Chuck (Percy Winston-Smythe) emerges from Batman Begins to announce that the franchise has redeemed itself. Chris (Dmitri Baranov) concurs and goes on to suggest that lunch would be a good next step. Bruce volunteers, "I'll send Paul (Smith) a text message so he knows where we went! Where're we going? Where're we going?" Ernest (Carlos Juan Vincent Sanchez) points out, "I don't know how I know this, but you're wasting your time: Paul's pager is dead right now." Bruce sulks.
Chris points out, "I cannot kill enough goblins to wash your foul odor from the decks!"
At this point Paul shows up and looks around. He is pretty uncertain about what he sees: everyone looks really questionable.
The game starts with the characters still far underground in the depths of the lost Urgu Subur city of Takpaeq. Having recognized that the deeper parts of the labyrinth are haunted by some kind of powerful mind-controlling monster, the characters debate whether or not to try and prevent the creature's servants from murdering everyone in their sleep. Dmitri Baranov in particular wants to block off Labor of Workers' Love, but Carlos Juan Victor Sanchez convinces him that any easy way to block the corridors off would be easily undone by crazed bugs.
Instead, the characters retreat back up the tunnels and head to Servants of the Eternal Lore. Percy Winston-Smythe notes, "Smith goes first."
Sanchez concurs, "Coated with marinade." He addresses Smith, "Hold this bar of monster chow too." Smith takes the monster chow and stomps off into the darkness.
The corridor swiftly changes from naturalistic and unfinished into carved and finished. A warm, slightly humid breeze oozes up from the tunnels. Baranov opines, "SO the air is dry, and good for storing paper!"
Sanchez and Winston-Smythe raise their eyebrows and exchange glances. Winston-Smythe offers, "In Russia, we have two kinds of weather: cold and freezing."
Sanchez tells the Englishman, "If he goes all Yakov Smirnov on us we're gonna have to put him down."
Smith sees something small and fragile-looking lying against the side of the corridor. He investigates and finds that it looks like a desiccated aquatic creature. Baranov examines it and pronounces that something sucked its innards out. Smith warns the others, "Be on the lookout for things that suck out innards!"
Baranov curses, "Shut up, robot."
Winston-Smythe advises, "Watch your cornholes, boys."
The characters enter into a substantial chamber. A forest of columns fills the place, but the columns do not appear to be supporting the chamber roof. The characters move in to investigate. Smith manages to find a fleshy, soft-shelled urgu-subur librarian who tells the characters, "The Lore is in the stones." They notice that even though his carapace is soft and flexible, he still doesn't have any musculature to support facial expressions so he just ends up looking weirdly droopy. The characters waste little time debating what the creature might mean. Instead, they take advantage of the fact that Smith obviously terrifies it to persuade it to draw them a map of the Servants of the Eternal Lore district.
Baranov finally turns to speculating upon exactly what the librarian's pronouncements might mean. He discovers (after a brief demonstration) that he can pass into a meditative state and go into a trance while touching the stones.
While Baranov is busy staring blankly into space, the other characters search the rest of the chamber. Sanchez finds two more of the urgu-subur librarians, both entranced next to their respective columns. He asks the others, "Want me to cuff these guys so we can interrogate them Gitmo-style?"
The characters let Baranov stay in his trance for an hour, then shake him back to consciousness. Sanchez demands, "Speak to us, Baranov!"
Baranov describes having a blessed dreamy experience wafting in and out of the halls of knowledge. Unfortunately, he didn't come back with any tangible knowledge, even though he thinks there might be quite a bit of it stored in the columns. He enjoyed a pleasant warm feeling when he was lost in the column; when he emerges he feels very cold.
Baranov notices that the other characters are spending a lot of time staring at his face. He tells them, "My face is fine. What are you looking at?"
Sanchez points out, "But the librarians are all droopy. We were thinking there might be side effects to blissing out on the columns."
Baranov suggests, "Maybe they gum the columns."
Sanchez replies, "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."
Baranov explains his visions to the others. Sanchez suggests that if Baranov tries concentrating on something he might be able to pick up something tangible.
The characters move up to the North Lore Room, which turns out to contain another column forest very similar to the first. Winston-Smythe finds the body of a librarian hugging one of the columns. He tells the others, "This one looks like he just sort of died."
Baranov replies, "He just sort of died? Thank you, Quincy."
Sanchez searches around and finds a couple of living librarians. He frisks them down and finds several items in their pockets, including waxed packets of monster chow and stone chips carved in psychotically intricate detail. He asks around, "Anyone want a psychotic pebble? Maybe this is used as currency down here."
Baranov sits down in front of another column and tries to Meditate. It takes him eight attempts before he reaches a suitable mental state. Sanchez and Winston-Smythe don't help by leaning over him and asking, "Are you meditating yet? Are you meditating yet?" Sanchez braids his beard into an octagonal pattern once he goes under.
Baranov tries thinking about the history of the underground city. He is rewarded with a vision that could well be titled History of the Venus Colony, Chapter One. He sees urgu-subur fleeing from Mars in strange-design ships carrying cargoes of eggs. They settle upon the surface of Venus, but after a brief time of prosperity the Terror descends upon them. He is tormented by repeated visions of six-legged things killing younglings, but can never see any detail of them. The urgu-subur respond by moving underground for safety, eventually establishing this city.
While Baranov is meditating Smith sees one of the librarians fall away from its pillar. It shivers and grasps for its staff then twists the top. He suggests, "I think this one might be dying." Ominously, the creature's staff has the look of an aetheric device.
Sure enough, the staff had an effect on something: moments later, a creature that looks to be a cross between an urgu-subur and a centipede scuttles in and heads straight for Smith. It opens its mouthparts to hideous width and spits out a reality-twisting vortex. Smith very sensibly engages in a retreating dodge and avoids the attacks. He notices that the vortex continues to dart around the chamber and concludes that this can't possibly be a good development.
Then the creature opens its maw again and releases a second vortex. Smith concludes that something must be done, so he delivers a deep, but not yet lethal, slash to the vortex centipede.
In the background, one of the vortexes hits a librarian. There is a scream. Distorted pieces of dead librarian fall from behind a column.
The centipede absorbs several more blade attacks, then falls dead to Winston-Smythe's pistol shot.
Baranov picks up a captive librarian and hoofs it out the room. Winston-Smythe yells after him, "But that's where the snake came from!"
Baranov finds himself faced by two librarians, an aukikep and an empty basket. The aukikep charges. Smith charges, then jumps to the side to avoid the aukikep's strike. Sanchez fires at the aukikep's eyes, while Winston-Smythe opens fire at the handlers. One handler runs for it. The other sticks around long enough to take a shot at Winston-Smythe, then runs only to get cut down by Sanchez.
Baranov and Smith kill the aukikep, though Winston-Smythe gets the last hit before it falls over. Baranov pulps its cranium for good measure.
Sanchez wipes out the last librarian.
The characters move back into the Central Lore Hall. Baranov and Pépin try their hands at interrogating the captive librarian. They learn a variety of things, including the layout of the entire complex.
Baranov and Winston-Smythe go to fetch W-S's musket from the North Lore Room. They find that the vortexes are now gone. Winston-Smythe shoots the third librarian, just for good measure.
The captive librarian admits that there are old things in the chambers near the Spiral of Malice. He also admits that his name is Third-Brevet-Gul. The characters decide to rest for a while and then head back to the surface to regroup. Pépin brings the librarian along, mostly against the fellow's will. When he realizes that the characters are taking him to the surface, he becomes hysterical. Fortunately, he only has ST 8 so almost anyone can restrain him. Pépin tells his Bavarian ally, "Klaus, you're on bug detail."
It is at this point that the librarian displays hysterical strength and almost gets away, until Pépin shoots him in the leg. He heals ridiculously quickly under selenium treatment. Sanchez puts a bag over his head. Pépin tells the others, "We're taking him on the boat. He's coming with me. For science."
At the Dutch army camp, Leutnant Robert is eager to see the characters march up with loot. He enthusiastically greets them, "Aha! You found something!"
Sanchez replies, "Yeah. If you want to meet him you'd better take him into the tent." The characters buy some manacles from Leutnant Robert, then discuss the nature of the city of Takpaeq.
Leutnant Robert asks, "They have books down there?"
Sanchez explains, "They have pillars they worship."
Robert is appropriately horrified, "Ghastly. Sounds like they need the word of God down there."
Sanchez gently corrects him, "No they don't. See that red line? Your missionaries cross that and they get converted to buggitude."
Pépin exacts various promises from Leutnant Robert to not interfere with the huge phlogiston boiler in the access tower. He fully expects that the man will be messing with it in days, and possibly will be killed by his curiosity.
Pépin persuades trooper Friedrich to set camp inside the urgu-subur tower for a few days, to keep watch over Third-Brevet-Gul while the characters are inside. He hopes this will keep Friedrich alive if the massacre happens while they're underground.
The characters return to Takpaeq only to retrieve the clockwork deep-fryer and an incubator. This process takes a couple of days, but does not result in any fatalities.
Pépin investigates the Spiral of Malice briefly. He spots an aukikep hunched over in the shadows. The creature looks bigger than normal. He retreats before it sees him.
The characters take one last tour through some unexplored chambers. They encounter an interesting aetheric device that appears to contain holographic records of a unique aether ship design. They decide that they will disassemble it and take it with them. Along the way, they engage in a brief fight against two aukikep and a centipede. Heigen and Winston-Smythe shoot the centipede's head off. Smith kills one aukikep, Baranov pounds the other one into hamburger, but walks away with 17 points of injury. Pépin comes on deck with the selenium healing.
On more detailed review, the aether ship design is the same as the design Baranov saw in his visions back in the Chambers of Lore. Winston-Smythe thinks the sails are very different, probably slower than the designs he's used to but much more stable. It should provide good performance near planet surfaces or in places where the aether flows are unknown.
The characters discuss returning to Mars, and then heading to Saturn. Smith tells them that a short course to Mars will be available in three months. Baranov suggests getting the characters' ssaug henchmen wives before they depart, so they don't start doing weird wattle-licking behaviors on the trip to Saturn.
Each character gains three experience points.