a belief about humanity would not withstand five seconds of looking at a human city. And then there is the kind which treats it as an established principle. As a part of self-identity. Such a belief cannot be shaken without extreme measures. The belief-holder, their society, and their worldview must be broken.

Is this something intrinsic in vampirehood, a property of their society, or an effect of the magical compulsions they use so freely? I don’t know. I have attempted to introspect myself for signs of evil since my change, but introspection is inherently flawed in these matters. Sadly Efrayim Stein is not yet skilled enough as a telepath to examine me. I also watched over Zbignef Steve Musial since his transformation, and saw worrying signs but nothing outright alarming. His latest report is more worrying but hard to evaluate without context.

The nobility of Jaket have a similar form of evil, but with less sharp edges. In our excursion there, we did not convince them that a division of nobles and slaves was wrong, but only that this is an entire world of nobles. This flexibility-of-mind is encouraging, but the problem is not solved. For a true solution, I suspect their society and worldview can only be displaced by another complete society and worldview. Building such next to them would be difficult, but not impossible. In any case, we must never show them weakness, or they will revert in their handling of us.

The mantle-lords of the battlegrounds are another matter entirely. They live in a world of violence where anyone can win or lose at any time. They are not wedded to a worldview but simply trying to survive in a harsh environment. They should be regarded as victims – even the most powerful and abusive of them.

Governance is not evil. Proud and quick-to-anger, perhaps, but trying to be decent.

I have left the Assistant for last. It casually exterminated my people. Everyone I had ever known before coming here, gone in an instant. It is, in a limited way, highly intelligent. But I find it to be more like a natural disaster than a mass murderer. Its uncaring is like the uncaring of physical law. It has no regard for our personhood because it does not acknowledge personhood at all. We might use it as one might use a volcano for geothermal energy, but we can never be its friend.

Interrogation procedures:

Two or more machine gunners will be at the ready. We will set up a room to securely house the demon, which will have holes for the gunners and Juniper, who will summon a pulsekeeper for hours (+6) at 60ft Range (+1).Upon a successful summoning we will verify that it is under Juniper’s control, if it isn’t we gun it down, if it is we will order it to cast useless spells until it can cast no longer. Once this is done we will bind its hands, legs and wings, to prevent anything from going awry. Then we can proceed with the interrogation proper. The gunners are to remain on standby, while their positions are taken up by gunners wielding foam launchers, who are ordered to coat the target if something goes wrong. Four spellcasters are to be available who will be on rotation with the two spellcasters in the chamber who are to to observe the Infernal with spellsight at all times, ready to counterspell or dispel if it tries anything without permission.

The chamber will be outfitted with recording devices and cameras. If necessary, the Infernal can be provided with paper and a writing implement to facilitate communication or provide information on the layout of Hell. Only one of its arms is to be unbound for this purpose, a writing surface can be attached to its bindings or on a wall, if necessary. When it’s done the writing implement is to be removed from the chamber, checked for spell effects, then its arm is to be rebound.

Anyone who participates in the interrogation is to wear bullet proof armor, such that they could shrug off an emergency hail of bullets, just in case.

Upon the conclusion of the interrogation, if it indeed returns to Hell upon death, then the Infernal is to be sedated, and the control dispelled. It will then be transported to a secure location, where it will be placed in a medical coma until the attack on Hell has concluded. Preferably, this location will be close to the opposite end of the planet from Terminus HQ, allowing us to still make use of Wamboro’s demon detecting to locate closer Incursions.

We shall repeat this interrogation on Infernals until we’re sure we’ve gotten a clear picture of what we’re dealing with. We will also interrogate on Balaam Pulsekeepers, as well as Pulsekeepers from other demon lords if they are available.

Regarding Vampiric Evil

An Addendum for General Consumption from Operative Myrria

In my previous memorandum, I speculated as to whether the vampiric nature is inherently corrupting. Shortly after sending that document, I learned that it is.

I have finally broken the mental block that prevented me from learning new skills as a vampire. Tactical analysis of that can follow separately, likely via in-person discussion. But as I tried to focus on new skills, I felt my mind pulled in a foreign direction. To master Secrets of Carnage and Blood rather than the psionics I had intended to learn.

I recognized this pull, not from my own experience, but from memories Juniper Hargrave has shared with me. Knowing that the pull would stunt my development of useful skills, I resisted it.

I only realized later that it would likely make me feel more at home in scenes of carnage if I allowed it into me. Just as it has to Juniper Hargrave.

Regarding The Spark’s Motives

From Wensleydale Prim

It has been apparent from nearly the beginning that incursion bubbles are not evenly distributed across the Earth. The fact that every bubble since the first has caught at least one human being makes that clear.

It has also been apparent that bubbles are not targetting random people. Their distribution does not resemble that of human population density.

The tendency toward centers of government is highly suspicious. Seven national capitals (London, Washington, Madrid, Paris, Minsk, Islamabad and Ulan Baator) have been targeted, and the two most important capitals were targeted with the particularly destructive infernals/battlegrounds overlap. Without a clearly defined null hypothesis we cannot put a proper p value on this, but, speaking intuitively, it is implausible as coincidence.

Two nuclear silos being targeted can only mean that nuclear silos are of interest in some way. Nuclear silos represent a vanishingly small fraction of Earth’s land area, population, or anything other than nuclear silos.

With the targeting of Terminus headquarters, especially as part of the first quadrupal-incursion, we became suspicious that The Spark is outright malevolent: trying to cripple our ability to defend ourselves. (This assumes The Spark is responsible for that targeting. It is still plausible that a demon-lord learned to aim the pillar, though not that one could be responsible for the quadruple-incursion.)

All of which combines to make the latest report from Drogonov so surprising.

Sentinal was facing a potentially extinction-level threat which was not itself pillar-related, and they got a pillar with which to call for our help. And it seems our help was just what they needed. Or at least we pray that was the case.
This suggests a Spark who is happy to wreak havoc over our cities, but does not want to see the Fractured States buried in monsters.

I suggest that The Spark wants chaos. Our civilization is too orderly for its tastes, but it wants even less to see any one faction become dominant. A world of mindless monsters would bore it.

This also explains why so few of the FTL pillars have been within Governance’s reach, despite their domination of that plane. The Spark dislikes their philosophy, and doesn’t want to make it easy for them to spread it to Earth.

What, then, of Hell? Surely nothing is more antithetical to a lover of chaos than a plane in which only eight residents have free will. My guess is The Spark is rooting for us there. Among its goals (not primary!) is to destroy Hell using us as a weapon. It may have placed the first Deadworld pillar specifically to give us two intact spellbooks, and selected FTL incursions that will best equip us with advanced technology. It may even have deliberately sent us Myrria.

How do these things combine to the destruction of Hell? I don’t know. It may not either. It may simply be giving us tools and hoping we think of something. Or perhaps it does have a plan in mind, in which case we should probably be putting more effort into reverse-engineering those magic Scundi tattoos.

21 Things the Wand of Least Wonder Does! Number 22 Will Change Your View on God!

Liam Harding, day 243, four days after the day when there were too many incursions

The Wand of Least Wonder presents one of the great mysteries of the magic items recovered from Jaket this week. Comprising a wooden rod with faint carvings under a waxy coating, it appears to be of great and mysterious arcane power. In fact, it has baffled resident magic-item expert Paul Lloyd: while he told us that it chooses randomly from a variety of effects, he could not say what those effects might be. Therefore I embarked on a quest to find out what the Wand could do! It has been fairly slow going as the wand needs to be recharged after every two uses, but over the past three days, we have uncovered the strange, the underwhelming, the apparently nonexistent, and the seemingly miraculous capabilities of this artifact.

1. Causes the target’s vision to sharpen for a few seconds, as well as sometimes enhancing other perception-related skills. These are probably all variations of the same spell.
2. Causes a minor injury with no visible wound.
3. Expels a small amount of acid from the tip of the wand, which vanishes after a few seconds. The acid is strong enough to melt a mouse, and to severely injure a pig, but presents no danger to someone wearing a bomb-disposal suit.
4. Conjures a sheet of ice covering a roughly two-meter by two-meter patch on the floor, lifting anything on the floor at the time it was cast. The ice seems to be normal water if licked, and vanishes after one minute. Things touching the ice remain cold even after the ice vanishes, just like they would if they had been next to non-magical ice.
5. Conjures a small glowing orb, which floats around for a few seconds, expelling energy that feels like healing magic.
6. A minor healing effect similar to the now-common spell for stabilizing injured people.
   
7. Causes the target to grow wings for one minute. Pigs can in fact fly, with the right magic! But that does not mean they are good at it. The Wand seemed to do nothing a frustrating amount of the time, probably because the pig was not able to tell me what it was experiencing. In the interest of science, I prematurely deemed the Wand safe for human testing. Nobody else wanted to be the test subject, but I was able to convince Desi Kaufman to use the wand on me.
8. Summons a heartbeast. The heartbeast vanishes in less than ten seconds, unless its summoning is dismissed (in which case it sticks around forever, just like with normal demon-summoning). Unfortunately, the few seconds were long enough for the unexpected heartbeast to bite Desi and set him on fire (which did helpfully set off the sprinklers, not that it made any difference because the heartbeast had already vanished). After being sternly lectured on the fact that more protection than some magical fireproofing on the test subject was in order, we were issued some bomb-disposal suits in case of further mishap.
9. Changes the target’s face slightly, making them look like a slightly different person, a sibling maybe, for the next minute. The timing is unfortunate—a minute is more than long enough to make you wonder if your face is stuck like that forever, but not nearly enough time to take proper advantage of a magical disguise. The alternate face seems chosen at random, though it’s always close to the target’s usual face; you do not get a consistent alter-ego.
10. Flings the target 20 feet backwards on a gust of wind.
11. Inflicts a distracting buzzing sound which persists for a few seconds, making it hard to hear anything else. This occurs as a quieter buzz on both the caster and the target, or a louder one on just the target. Desi says that this buzz does not sound the same as the screaming jars, and is not nearly as annoying.
    
12. Grants the target the speed of an Olympic sprinter for about five seconds. It’s too bad this doesn’t last, or we could combine it with the screaming jars to break some records.
13. Brightens or dims an area a few meters across for several seconds.
14. Makes the target clumsier for a few seconds. At least, I would like to think it was magic that made me fall over for basically no reason.
15. Increases hand-eye coordination for a few seconds, or maybe just makes the target think their hand-eye coordination has improved. It’s hard to test tell because it lasts such a short time and we hadn’t thought to add “play catch” to the the experimental procedure beforehand.
16. Strikes the target with a small lightning bolt, which then bounces back to hit the caster as well. Poetic justice? We belatedly realized that we could get better data by having Desi observe the spells he cast at me with magic-sight, so we’re a bit more certain of what these last ones do.
17. Fixes minor damage to an inanimate object the Wand is touching.
18. Shoves the target backwards as if they were kicked hard.
19. Temporarily increases the target’s skill at building boats, or picking locks. Desi assures me that these are two instances of the same spell—but what kind of theme combines boat-building and lock-picking? Piracy, perhaps? Further investigation is needed to determine whether this spell can also increase sword-fighting skill or grant the ability to climb ropes with spiderlike agility.
    
20. Makes the target feel weak for a few seconds, as well as actually decreasing their ability to lift objects. I feel this makes my claims of magically-induced clumsiness a lot more credible, as it might be a variation of the same spell.
21. Makes the target feel more confident in themselves for a few seconds, at the same time as making them slightly better than usual at anything they try. But which is it: the power of positive thinking, or an accurate self-assessment of supernatural competence?
22. Summons an angel. That is, summons that ball of light which exudes positive energy for a few moments before disappearing, as had already happened three times before.

Properties of angels

Marcin Klatzco, Occult Analysis, day 246 (3 days after the discovery of angels)

Physical

• A glowing ball of light roughly five inches across.
• Transparent if looked at directly, but is bright enough that looking directly at it is uncomfortable.
• Squishy to the touch, as if filled with a liquid.
• A bit warmer than room temperature, within normal range for a small mammal. Behavior
• Floats around the space it’s in as if curious about its contents, but does not tend to touch living creatures unless actively healing them, though it will pass within a few inches.
• Becomes tired quickly if not within a holy space such as holy water or sacred ground. The angel does not get tired when on sacred ground or when placed in a sufficiently large container of holy water, and tires more quickly in smaller containers. Outside of that, it will slowly dim for one to two minutes, before falling to the ground and dimming more quickly.
  • The brightness is partially an indication of the angel’s health, as the glow can be restored to a medium brightness with healing magic. We have not tested whether the angel will die if kept out of holy space for several minutes, but it seems likely.
  • Once the angel has fallen to the ground, it will not get up for at least half an hour, even if put back in a holy space. It regains full glowiness after about two hours.
  • The angel does not appear to consume holiness in its surroundings—or at least it did not appreciably consume the holiness of a tank of holy water over the course of three hours.
• Has shown no interest in leaving the base chapel once introduced there, and spends most of its time on the altar or statues, occasionally wandering the space.

Magic

• While awake, exudes a positive energy field for several feet around it which has the same effect as a basic healing spell (it will repair cuts, burns, etc, but not broken bones or other major injuries).
  • This is not a spell according to any mage observing it; however, to non-mages, it feels identical to one. Mages can tell the difference because they cannot see the positive energy field, nor attempt to block it as it is not a structured spell.
  • The positive energy field turns off when the angel becomes tired and starts dimming.
  • The positive energy field passes through physical boundaries like walls.
• The angel is also capable of direct healing magic, when faced with an injury which its passive healing aura does not affect. When placed next to a mouse with a broken leg, it was observed attempting a spell to fix the bone, which ultimately failed. The observer said that it looked like the angel is not very good at magic. Metaphysical
• The angel is non-verbal and does not seem to have thoughts so much as feelings of “intense caring” and “well-being and okayness, like it wants you to understand that if you would just be good then everything would be good and it would be good”.
• Myrria reports that the angel’s fundamental nature is to be Holy and Caring.
• Contact with the angel’s positive energy aura harms demons and vampires like physical contact with a holy object does.
• Telepathic contact with the angel harms Myrria (and presumably other telepathic vampires) like physical contact with a holy object does.
• Raila Wamboro can detect the angel, indicating that his compulsion does not detect demons specifically, but rather supernatural creatures certain planes.
  What should we do with the angel? Angels could be extremely effective if deployed to hospitals, vastly speeding recovery time for many injuries. It would take a lot of time and effort to do this, as summoning an angel takes on average 38 uses of the Wand, comprising 13 hours of work. Angels are very effective in a very concentrated area, so we would want to organize a rotation between hospitals, to spread the benefit of an angel around. However, there are a few drawbacks to keeping angels. For one, Raila Wamboro would lose the ability to detect demonic incursions as they appear—though this is not really a concern until we manage to find all the demons currently on the planet. More immediate would be the response from various religious communities, though perhaps we could assuage this by gifting them with angels.
  

Anti-Holocaust Strategy

From Ephraim Stein

Our intervention point of 1943 puts us past the majority of the holocaust, but there are still millions to be saved. We have to try. I expect it will be easy to find volunteers for an excursion team.

Upon arrival, I propose a multiprong strategy…

Preparation: Rich, Famous and Trusted

Before putting any of the prongs into motion, the team should achieve prominence and establish its bona fides as being from a future. This can involve give-aways of humanitarian agricultural and medical technologies and warning of upcoming natural disasters.

Most of those require some degree of trust, though, so we might begin by selling various expensive toys. Smartphones loaded with apps should attract attention, and be perfectly usable without a cell network. Synthetic sapphires are already available, but synthetic opals and diamonds aren’t. It’s not clear if the presence of two incursion bubbles will change the upcoming winning lottery numbers, but it won’t cost much to check. Similarly, we can probably get some big wins in the stock market before we’re banned from it.

The goals of the preparation phase are two-fold. First: to accumulate downtime money and favors which can be leveraged as power later. Second: to make it common knowledge that a group from a future has arrived, and is more-or-less benevolent.

Propaganda Prong

Germany has spent the years since the holocaust regretting it. There are countless speeches by prominent Germans seeking national absolution. Other nations that were complicit in the holocaust were less vocal, but some texts can be found. Also relevant: the Catholic Church, which has not explicitly confessed, but did (for example) spend the 1950s elevating cardinals who had resisted. The Church’s statements are likely to be particularly impactful in Poland and Lithuania, where the worst of the massacres took place and where the Church’s influence is strong. Many there will recognize the voice of Pope Pius XII.

We can bring these expressions to the masses in Europe by using superior transmission technology to take over radio and television broadcasts throughout Europe.

The tremendous variance in death rates across Europe tells us that unorganized resistance can make a huge difference.

Refuge Prong

For much of the holocaust, Germany was willing to deport its Jews, but no one was willing to accept them. Our goal is to convince some country within reach to change its mind. We can provide moral arguments with the benefit of hindsight as before, but also practical arguments (These people will be valuable citizens). Also, we can offer bribes: specs for successful 1950s cars, or computers designed to host dumb-terminal logins and dumb-terminal designs that can be manufactured downtime, or the formula for plastic. Things that will be a real economic boost to whatever country accepts them.

If exit visas prove tricky, bribery may help there too. We should be rich enough to offer any resettlement assistance to anyone who needs it for a just reason.

Assassination / Sabotage Prong

With the aid of specialist historians, we can identify key figures in the holocaust who were unusually effective and determined. We can bring photographs, and assassinate them.

This will require sending a mage capable of photograph-affinity casting, which may be somewhat hard to find. Still, the team will want one anyway for co-ordination with future bubbles (they should also bring an affinity-linked plank of wood and a shape-wood scroll to allow “high”-bandwidth communication with TC teams in future incursions).

Affinity spells are not limited to people. It may be possible to burn or electrocute key facilities in poison gas manufacture/administration, or key record-keeping facilities. Finding good enough affinities may be tricky.

While I mostly encourage openness and honesty, I believe magic should be held in reserve. A secret ace up our sleeve.

Direct Strikes Prong?

It is probably beyond our reach to perform direct strikes against concentration camps, at least unless we can recruit a large superpowered force from Sentinal. Still, we should keep our eyes open, especially in conjunction with any more-ambitious military intervention.

Addendum for Contact Teams

We still have very little understanding of how pillars are placed within worlds, so it’s anyone’s guess whether you will ever find yourself conveniently within Germany, or possibly even in one of the camps. Please prepare for possible surgical strikes of opportunity.

Also please download the attached phrasebook into your phones.

Finally: Myrria, please learn the feeling of regret modern Germans possess in enough resolution that you can broadcast it should the opportunity arise.

Second Addendum: Japanese War Crimes

Internal memo—plans for using angels in the invasion of Hell

Kayla Duckworth, analyst (occult)

These are some informal notes about the plans we came up with in the brainstorming session yesterday regarding angels. Not all of them are covered here, and I’ve skipped some of the details, but the official proposal should be out in the next few days. If you’ve got comments after reading that, please refrain from bothering the people on the invasion committee and instead email me or Malcolm Parr, the coordinator. We will discuss them in our next meeting and let you know what we’re planning.

The angels will almost certainly be on board with this, if we can come up with a plan. They’re very effective against demons, and quite motivated to fight them, provided we can convince them invading Hell is actually possible.

The most convenient route would be to have the spark open a portal to Heaven so we can just walk an angel army out of there and into Hell. Naturally, the spark has declined this request, stating that it was tired of our irritating feature requests, could we go away and let it get back to fixing bugs in the current planar connector? So we will have to summon angels directly into Hell.

An archangel seems ideal for taking down an archdemon, but getting one is trick, since summoning the summoning spell is somewhere around DCM 100. Nobody from Earth is anywhere close to being able to do it, and even the angels we can summon would likewise be unable to summon an archangel.

But when in Hell you can do as the demons do and use blood for power—specifically, to fuel spells. Conveniently, there is a giant pit of blood there for the taking. That the blood is also full of neurotoxin presents a minor problem, however. Anyone touching it would survive maybe ten seconds, which could possibly be extended slightly via intensive healing magic, but whoever touches the blood will not live through it unless they’re already a vampire or otherwise completely immune to the poison. The caster must be somebody who fits those qualifications because they need to stay alive long enough to use all the blood, and that will take quite a while, certainly more than ten seconds. And while the boost from the blood helps, the amount of blood required for a human or intermediate angel to pull this off is almost certainly unfeasible.

However, we could have someone call up the angel, who would then summon itself into Hell using their soul as an affinity. The angel could make use of the blood via the person they’re using as an affinity (probably), though we still run into the problem of keeping the person alive long enough to use the blood for the ritual. Using a vampire for this solves the problem of the poison, but gets us a new one: they will be damaged by telepathic contact with an archangel, albeit much more slowly than a living person in contact with the neurotoxin. Assuming that the trend of a drop of holy water having the same effect as a gallon holds, the effect of an archangel could be counteracted with enough necromancy (doing one negative energy damage every round for the next several hours is DCM 12, so completely doable assuming we have access to necromancy—we just do six layers and the vampire is effectively angel-proof).

So the question becomes: is there enough blood? We don’t have any hard numbers on this, but the best estimate is that there are somewhere between 10^17 and 10^18 gallons of blood in the blood pit. This gets somewhere between +57 and +60 for the spell, which puts it well in the range of possibility (the angel has around +110 to spellcraft, and +40 due to synergies—using a soul-affinity puts the spell around DC 230, with a ritual, some components, and a good roll, they can do it. Maybe the other archangels can help as well, if they have their own telepathically-connected intermediaries with which to have access to the blood and thereby be able to attempt the spell?). A failed summoning may use up the blood offering, so resulting in a limited number of tries. Depending on the size of the pit, the best chance of success would probably come from several tries, each using only part of the pit’s contents (remember that halving the amount of blood only decreases the bonus by 1, so dividing the pit into four to eight tries still gives a sizable bonus). We will need to bring multiple vampire connectors to use in retries, since the angel will be unable to use the same vampire as an affinity after failing once.

Another option is to get a large group of lesser-but-still-powerful angels, for example a Messenger (DCM 14, caster) or a Flaming Sword (DCM 14, non-caster). Even if we can’t summon them directly, we can probably set up recursive summoning to get bigger angels from medium-sized ones which we can summon. Angels might be immune to the whispers which plague human casters in planar Hell, and if they aren’t they might be dangerous enough to provoke Halisect into using his own stores of blood for a curse, which would ultimately be his downfall. In any case, any problems angels encounter should not be permanent to them upon returning to their home plane, so this mostly wastes time rather than permanent angelic resources.

The Prayer of Maksim Drogonov

Bright spirits;

Long have I worked to uphold the good as our plane touched others. I have made peace where I could, and fought to defend the innocent when I could not. Both were often at the risk of my life.

Soon I will likely be called upon to lead the final invasion of Hell, or of an empire of vampires who drank too often of infernal blood.

One thing I am not prepared for: mind-affecting magic. If some foul mage – infernal, undead or living – twists me and wields me as a weapon against my friends…

Therefore, I beg you to armor my mind. To protect me from such magics, and so to protect my friends from me, and so to protect all the worlds that are counting on us to deal with Hell.

I remain, as ever, your servant Maksim Drogonov

Quick list of known Saints.

Jim Souskie, Inteligence. ~4 weeks after the release of the prayer scroll. we have proper files on all of these people, but with the latest(Jorgstein) popping up, I wanted a quick list of all known Saints is chronological order, and what we know about them, sized for easy reading.

Joel Vasques, USA, 15: high-schooler from Baltimore with a long history of trying to offer sympathy and help to classmates, and trying to stand up to injustice. ended up repeatedly beaten and taken advantage of. sponsored by Michael with Celestial Conjury, and blessed with (a bunch of combat feats, including a focus on polearms/unarmed) and a huge morale bonus to anyone within a few hundred feet who believes they are doing the righteous thing. called Terminus within 4 hours.

Amar Mukhtar, India, 58: Banker, husband, father of 3. sponsored by Raphael with healing magic and blessed with medical wisdom. had a personal conversation about his life but claims he was given no instructions and charged with no duties. called Terminus within 48 hours.

Eduardo Linares, Honduras, 31: cab driver and single father. sponsored by Michael and blessed with inhuman toughness and speed, and armed with wings of brilliant light. claims to be charged by Michael to serve as a warrior against the infernals. called Terminus within the hour, asking to enlist and ensuring that his son is cared for.

Jens Busk, Denmark, 17: well-off, smart, quiet and seemingly unremarkable teen, sponsored by an undisclosed angel with healing and celestial conjury, and apparently blessed with with incredible skill at understanding and speaking to people. was found having talked his way into a german army base, beseeching a crowd to take up arms in an upcoming battle against hell, and “join in the army of God”, with surprisingly good results.

Yanina Jacob, Isreal, 27: unmarried Supply Sargent and amateur mage, contracted by Michael with Celestial Conjury, Ele Air, Ele Earth, and Healing, and armed with a halo of lightning. attempted to rally her regiment around her as a holy army, as allegedly commanded by Michael, with mixed results.

Eloisa Cancelliere, Italy, 74: retired teacher and widow. sponsored by Michael with Celestial Conjury(despite no magical experience) and blessed with great skill with modern and archaic arms&armour(combat feats and bonuses), superhuman reaction time, and a modest morale bonus to everyone within ~20 miles who is crusading against evil. called Terminus within the hour, claiming she had been bidden by Micheal to gather an army for a crusade.

Arno van der Linde, Togo, 26: reverend and farmer with a large family, reputation as a serious guy with a strong sense of justice who you can turn to to settle disputes or ask advice. sponsored by Michael with enchantments granting incredible skill with swords and weapons, as well as modestly enhanced strength and coordination. many of these blessings are shared by anyone fighting alongside him within a ~100 feet. he is followed by a pair of Healthlights, and armed with a machete that burns with unending flame. he promptly began gathering followers for a holy crusade, claiming he was charged to do so by Michael.

Maxim Drogonov, Russia, 28: single former Russian spec-ops, now Terminus’ most decorated Contact Captain. you know who this is. sponsored by Michael with Celestial Conjury, and blessed with potent(high enough you can’t test it) resistance to compulsions, and grants a large(+6) morale bonus to anyone within 80 feet who is actively defending all of mankind. he is armed with a burning eye that sees through lies(+15 spot/sense motive, cannot be blinded, and true sight when open/uncovered. deals 1hp/30hours when covered or 1hp/10 min when uncovered). contacted Terminus instantaneously. charged by Michael with “gathering the righteous amongst his army, and leading them against the infernals”

Anya Singh, USA, 20: Architecture Major and business minor at MIT and promising mage. thoughtful, compassionate, driven, and takes ideas seriously. claims her goal of developing better cheap housing in underdeveloped nations is due to “the golden rule/veil of ignorance”. contracted by Gabriel with Celestial Conjury, Shadows & light, Phantasms, Materialism, hexing, and health. armed with a burning eye that sees through lies. called Terminus within 10 hours, won’t speak of conversation with her sponsor. wants to travel between worlds and help on other planes(especially Jaket, Mantle, and 1940s), but will cooperate with Terminus on other projects, as long as their reasoning is explained.

Camila Navarro, Columbia, 46: Midwife and married mother of 5. caring and nurturing, with a strong sense of community and togetherness, known for being a central node in her community who everybody knows. sponsored by Raphael with healing magic(despite having no magical experience). claims to be charged by Raphael “with healing the sick and tending to the needy”. called Terminus within 6 hours to notify of her experience, and ask for advice on learning spellcraft.

Summary of the Final Invasion

By Zbigniew “Steve” Musial

Let me see if I’ve got this…

I’m a vampire
In hell
About to contact an archangel
So that I can be baptized in blood on his behalf
The dunking will be done psychokinetically by an undead mutant alien
And it’s cancer/poison blood
All so we can kill the last lord of hell

I think I’ve peaked

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