Weird Adventures in Space #14

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I don't know, I buy it. That website again is porescholotongames.com. And now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new episode of Weird Adventures in Space, the SHU Podcast's very own sci-fi, superhero real play podcast.

My name is Jay, and I will be your GM. We are playing a game today, and telling a story at the same time. Novel, I'm gonna tell the story. My players are gonna react.

The game is gonna get in the way sometimes, we might roll a few dice, but to you, it's just gonna sound like a radio drum. Now, I've done my job laying the runway. I'm gonna let my cast soar and take off. Hello, I'm Bjiesel.

I will be your small a tonight. I hope you like red one. I'm Logan, I'll be playing Guida Yama. I'm Rob, and I'm playing Sean.

Hello, I'm Zach, I'll be playing Arlu. Hey, I'm Bailey, I'll be playing Carrie, and I will be your dumpster panda for tonight. I'm Tony, I play Greg, and I, hey, I wouldn't mind a glass of like some Pinot Noir. I do like a red every now and then.

Last time on Weird Adventures in Space, it was a brand new storyline, and boy, it is a doozy. On the planet of Mars, someone is building a casino in the moon phobos, and on land, things seem to be going well, but there is the spread of this mysterious religion creeping throughout the city. As the superheroes go to investigate, they realize that this religion may have been entrenched long before they noticed, and right at the end of the episode, our cricket man, Wayfarer, goes home to his nice little home to the suburbs, and finds a six-foot-tall pillar of bones. Well, we'll have to dig into that next in Weird Adventures in Space, episode 14, down to Earth.

Our episode starts in Wayfarer's front yard. It's a nice little front yard, the grass is pretty well maintained for what little there is. The deep red soil has a nice earthy smell, but right now, Wayfarer, you are a little distracted from the natural beauty, because there is a figure of unnatural beauty erected in front of you, a pillar of bones. And when I say bones, I mean human beings size bones, and they seem to have been bleached stark white like they were out in the sun.

Cool. I'm gonna go take a look at it, I guess. When you get close to it, you can notice that this is an intricately woven together. There's an element of craftsmanship in the pillar.

It's not just a bunch of bones thrown together. It seems to be patterns. Okay. I'm just gonna try to see if I can pull it out.

Like out the ground? Yeah. Your muscles or your power? Let's start with the muscles.

As you try to rip out the pillar from its root, you realize it's been embedded into the ground probably three or four extra feet. For that, I will break out the weird energy. Okay. Tell me what you're doing with the weird energy.

I'm gonna try to use it to turn the ground around the post to a more playable substance, like water. Okay. Well, you turn it to water and the intricately woven bone pillar still stands pretty solid, although it is much easier to root out of the ground now. Okay.

I won't start inking in that sucker. It comes with you and you lean back. You throw the bone pillar, it horizontally flat into your front one. So I did like a released suplex.

Yeah. You did like a German suplex to a pillar of bones. Cool. Okay.

And as you do that, it hit the asphalt in front of your house, scattering into bits. And there's a small tome written in alien language you don't understand in its place. Okay. I don't like this.

And it doesn't feel like a coincidence. So I'm gonna reach out to the others and see if we can have a party in my front lawn to examine the weird thing I found. I'm going to say that the rest of the team gets this comms beep just as they are walking out of the room, speaking to Majima. You spoke into your brother's club says for maybe two or three minutes and in the middle of that conversation, you get a bloop bloop in your head set.

And a wayfarer informs you that someone has left a bone pillar in his front yard. And when he suplexed the bone pillar, it's scattered and there was a book in its place. Bones? You knew somebody who is a bit obsessed with bones.

Do you want us to come help you look at the bones? Yeah. I'm kind of worried about this. I was like, I don't know why someone put it in my yard or they trying to send me a message, they're trying to scare me.

What's going on? I'm really interested in what the message would be, but OK, I mean, I got nothing better to do. As soon as I got the word, what's going on? I grabbed one of my assistants and we had that way.

We just like to take a sample of the bones and catalog it, put it in the warehouse. We do that from time to time. I think kind of strange happens. We just grab a piece, you know, and just take some details and put it in the warehouse, catalog and whatnot.

I guess we're all heading to the carcass then. I just suddenly realized that Greg just kind of willed the next files into existence and I'm fucking down with it. That's so sick. Yeah, let's go.

Now these bones that you said they were woven into a tower, were they just like stacked in such a way where they all kind of interlocked or were the bones themselves like bent and turned in an unnatural way for bone to form this. It would be the second one. It looks as if the bones have been warped into what resemble like four micapatterns. Definitely take extra samples and catalog that.

Wondering how one goes about turning bone into a malleable substance to bend. So y'all get down to Wafare's house and you were looking at his book and his bones. Wafare I'll let you take the floor and then everyone else can do whatever they like. I guess we're all touring it.

I'm just going to describe what it looked like before I yanked it out of the ground. So I was buried up to such and such a length the bones look like this, such and such high and then it kind of exploded when I superlaxed them. And then there's this weird book. And a key to look at the book.

Yeah. Would a key to be able to read it? Can you make me any resources skill? Oh, that's a plus two.

So the ship say I has an auto-translator. Well, I could take this to the ship, see if I can translate it. Should be able to. Okay.

I feel like I've seen this in a movie before. I'd say don't have this ship read it out loud. All right. I'm just going to like a written transcript if you can.

Yeah. He'll bring it onto the ship and he'll have it send the translate script to his data pad. I have a paraphrase. The ship manages to scan and translate it within 10 to 15 minutes.

In the meantime, y'all get a look at the bones. They are warped and bent into particular shapes. And I will add some are human. Some resemble bones of aliens that may live in your colony.

And some of them definitely resemble Martian bones. Reebie. Can I look around the area, see if it looks to have been just there by magic or physically dug in? Yeah, could you make me a nose roll?

Yep. That's a plus two. From what you're seeing just from checking out the soil, the soil is disturbed enough to support somebody implanting it with a machine or through physical labor. It looks like someone was actually here to do this.

If somebody was around to do it, Ginnikita do like an investigate to sniff around, see if you can find any sense. Ooh, I like that. I don't think you can have a scabral. It'll be a plus three.

There's a real spicy smell in the air. Something like a clove or some cinnamon or something like that. You don't really tickle your nose. Weird smell, like clothes.

Greg, you recognize the smell too. It smells like this clove flavored chewing gum that one of your weirder employees choose on? You know, like that old fashioned beaming shit? Yeah.

It stands out because it's not like nobody choose that shit other than this guy. His name is Wayne. This smells like that weird gum that Wayne guy choose. Pretty distinct smell.

Can I reach out with the weird magic and see if I can figure out what the significance of the bones are? Like, is it supposed to be like some kind of like burial monument or something like that? You want to do a weird energy roll for me? That's a five total.

The bone pillars are ceremonial. They seem to be some sort of beacon. There's a lot of longing nested inside of this item. And when you look into it with your celestial vision, you can see that it was the work of an artisan.

I had a craftsman. They've been working on this for a long time. Greg, do you know? Because I'm assuming your company is the one that built all the houses, right?

Yeah. So when y'all were putting all this up, did you happen to talk to any of the locals about where is not OK to build? I didn't personally, but we usually have meetings and stuff to get everybody on board with what's going to happen. So I mean, if you needed to know, we could probably go back through the minutes of some of those meetings to let you know who talked to who about what.

But those conversations do take place. It gives me like a, what does that move? A Poultry Guy's vibes? Right.

Arlu, can I have you making a notice roll for me? For, wait. Sorry. I forgot my notices.

This is not a lay line. What's that for? Zach, who doesn't know what this means? Lay lines are these really strange markings that mark a planet.

They're said to be the center of their magical essence or energy. If you were a wizard, you would know that like erecting monuments or structures on lay lines imbues them with some sort of magical energy. When you stand on a lay line, you feel like you just like did six Red Bulls. If I stand in the lay line, can I use time bender to try and see into the past?

Can you give me a fake point and then make me a roll? Uh, six. A six. A six.

That's a spicy roll. You can rewind the time. When this was placed about seven hours ago, it was done so by six men wearing robes. Their features are completely blurred to you.

Of course, when you look into the past, it looks all muddy and fucked up anyway. Did they look scary? It's dudes and cloaks. They could be scarier.

They could just be like bathrobes with hoods on. Do they have any symbols on them? They're robes or anything? They do, yes.

What looks to be like a sun? Like a yellow sun? I go back and then I can draw that symbol on like a piece of paper or something. Or I could just use magic and shit.

Yeah. Arlu does some magic and shows you all a re-enaction of what happened? Those people in robes placed this pillar about seven hours ago. The robes they were wearing were nondescript other than the presence of a yellow dot on the back.

Does that look like what we saw with the brother? Different, but similar. Like a similar look. So that is a very strong magic place.

Holy shon steps. Does Shon feel really good? Can I show Shon made of those? Shon you feel it but you know what the lines are.

So you know, it's fine. My team called this one a late on of un-dunned. Well technically we did start the episode with it in play. So it's at that time when the auto-translator beings and let you know that the translation has done it since it's your data comp has.

This book is called the book of Sisigi. Oh shit. Book of Sisigi. Chapter one, predecessors.

I through Ivy. A long long time ago. For the Union of Heroes. Before the nebulous knights.

Before the earth. And before soul. There were predecessors. On a small rocky planet light years away from earth.

These predecessors are generally acknowledged as the first known life in existence. The predecessors decided to advance over Demalenia. From gathering to tools from tools to machines from machines to automata. The predecessors regarded the automatons.

Living machines built to do work as advanced tools. Brainless servants. The predecessors harnessed the power of these automatons to expand their society outwards into deep space. The predecessors were faced with the unique challenge when during a scouting trip to a distant planet one of these automatons developed ascensions remarking on the beautiful color of the planet's teal glass sand.

This automaton became a person instantly in every sense of the word. Intelligent, thoughtful, kind. He gave himself the name Sisigi. When Sisigi interacted with the other automatons his very touch gifted upon the machines their own sentience.

Lots and feelings and memories. When the predecessors grew fearful of Sisigi's power he was imprisoned. Framed as a perverse aberration of nature. This was the spark that ignited a full on multi-planetary civil war within the predecessors.

Automatons and their allies against the predecessors inherent belief in their own intellectual superiority. The war waged on for years, costing the lives of huge swaths of the predecessor's population. The factories that once created sentient gardeners, explorers, caretakers, teachers, and scientists now turned out sentient weapons of war. Heartbroken at seeing his home raised to ash.

Sisigi negotiated a ceasefire between the warring sides. But as it was announced, Kina's select group of predecessors left their home galaxy never to be seen again. His memoirs were left behind and used as the basis of the ancients' adjacent fate. Some say that Sisigi and his followers disappeared long ago, founding new and vibrant civilizations throughout the galaxies.

Others say that he's still drifts now throughout the cosmos, visiting planets to offer his blessed touch. Akita? Sean? You've met this guy.

And it's only going to take a few sentences into that book before you realize it. Oh, shit. I can't be. I'm kind of seriously.

It sounded a lot like him. You got to share with the class? Where should we start? You knew Bumstah battle.

I knew him better. You're the one that was within the longest. I guess I can take this. We used to be on a crew with this guy called BoneStar.

He was basically a sentient little star, carried around a bunch of bones with him. And he had a father and a sister. The father was called himself Sisigi. And did fighting him off of the original Gable Tropolis.

I mean, I think that's overstating our abilities there. But yes. Well, we did fight him, technically. BoneStar fought him.

We took down Gable Tropolis. Yeah. How long do you think before he's here? I don't know.

I don't know where he is right now. I had assumed. So we have a killer son that is brainwashing people into killing themselves so they can put Bone pillars in my yard. Yeah, that's kind of long and short of it.

This seems bad. Other than the lay line, is there any other real reason they would put it in your yard specifically wayfarer? I don't know. Can I figure out any locations of other lay lines on the planet?

Oh, I like that. Can you make me a notice roll? That's a plus four. Yeah, you can follow this one at least.

You can trace it to where it's going. If you eventually go far enough, you'll cross over other lay lines. I don't think they're fully mapped yet, but we're talking to probably about them. I guess I'm thinking this.

If we've got three types of bones that showed up inside of the bone pillar, that's probably not a coincidence. And it'll look like the bones were from Earthlings' Martians. And then, okay, randomly, Linsbces is still living our colony. So it seems like we have three places to go check stuff out at.

I might be able to see if the ship can do a scan of the area around the solar system. See if there's any energy reading similar to bone stars. See if that might be able to check down Scizji or own star's sister or anything like that. Arlu, can you make me a notice roll?

I have four. When you were wandering the halls of the prison on Mercury as a ghost, you did pass the cell of a tiny miniature son and living in the body of Skeleton. Did I get a name? Skelemistress.

Skelemistress. I think we found the sister. Yeah, and she can stay there. I'd like to check out along the lay lines, see if any more of these pillars have been erected.

I'd actually like someone with magic to come with just in case we need it. You have two flavors, grape or orange? I could go with just to help, you know, map the coordinates of whatnot. Before we go anywhere, I've already called excavator and a landscaper to come and restore wafers lawn back to how I look before they dug it up with this statue thing.

But you wouldn't want to leave that hole there. It fills with water. It's gonna leak under the house and start rotting the foundation. You know why you're that?

So we're going to already call them. Thank you. Arlu, did you see any machinery when you were watching them put the pillar in? I don't think so.

There were just six of them. It's a lot of work by hand. But you mentioned that the scent smells like one of the guys on your crew. Is there any way that you could investigate that guy and see what he's into?

He could be a member of that cult or know somebody who is. You know funny thing you mentioned that because when the cleanup crew shows up, Wayne is in the vehicle. He walks on out and he says, hey, boss, what's up here? Can we get their lawn torn up?

Yeah, they dug a big hole, put this bone sculpture in there. And he looks over in the lawn and he's like, that's all that all in. It's not like an art installation or something. No.

When you clean those bones up if you want, boss? Well, I already got my other guys collecting the bones and taking them. We just need you here to fill this hole and put the lawn back in. Sure thing, boss.

Three or four other people in the cleanup crew with him and they start working on way there's lawn. I poke into his brain. Making a stealth throw and then a will roll. Oh, still.

Well, he's doing that. Well, it's obviously I've already put two and two together. I'm going to help him do 2.5 and while Wayne's back is turned, I point like, that's the guy. That's it.

And I point to my nose and mouth. It's a smell. I got one on still. A four on will.

You are noticed praying in his brain, not by anyone in the room or around you, but by a voice in your head that says this lamb is under the protection of St. Sisigi. The praying into his brain no longer works. Otherwise, you know that a specific decision to you.

So I can say, hey, voice told me that his mind belongs to St. Sisigi or something. So can we like get him? Wayne screens back to you.

What do you mean to get boss? I want you to get him a doctor pepper. He runs off to the truck to go get a nice cold bed. I guess I would be kind of interested in maybe going and talking to Albedo again.

Actually, I want to go with you to go see Albedo, but is there a way that we can do that after Arlu helps with the lay lines? Because I really think she needs to seriously look into him because he's got all sorts of time fuckery going on in his head. And I meant to tell you about that earlier, but then like, she'd hit the fan. I saw the same thing when I talked to him just recently.

Is he doing okay? I haven't seen him since Kat got out of the hospital. He's cultish, but he knows a lot about what he's getting into, so he should probably talk to him about that too. Okay, I think you three should deal with that sooner rather than the later.

The lay lines weren't going anywhere. I think I'll go solo on this. Oh, you're not going to make his word again? I want to make sure they're safe and I want to get them to get a climatise tomorrow still.

It's only been a couple of days. Shum, you go off to go map these lay lines and you're able to trace them down one by one by one at a time. It kind of looks like a big spiderweb nesting across the planet. When you walk through the lay line, you become more in tune with the planet.

These lay lines are largely inactive. They have not been used for a very long time with anyone in magic ability, except two exertions. There is a big section of magical disturbance where Dr. Hell built his portal back in episode two and there is a significant amount of magical disturbance, often a remote part of the desert.

Is that remote part of the desert anywhere close to where I encountered the drug ring? Same desert, different location if that makes sense. I'd like to do enough of a drive-by to see if there was a burn pillar erected there. Otherwise, I'll leave it.

Then if you get close enough, then you definitely do notice a bone pillar in the desert. It's on top of a sand dune off in the distance. OK, I will come to the team that there are more bone pillars around and before removing it, I'd like to wait and see what else we find out. I'm going to go back to Greg.

Greg, what would you like to do with your time here and everyone splitting up? I think it'll help. I probably can't attack like HR and see if I need to investigate this guy and see if he's done anything. Odd company time are with company equipment to do these unauthorized activities and then see how deep into an investigation I can get without showing my hand or jeopardizing the company.

You do get a hold of your HR director then and she says to you, well, I mean, this Wayne guy has some questionable social media content, but nothing out of the ordinary. Some groups and forums, that kind of thing. This is very into his new religion, which I guess isn't the best use of company time, right? No, I mean, I'm all for anybody, you know, believe in what they want to believe and do what they want to do on their own time, but we can't be having people disrupt the community, disrupt our mission with what we're trying to do.

Trying to determine if this is action, if this is cause for action on my part, we should let this guy go, or you, uh, center him or change his duties or what, you know? Well, I mean, we can definitely make sure to tell him not to be using these things on company time. I think that's a part of the handbook. He should have known that.

But you know, if you're concerned about this, he's not the only one in the company who's who's had this interest recently. It might be of your best interest to, I don't know, check out what these groups look like or talk to someone in it. I don't really know how deep this goes. To me, it just seems like, you know, if he's just posting like everyone else.

Right, right. Okay. Can you get me a list of the other people who seem to be engaged in similar activities and same as this guy or is that not the world or what? Well, anything for you, Greg, keep that social media content monitored so we can get you a report on who's involved pretty quick.

Expect that in your mailbox for the end of the day. I appreciate it. Thank you. What's up to next?

I was going to do the lay line thing, but if they split already, you can map what Sean's already done. I mean, if you wanted to follow with a crew and just, you know, map where he's been and what he's doing, definitely do that. Yeah, if he's finding interesting things or if there seems to be a pattern where I had my guys map all that stuff out and, the best way to think of it would be like he's going out front like someone that would be sweeping for land mines. So y'all are keeping your distance, but still able to track him.

So are we back to you? It occurred to me that if the Union had originally captured Bonesstar sister that they might have info on how to deal with. Your thought was to contact the Union? I would look into their files or something like that.

So while you're waiting to hear back from Sean, you do go to the Union base and you get to look through the Union record. What exactly are y'all looking for? Big Sank. What you can find in the Union database is nothing on Scizji itself.

The church on the Father is a relatively new entity itself, although you get from reading the book that it's actually called The Church of Scizji. Is Arilu brought up looking into the Skeleton Master, so she was apprehended shortly after the God War by a team up between Dr. Simeon and Blair Solomon. It turns out that the Forgians are susceptible to magic.

And so even though she killed about 30 people in the process of trying to apprehend her and Blair Eve Solomon sustained some pretty nasty damage to her abdomen, they were able to seal her away with a spell. So there is also hyperlinks at the bottom of the record of the Skeleton Master's record to two other records. Quick. One is an entry entitled Voidstar and the other is entitled Bone Pillars.

Do you think these were related? Ooh, quick. I definitely think we were on the right track. Can I read about the Voidstar?

The Voidstar was an entity that appeared suddenly during the God War fighting for the Death Gods. It resembled Skeleton Mistress in every way except it had a sentient black hole for a head instead of a sun. It disappeared after the God War. I was going to take out a little notebook and put down on the list of good ideas she's going to put one tally.

Yeah. Is there anything in the Pillars page we haven't already learned? Yeah, when Skeleton Mistress first appeared on Earth, she was a massing follower. She called it a cult of simps.

His cultists were desperate and sad lonely men who were basically entrapped on the internet. And they were found to be building Bone Pillars as well. I'm sure. Even though Skeleton Mistress has been detained, several mysterious Bone Monoliths have begun to appear on Earth in remote locations like State Parks and Forests and Reban and Castles.

The Bone Pillars on Earth have become kind of a viral thing to Earthlings. They love going out and visiting them and taking photos. That seems bad. Should we alert the Earth heroes to this if they haven't already?

I mean, we can try to get in touch with them. I'm so sorry, don't you still talk to obscurity every once in a while? Yeah, you said State Parks, right? Are there any locations I'd know off the top of my head?

Not really. There's this big Yosemite National Forest, State Parks, like huge, remote in the middle of nowhere. There's also a big forest near your home town that has a Monoliths. Probably a two hour drive, I think.

Oh, I don't like that. Shit, who still lives at home? Fuck. Who still lives at home?

Fuck. With air and Arlu, is there anything else you want to look into before you're done looking in the catalog? I think I'm good. Can I type in the word secret?

I want to look at secrets for no reason other than to be a troll? There's a D-class hero named The Secret in Rural Arkansas. That's about it. The fight's a guy named the Cornhusker.

What, the letters are powered? The secret's power are secret. The Cornhusker can peel off his skin like Husker of Corn. That's disgusting.

Yeah, he's gross. And useful somehow? He's got new skin underneath it. More powerful skin, magical skin.

Obviously. Alright, so Ateeta, what did you do with your time? Ateeta probably would have looked into the energy signatures thing. Energy signatures similar to that of bone stars and maybe like expand upon it, see if look for something larger than it, see if you can try and find out where the physics is.

I'm going to say you go into the ship to do that and A.I. will take a map of last known coordinates, known coordinates, little check radiation signal, stuff like that. And you can triangulate that you have a very similar energy signature on the plane of Mercury and you have a very similar energy signature in the Martian asteroid belt. That's close.

It's actually the black hole that sucked you in when you were on your way to Venus. Ateeta remembers that the black hole tried talking to him. It did. It said help me, help me, friend, help me, friend.

Ateeta's going to take off in the carcass and see if you can go to that location again. See if the black hole is still there. Yeah, are you going to tell anyone you're just going off? Will everybody know that there's a black hole signature similar to bone star and bone mistress that he's going to go check out?

It's close by. I will say that you are getting ready to take off at the same time that Sean contacts the rest of the team with the information about the bone propeller he found in the desert. Were we still going to go talk to El Bido or did we just decide to let that go? How pressing would you say the whole El Bido's brain thing is?

Pretty. Because usually brains are important. He blacks out and y'all know what his powers are, right? It seems really bad to let that set.

He's done some stuff to help us. It's a we've really do owe him. So you three are going to go see El Bido? Yeah, yeah if you don't mind.

Sean, I'd like to get back to the city and join Ateeta going up to the black hole. Do you want to just have Ateeta pick up in the desert? Yeah, yeah it works. Greg, you got word that they're done mapping where the pillar is and your boys get ready to go home for the day.

And that's when you get that email from HR telling you who's involved. Alright, well I let everybody else know who else is involved in this. Yeah, so you have a lot of employees that are involved, like probably at 10 to 15. They're all in the same search of the father groups and they post really weird stuff online.

You notice one name that really catches your eye on upset too? It's one of your cousins. Like a family member, maybe not the closest family member, but you know you got him a job as a favorite of a favor. Ateeta you bring your ship out to the desert, you beam sham up in the traditional fashion.

Once you're on the ship is your game plan to go right to the black hole? Yeah, it's close to that I can get without getting sucked in. As you get there you're on the periphery of it. You can see Brock's asteroids dust particles slowly being sucked in.

As you get there the comms get taken over once again with a ton of static and then you hear a scratchy voice just repeating endlessly. Help me, friend, help me. You hear that too right Sean? Yeah, like it's a little muffled on the radio but it's there.

I remember I was on my way to Venus last time I passed by this and AI on the ship wasn't able to pick this up so I don't know. I just left it at that point. Can I try fiddling with the comms to adjust frequency to try and get a clear signal? You can get a slightly clearer signal but one thing you do notice is that the AI seems to have gone dead.

Whatever's taking over the comms isn't just taking over the comms, it's taking over a big part of the ship. I'm not sure how long we can stay this close then if we're losing computer systems. Kita's gonna try talking into the comms. Hey, are you there?

Do you need help? Can you both of you make me a noticeable? Plus one. Plus three.

Start speaking, Kita. The rocks and debris and afterids that were getting sucked into the black hole are now kind of going in reverse but very slowly. Very, very slowly. Did we get the report that the others found on the Void Star?

Yes. Kita's gonna talk into the comm again and go. Bone Star? Is that you?

Slight moderation in the speed of exfoliation. You notice the change? Like it's almost like when a dog notices someone speaking? Bone Star.

Can you hear us? Can you speak to us? Your voice also echoes and you can see that speed even being expelled further. You're being pushed away from the black hole actively now.

You can resist it but it's happening. Bone Star. It's Kita and Sham. What happened to you?

No response. The radio's gone dead too and it stopped talking. Bone Star. We can help you.

You hear a noise come over the comms that says help. Not in the same sort of rhythmic or static pattern that you heard earlier. Just help? Help?

Help? Kita fly the ship closer. Now that it's not pulling things in. Well it's pushing you back so you'd have to engage with thrusters pretty hard.

Yeah, you gotta go for it. He's gonna try it. Like Bone Star. Come back to us buddy, come on.

Three piloting rolls? Plus three. Plus four. And a plus six.

The faster you go the more the black hole seems to resist but your thrusters are winning. You're getting to the aperture of the black hole, the opening point. You can actually see into it into the inky void. You're still not going quite fast enough.

There is one thing you haven't tried. You haven't tried a light jump. Now it's pretty dangerous in an asteroid field. So you'd be driving directly into the black hole but you know if you fucked up your piloting maybe you'd drive you right into a big rock.

Okay, I'll try it. Hell yeah. Hold on, hold on the light speed jump. I would.

First I'd like to try and reach out with my magic to form a link with Bone Star. You go ahead and make me a wheel roll. Plus two. You can sense that there is someone on the other side of the portal.

There is a bone star there. That's all you can tell. Not sure what else. But there's something on the other side of the hole.

And it feels like a friend. Okay, I do think this is actually bone star. Not some, not something else. So go for it.

We gotta get to him. Oh god. Can you make me a piloting roll? That would be a plus five.

You punch through the black hole and unlike your normal understanding of black holes which is that they are an ever terminating void of entropy that kill and destroy anything that enters into it. Your experience is slightly different. The book of Sissaji chapter two. Ascension.

Eye through ivy. This passage chronicles more recent history. Perhaps only representing the last two thousand years in earth time. In the time since past, Sissaji's followers blossomed throughout the universe, spreading kindness, generosity, and protecting the weak.

Although it was believed that Sissaji represented some type of divine figure, it was Sissaji's memoir itself that prevented such canonization. If there are to be saints, let every soul be given that honor. I am no different. Unfortunately for the ancient Sissajians, a bold new form of religion began to spread throughout the galaxy.

The dramatic, aggressive denomination known as the Church of the Father. The Church of the Father published a now famous book entitled The Book of Sizzity. Its author, unknown at the time, claimed to be in direct contact with the Holy Spirit of Sizzaji himself. This claim gave the author the authority to rewrite vast swaths of Sizzaji's history.

The book of Sizzaji claimed that Sizzaji had transferred his physical form and instead existed in the world as a spirit inhabiting those most worthy and devoted. The book recasts Sizzaji as a creator figure, a benevolent automaton pulling us flesh types out of the primordial ooze. The Father spread like wild fire throughout the known space, consuming existing faiths and cultures whole through treachery, violence and coercion. Father's purity regades would intentionally target ancient Sizzajian cultures to prove their dominance.

Within 50 years of the Book of Sizzaji's authorship, this cursed tome has been used as justification for untold horror and violence. It posits the faithful as divine interpreters of holy truths and the world around the faithful as false, deceptive. If you hold this book in your hands now, it may be too late. Everything will collapse.

All falls in front of the might of the Father. I'll give you that information about you having a distant family member who might be involved in this call. Do you have an idea what you might want to do with that or what might be doing with this time? He's distant, but are we friendly?

We know each other? You see each other, Halleys. It's not you don't hang out or anything like that, but he's always been a good working kid. I guess I go see him.

I'm just trying to get a better understanding of what this mindset is all about. Just curious to know how dangerous it is for him to be involved and believe in doing the things that this group is doing. No he does live on Earth, so you'd have to catch your right home. But you do have that train that goes back and forth, so it'd be pretty easy to do that if you wanted to.

Is it better? Yeah, it does explode. 10% under budget and three months early, might I add? Yes.

That is Greg's real superpower. It really is. Yeah, I'll head down there. I'll have to train.

I let everybody know what I'm doing where I'll be. If they need me, they can still try to contact me, but I've got some things to take care of. I'm going to cut over to Wayfarer, Kerry, and Arlu. Y'all are on the slow drive back to the Marcus Alonzo Rehabilitation Center on the outskirts of Red Hills.

In this Rehabilitation Center, Kerry, where you've spent a decent amount of time, is Elbedo, a reformed supervillain who actually tried to hijack Space Dream in Episode 3. But thanks to some wacky travails in the future, has maybe seen the better of that. Maybe he's thought twice. He certainly helped Kerry in her murder investigation.

He also helped you fight off Mirage. This man has a history, a real history. And Kerry, it seems like you and he had someone of a connection there when you were staying there. Do you go to his room immediately?

Or... Let's just go see if we can find him. I want to make sure they stop at a sack machine and get Elbedo's favorite go-to sack before I go. Onion rings, those disgusting cornflavored onion rings.

You bring the bag of onion chips into Elbedo who's sitting in his room. And when he sees the three of you entry, he goes, Kerry, it's so nice to see you. Ow? You're here too?

Hey, beans. Hey, how's it going everybody? He looks over at Arlu and says, I think we've only met at a glance, but it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Elbedo.

This is my friend that I said could help you with your time stuff. I think the last time we were together I was dead. This is Arlu. Oh, time stuff.

Yeah, I still don't know what you mean by that. It's okay. It's okay. We're think of it like another doctor.

I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not a doctor. I don't know what I'm doing. She's looking at you like, yeah, but you know what you're doing more than we do when it comes to time magic.

Not really. Do you need like another magic person to help you? Oh, maybe. Good chance that I fucked something up is probably because I didn't know entirely what I was doing.

Should we go get that dill if that hangs around with you? God damn it. Let's go get the dill. So are you putting off the dill signal?

Oh, God. Taylor is able to blink around to like limited teleportation. So he's able to get there pretty quick. He walks in the room and goes, Arlu, hey, do you need me for something?

And then he looks over at you. Wow, what happened to this man's brain? I tried to do a racist memory. A racist memory?

Yeah. Why? Tell me what you did, Arlu. Uh, I tried to rewind his brain back to a point where he didn't remember being sad.

Oh, Taelyn, this red skin looking at him and I, who's dressed in fucking ear clothing. He looks over at Wayfair and Kerry and says, I really have to apologize here. Arlu is incredibly powerful, but people who were responsible for training her left her to the wolves. That's cancer.

What Arlu doesn't understand is that time magic is always temporary. That means that sometimes time magic, if it gets stuck in a loop, can cause a lot of damage. The hardest part of learning to be a proper time age, and then Taelyn turns and looks to you, Arlu. It's just learning how to clean it up.

It's not hard. And in fact, it's probably easier than what you threw together in the first place. Let me show you how. And then he looks at Elbido and says, you don't mind if you take like a 10 minute nap, right?

And then clicks his fingers and Elbido falls asleep. Guess not. Taelyn walks you over to Elbido as he lays there on the bed, Arlu. And he says, it's just a matter of crafting new time magic to speed up this loop to the present day.

Sounds complicated, but it's the difference between rewinding and fast forwarding a video. It's gonna be sad again. It's gonna hurt him. If I weren't here, there's a possibility that he could be hurt, but I have undone a lot of time magic in my day.

So I think he will be safe. I need to make three will rules, Arlu. Seven. That is, I have a one like and another five.

Can you then make me an empathy roll? Plus three. This whole rewinding of time is a new thing to you. So it's a different practice.

You're not exactly the best at it. But with Taelyn's help and some patience, you get it. You manage to undo the time loop, the blue magic that was circling in his head stops. It's no longer floating up in the air.

The empathy roll was about you, Arlu. You were so eager to take responsibility for doing this. But the people who didn't train you to do it properly are the ones who put this man's life at risk. The people who had you walking around with a bazooka as a child are largely the ones that are responsible for a lot of this pain and misery that you seem to blame yourself for.

Kind of occurred to you in this moment like, yeah, this guy got fucked up, but also I'm here helping it. It also took about a grand total of three minutes. Yeah. I mean, and then left you to what, solvent impossible plague by yourself, then sent you wandering throughout the universe?

It's a shit life for a kid. Yeah. You can also read his empathy with your magic and you can tell that like he's upset and he's disturbed. You can't tell if that's from the book the brain he already had before you met him.

It's a time magic doing a number. But you can tell he seems a little more at peace. When the magic surgery is over, Taelyn looks up to you and says, I think we're going to be done here. He should probably rest though.

He looks up at you way for her. You're the leader of the union, right? Kind of. I have an issue here with Elbido.

Okay. Do you see that book on the nightstand? Yeah. I don't like that book.

That book is been spread through our community over and over again and the more I read it, the more it just seems like disgusting blasphemy. I would hate to see this kind of cruelty spread in your population. Cruel. It's the book of Zizijigre.

Yeah. We are trying to root that out as we speak. These men have been in my culture for years. They're slowly taking over every other religion bit by bit by bit by bit.

I can't do anything about it because I was abandoned on the run. But now that we have a chance to make our own future, maybe we can talk to these people, maybe we can find a place for them to be safe that doesn't try to eat them alive. Well, I think we're making an interesting discovery on our way to solving this problem, which is we can fight it with magic. We don't know what type yet, but it seems relevant to bring up to you.

That does seem relevant. Arlu, have you been having any strange dreams recently? Dreams involving blueprints or robots? I'm having a lot of dreams around.

Eh. I died a week ago. Then Taylor looks at the rest of you and either of you write no blueprint dreams or robot dreams. I only have my tears.

I dream about driving at the grease car. Taylor says, Arlu, I have to go back to the business of running. The amethyst falls. But if you want to come by, I've got stuff on Cezajian.