Bidding a sad farewell to the delights of Ravenna, our heroes lifted for De Moley. Having a chartered ship, they were able to skip landing at Lemmenkainen and Aylon, and made the trip in half the time it would have taken ordinarily.
Before landing, the cute pirate twins Thomas and Theodore gave a thorough multimedia briefing on De Moley, so our heroes had some idea what they were getting into. Alas, it did not deter them.
Upon landing at the spaceport at Temple, Matsushida asked directions to Atmosphere Dome 3, as mentioned in the letter from the other Matsushida, only to be told that no one had called the domes by number for hundreds of years. Dome 3 was now Nash. Somewhat alarmed by this discrepency, Matsushida was nevertheless determined to track down the Ur artifact mentioned in the letter.
Jaana and Halley's desire to visit their old friend Brother Antonius somehow overrode Matsushida's wish to look for the mysterious statue immediately, and the group took the tube train to Castle, the dome city nearest the Order of St Mantius' underground fortress of Ruad. Sadly, the tube trains of De Moley are of an inferior design, and cannot be spun.
While the others saw the few sights and drank the mediocre liquor of Castle, Dread Pirate Elektra went to get her hair done to complement the effects of her new lightning shield. In the barber shop, she had a chance encounter with Baron Veroni, a not-so-dread but obnoxious pirate Elektra once referred to as a pasta dish. Threats were exchanged and weapons fondled, but the barber sharpening his scissors in support of Elektra sent Pasta Boy away twirling his mustaches.
The night was uneventful, at least outside Matsushida and Gwen's suite. The next morning, Jaana and Halley went to Ruad to see Brother Antonius, and everyone else went along with them Luckily, Oblate Antonius's training for Acolyte status was in a stage where he could receive visitors, and the three of them spent quite some time catching up on old gossip.
While in Ruad, Matsushida and Gwen paid a courtesy call on Sister Moreta Li Halan, the Orthodox liaison to the Order of St Mantius and a distant cousin of Matsushida's. As usual, Moreta exhorted him to join the church and take up a life of holiness. As usual, Matsushida was unmoved.
The next day, our heroes travelled by tube train to Nash, to undertake the investigation into Matsushida's mystery. They arrived uneventfully and took lodging in Nash. That evening, Jaana and Matsushida went to scout Area 34, the Church-interdicted zone that included the area described in the letter. Despite the vagueness of the directions, they were able to narrow the search area to two peaks, the bases of which were of course invisible from publicly accessible areas.
While Matsushida was away scouting, Gwen dreamed:
Gwen is standing in a desolate wasteland, ruins of a burned city to her left. She is in a vacc suit, unarmed, surrounded by hundreds of enemy soldiers. Feeling a presence behind her, she turns and sees a man in Order of St Mantius powered armor with flame detailing and trim. This seems significant, but she has no idea what it means. He's holding two swords, one of which he passes to her, and then he turns to fight back to back with her. Although he handed her an ordinary sword, when she looks, she's holding Coeur De Leone. They fight against the enemy hordes, and eventually prevail, neither wounded nor even with suit punctures; the toxic atmosphere hasn't gotten them. The other fighter says her name, and the voice is Matsushida's. Then they're inside an airlock with real air and she's pulling his helmet off, but the armor is an empty shell. As she wakes, Gwen isn't sure what name he actually said, only that it was hers.The next day was spent preparing for the raid: renting a jeep and vacsuits, arguing over who was going, etc. That night, they drove to the edge of Area 34, hid the jeep between some large rocks, and snuck to the base of the more likely mountain, avoiding a patrol on the way.
Indeed, at the base of the mountain was a Second Republic airlock, with a keypad lock. While Halley and Royo worked on opening it, Jaana went scouting and found a Church patrol lurking behind a nearby ridge, watching them.
Nothing anyone could think of opened the keypad lock. Finally, Halley called upon Arcadia for inspiration, and typed in the first number that came to mind. As the lock s l o w l y irised open, the patrol leapt out from behind the ridge and came thundering down on our heros with many offical cries.
Piling into the base in the nick of time and thumping the EMERGENCY CLOSE button, our heroes spread out to search the facility (a branch of the Phavian Institute, with pamphlets in the lobby, just as described). Except for the pamphlets, however, it was completely empty, and certainly did not contain a giant stone fist as large as Matsushida.
By this time, the patrol had gotten the airlock open and was storming into the base. Our heroes' perfunctory attempt to hide in the air ducts was of no use against the highly trained soldiers of the Order, and they were soon dragged out and dressed down by the leader of the patrol, a female Acolyte wearing the Adept Robes named Ivythorn. Matsushida attempted to take the role of annoying but mostly harmless titled parasite, in hopes of getting the Order to not take him seriously and just throw him and his companions out instead of actually prosecuting them.
The soldiers dragged our heros back to Ruad by groundcar, an extremely long and uncomfortable journey not improved by Gwen's constant and mostly fruitless questioning of the Acolyte (the only fact gained was that the armor with flame details was called Firebrand), and threw them into a cell of only middling quality. The next morning, Matsushida prevailed upon his cousin Moreta to get better quarters, but she was clearly visibly Disappointed In Matsushida. Matsushida, not having realized Moreta's opinion of him could be lowered, was vaguely guilty but in too deep to do anything about it.
In the morning, they were moved to the promised better quarters, and Brother Antonius paid them a visit, to take confession. Jaana confessed to the sin of poor tactics, and accepts her penance. Matsushida confessed to some of his motivations, but held out on the evil twin story. The others confessed to the stupidity of having followed Matsushida.
Later, Antonius paid them another visit to tell them what he found in the Order's records: in 4546, Sir Remzao Li Halan (Knight of St. Lextius), Brother Saul Avendus (Acolyte of St Mantius, with the Adept Robes named Firebrand), and Father John Foster (of the Orthodox clergy) broke into the Phavian installation and found an Ur artifact in the shape of a giant stone fist. The artifact was taken away and stored by the Order for about a hundred years, after which it mysteriously vanished, and has not been seen since.
Having leveled with them, Brother Antonius explained that if they level with him, he might be able to get them out of this mess.
Matsushida went ahead and confessed the whole story, including writing out a copy of the letter from memory for Antonius. The similarity of this half-millenium-old adventure of a Li Halan, a warrior, and an orthodox priest to the adventure of Matsushida, Royo, and Father Orin as described in the letter did not go unremarked.
<<Reciprocation [Index] Headaches All Around>>This file was last modified at 1635 on 22Jun99 by trip@idiom.com.