Onto the Cyber-Papacy...

It is, in effect, a glimpse of things to come. No, it is not something like a "disconnect" where the mystical link between the PCs' far off cosm's axioms are severed (subjecting them to the axioms which they are present in). No, it's...more akin to something like "axiom wash", an event which can actually .... ...change a person (mentally as well as perhaps physically)...

Sigin

"What the....?" I mutter to myself, taken aback from what I see both with mundane sight and mage sight as I (like my other time long time TARDIS travelmates) rush to "my" PC.

They've collapsed, all of the sudden. Naturally, I slipped into mage sight to see if they were under some kind of mage attack. Because of the....well....emotional investment I have upon my character, I naturally rushed over to him first. Indeed, it was my regaling of the tales and fun I had with this character (as well as explaining various mechanics of Torg) to Chiana I had secretively intrigued her enough to want to "roll up" a new character the next time Inquirer and the rest of us get together for a game!

Yes, Talok....my character....

Perhaps not the most fair choice, but I made it so I shall live with it and sort it out later with the others (if need be). But....

....

Ah, but off all the various characters I have played under the various role playing systems Inquirer uses, I must say I found Talok the most.....fun. Real chance to step out of myself in a way (but perhaps not too far out, being that both he and I are of the reptilian persuasion when you get down to it).

What I had glimpsed via mage sight before in the Torg world (and Torg people) around me had been puzzling, naturally. After all, things still are (or were for the PCs) an odd blending of alien (axiom derived Torgian) physics and the stuff I and others were familiar with. Would if I could, I would have just loved to spent time just studying it, thus furthering my knowledge within both the arcane realms (as well as boning up on this new realm of "science"). However, not only is there really not enough time (with all the pressing matters), it would just not be bloody proper and decent to just go haring off in the pursuit of knowledge whilst everything and everyone was in danger. Would be on par with me giving the "two fingers" (a vile gesture from my world that seems to correspond to a similar gesture found on almost all of the Englands" of the various worlds known "Earth").

"Axiom wash," Inquirer seems to almost whisper, guessing at what she's witnessing whilst she herself slips into the mystical sense a magic user is gifted with (where they can see the makeup of the world and magic about them). It's the only thing it can be.

Despite myself (having known that such was possible), I shiver a bit. See, I shan't rehash the exact mechanics of how Inquirer finally explained it during the game sessions, but what I see matches this VERY closely. However, not totally. To be expected, I feel, since the "wash" is happening because the axioms are being leeched out and replaced with what I am familiar with. My realities physics (which aren't Torg axiom based) might not usually do things like I am witnessing (Good GOD, I'm seeing an actual matrix forming within Talok)! This is a special case, though.

Results are what you'd get if an Ord (non-Strom Knight) gets caught in the flood of alien axioms of an invading cosm. Talok is being transformed to fit into my realities rules to be able to survive there. Or rather, I feel it might be "sort of" like that. See, to understand my ramblings you must understand Talok's background.

Originally, Talok came from the primitive stone age cosm called "The Living Lands" and like his kin, had been a savage hunter. Interested in only "living things" and experience (his religion there had been one of a sensualist, for want of a better word). His entire life (at the core of it) was one of experiencing new and different sensations, and in doing so giving homage to his original goddess. But when he got touched by "Aylse", he got transformed. He had a change of religion, feeling and converting to a "minor" goddess of honor, Mesus (due in part to some kinship he felt to a half lizard/human "half-folk" friend who'd converted him to his religion, a religion of most "half-folks" of Aysle). Long story, but the basic thing here is that before then he had been a primitive stone aged savage. After, he was a paladin of Mesus, a holy warrior fighting for her name. The transformation basically meant that in effect, Aylse had adopted him as her own!

There'll be further implications here later as more changes crop up outside, but that's later....

That said...

And that explains why Talok actually changes form, being that there are actually none of his original race having ever been born (or originated) on Aylse. Instead, I watch him in a bit of dismay shift and warp into a "lizard man" (term used to describe a "half-folk" who was a human/lizard hyrbid). Basically, he still a humanoid lizard, but.....now he was a bit different in that he had a rather longer tail and a bit more human in stance and such (Note: if you ever get your hands on the book Torg: Aylse and look at the lizard man on page 133, that's what Talok looks like now, right down to the bits of armor and loin cloth). Still savage looking in a sense, but then again a bit more civilized in that...he's wearing clothes now.

Not that it mattered before, but still....now he's at least a bit more in style than...

Ah, never mind. If clothing style is of any importance right now in this mess, then I'm a dwarven knight!

....

As perhaps you might have guessed, a lot of questions are being thrown about (making a touchy situation even more so for some). We do finally manage to sort things out and figure out just what (in part) what it means. Basically, what I feel is going to happen to people (and perhaps even places) is this. We're going to see Torgian things translated into their nearest versions of my reality. Meaning that the users of Weird Science from the Nile Empire setting are going to become what has become termed Techno-Wizards (a term borrowed from Palladium's Rifts), meaning that their devices and "science" is actually a blending of traditional magery and the discipline of science into a marriage of the two. A good example would be....well..... The Professor's robot dog "Fluffy" is a great example of this, now. See, instead of being a construction which frankly makes no sense to ordinary scientists of his world but ultimately a decidedly non-magical, mechanical creation....he's....now a hybrid of more understandable "science" (if on the exotic side) and magery. Basically, Fluffy is still a robotic dog, but who's power source (as well as what passes for some other things within) are magical based. In other words, in the case of Fluffies power source, it is no longer....whatever the bloody heck it was before (batteries I believe), it now runs off of magic enriched gems).

That and it appears that behavior (from what we see here as well as from elsewhere later) enforced by axioms will be translated over into cultural upbringing.

....

If you need me to explain the last part, I’ll put it this way. Before in the Nile Empire annex on Core Earth, the transformed folks there had to act in the same way as those native to that Cosm (i.e. they now had a morality of absolutes in morality. Either they were good or they were evil. No moral grey areas for them, folks)!

That said....back to the tehno-wizardry stuff...

The look that Betty gets when at first Professor Bernard thinks nothing of this (but slowly dawns upon him that that wasn't how he'd made Fluffy).....

I have to shake my head myself. 'Tis strange.

Ah, but the rest aren't as changed as the others. Hardly changed at all, really. Heh, believe me. In a reality where the actual superhero known as Superman can exist (re: 13434), then those with other than "weird science" pulp powers are not much is going to be too terribly alien in translation for the PCs! Even the non-Nile folks aren't much transformed, since we have equivalents from my homeland.

"Figures," I mutter to myself, nodding.

What? my love, Chiana, asks coyly, her draconian side making her curious at what her mate/husband is thinking of right now.

I quickly (and mentally) explain to her what my thoughts are (shivering myself as I share....so.... nice).

.....

Hrmph. Where was I?

Ah, but the end result of all this (especially when we explain our next target after, they gracefully bow out following with us. Understandable, since like in the game, this (transformed) Torg group had one very bad experience in France and has generally been trying hard to stay away from it ever since.

Ugly business that had been. If nothing else, it taught me that Inquirer isn't one to pull punches if we make mistakes. Makes her games fair and still fun, but still the memories kind of sting me because back in that game I'd....

....

Nevermind, got sidetracked there.

No, the thing here is that they're very receptive (after we calm them down about the changes, telling them that we had warned them such had been coming...sooner or later) to us requesting that they stay behind and kind of consolidate our victory over Mobius. Get news out about his defeat to the other Storm Knight network (yes, there is such a thing in Inquirer's game....they do network) so when and if we have to tap resources, we can have an easier time approaching the other Storm Knights for aid. That and probably they'll be the only ones able to explain clearly enough to the Israelis and her (for now) Arab allies that whilst they can come into the place and clobber Mobius' forces, there is no real need (especially after we get done with him and hand the villain over to the PCs to give to them for war crime trials or whatever). Would be really ugly if one of those desperate nations gets froggy upon seeing that their weapons of mass destruction now suddenly will be effective in the Nile Empire, decide to us them out of a sudden fear that this might be some kind of trick by Mobius which might destroy them unless they strike and strike now with the only chance at one final, deadly blow to the Nile Empire, NOW!

That and spread the word to the world in general (and the High Lords in particular in effect, hopefully) that there were some New Players in town. In effect, it was just a little more of a push to make the High Lords a bit more defensive (making them harder targets for us, yes....but also harder targets for the Company goons).....

Ah, but we're getting ahead of ourselves, are we not?

Well, right now we Champions (after seeing the PCs off to go to a meeting place where we'll turn over Mobius to them....got to take that Darkness Device chunk or whatever out of him first) need to do things!

First, as I said, we need to get that aspect of the now defunct Darkness Device aspect (whatever exactly it is....the Doctor and Inquirer are heading up the effort in using some of the more esoteric equipment left behind by this TARDIS' last (now dead) owner).

.....

Some of the gear we'd found back there still chills me. Agreed whole heartedly with Inquirer when we'd gotten done with the inventory we all had taken soon upon the Doctor gaining ownership of the TARDIS she had said bluntly: "This stuff is getting off and getting off now!"

As for the other thing, it still is a fact that we have not gotten that "wormhole equation" data out of Critchon's skull! Something we'd better rectify before he can come to harm. Much is riding on that, since the Rules and Agents had told him (directly) that it was a prime key at saving a lot of folks lives from runaway wormholes....

Finally tell him that, adding that I'll be the one "poking around in there". He nervously laughs, hoping aloud that it won't be like it had been for him in Scorpius' (that butcher!) Aurora chair.

"And could you do something about this....crappy taste in my mouth?" he asks, pointing at his tongue after he finishes his question.

Ah, the healing potion I'd used on him still has that linger, vile tasting side effect.

Shaking my head slightly, saying "no" in effect, I tell him that it couldn't be helped. Adding that I'd originally planned it for me before meeting him.

"You needed it more, though, at the time," I finish up, "I thought, anyway. Had not felt I'd collapse prematurely from mage battle fatigue soon after."

"Uh, right." he sighs, then saying something alluding to one of his pop- culture fixations that I probably could follow (if I was frankly interested in doing the research).

Whilst I am rather more up on 20th century terms and TV shows than I had been, some things I failed to ever get an interest in (and thus didn't bother delving into). After all, I do have the right to pick an chose what I please, right?

But meanwhile, back on Core Earth, Nile Empire annex, a person named Scorpius.....

.....far away from the Storm Gate which, in an admittedly insane escape now out into space but via a Prowler flown down and over it (scaring the bejesus out of an already frightened Mobius earlier)....

.....funny how a detail like that had been overlooked by the PCs and thus not mentioned to them to the Champions.....then again they'd been underground and away from hearing or seeing the event....and nobody else involved afterwards had thought to mention it to the Champions.....pity....

How was that flight possible, given the....

Ah, don't ask! Just put it down as Scorpy being able to do it and we'll leave out the confusing detail, 'kay? He did it. Live with it and move on, 'kay?

Now....

They had landed the Prowler at a nearby town (scaring the primitives). Then, for whatever reason, Scoropius found out that his erstwhile assistant wasn't who she had appeared to be!

Was due to dead batteries. She'd forgotten in the madness to switch them out..... Sloppy....

Now?

He is looking down at the shockingly red headed (and now very dead) lab assistant who'd apparently been trying to play him along into a position, he discovered upon interrogating her, where she'd be able to "bag him" (her words) and "put him on ice" until she could contact her superiors. Doing this, she'd look very good to her masters, and put herself in a better position for promotion (what with him being a grand catch for interrogation and such).

He'd been rather....startled to see that a small device she'd been wearing had been able to actually fool his senses (as well as everyone else back at the Gammak base) into believing that this woman was a legitimate Peace Keeper (instead of a human being (!) masquerading).

The fact that she'd (gloatingly) admitted even through the pain (my....such crude manners of information gathering only left to him after his chair was destroyed, what a pity) that she'd played him. Manipulating him and the rest of his staff into opening the door for the invasion of his Gammak base.

Do believe that Scorpy wasn't too happy about that...

But despite this turn of events (and having barely avoided the betrayal by being swifter than she, despite sedatives given him whilst she'd been healing his wounds....long story).....

Despite the long odds, he had some unexpected windfalls....from the alien equipment he'd found packed away by the human spy!

Something called a "replicator" which she'd planned on using to create needed cooling rods (items needed by Scorpy to keep him alive due to his mixed Scarren/Sebaccian heritage) until her handlers picked them up.

Fascinating technology, whoever these aliens (the "Company") where! Scorpy was impressed if nothing else!

He’d make this "Company" and it’s spy, "Critchon" pay for their interference in his affairs!

And with this other item he’d come across (and who’s use he’d gotten from the interrogation), a "universal translator" , he’d be able to go out and get (hopefully) some much needed information from the natives!!

Data he needed and the only (long shot as it might be) place he could get it was from the people outside his ship!

Thus armed and equipped (with his present "cooling rods" being strained very much by the heat outside), he went....acreepin’

Hey, this is Scorpy we’re talking about here. Goodness knows that he’s gotten lots of skills in his time before finally landing his Gammak head scientist gig. If nothing else, in the show Farscape we’d seen hints at this!

Thus whilst creeping around, looking for likely candidates for "fact finding" he freezes as he sees . . . . a familiar looking blue box grind into existence (causing quiet the panic amongst the villagers, alas). He remembers the TARDIS from his last encounter with the Doctor’s group, and thus he’s very attentive when he sees the PCs exit.

Yes, in typical Farscape bad luck, the point of contact for later on for the PCs and Champions is right here! So while the PCs await for the business inside the TARDIS to be done at a local hotel to have drinks or whatever (village has one, luckily)...one of the PCs excuses himself to get....relief in the restroom....

And gets jumped by Scropy. Not the Major’s day..... He’ll live and be found (later) in the building further out in the outskirts of the village (sight of the interrogation), but still...

Uh, after the interrogation (i.e. the beating) Scorpy gives the hapless man, it’s very...enlightening for Scorpy. He now knows a bit more on the "game", and is planning on trying one move ahead.

"This Cyber-Papacy sounds....not my thing," he says, thinking of the security around this High Lord there, "But perhaps this Lady up in England with Aylse?"

And we still have the Company to make a move in this drama!

1. A’hunting we shall go!

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