Clockmaker

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======Session 26======

This session was played on 2025-12-20. [[pc:clark_dubois|Clark]], [[pc:gaia_dynko|Gaia]] and [[pc:maelle_kurimoto|Maelle]] work as local guides for [[npc:Riung]]'s vacation day in the [[place:nuskom#zone|Nuskom Zone]]

======Plot======

A week after the [[session:25|Umichooan Inquiry on Rigasian Issues]] ended unsatisfactorily for all involved parts, Claire, Gaia and Maelle are asked to come to the Guildhouse by [[npc:Ferret]]; they arrive to find a huge pile of fresh steel ingots in the courtyard and a very confused trucker being given instructions by [[npc:Eliza Baron]].

On meeting Ferret, they learn that the ingots are payment given to the Guild house by Riung, who has requested them three to work one day as her guides to do a tour of the Deep Nuskom Zone in her vacation day.

So two days later, they found themselves walking with Riung through the now abandoned staging ground for the Nuskom Yearly Hunt, and crossing the wall into the outer zone.

This becomes a metaphorical walk through memory lane, as they step through places where previous sessions have taken place.

They find themselves close to the place where [[npc:Agent Kort]]'s helicopter crashed, and Riung notices the missing soldiers that got unstuck from regular spacetime, now dead but still invisible to the naked eye.

They follow the lake bank up to a stream, and follow the stream upwards to the place where they found [[thing:the glove]], fought [[npc:Victor Vituska]] and [[npc:Zach Shpak]] was frozen. Except that the jeep is broken down, rusted and covered in vegetation, and the only signs of the battle are the tree that Vituska almost shredded, now fallen to the ground, with a mere stump remaining.

They follow the path where they pursued [[npc:Maal]] towards the Deep Zone, until they reach the place where the first gravity anomalies start, and Riung notices that there are many of them as they go deeper and deeper.

They reach the border of the Deep Zone, and there Derek stops to wait, to be their help in case something happens. And from there, they go into the area originally blasted by the Bomb.

Maelle is confused because the remains of any streets they might remember from their childhood have been totally erased by the bomb and time, but then they start noticing other marks: a broken down rigasian tank next to the skeletal remains of an anagusi war wolf, and as they advance more and more signs of the Kesizman incursion and Rigasian counterattack.

And finally, close to ground zero, they find the tank that Claire managed to freeze [[session:8|so long ago]]. And it "speaks".

//Let me out. Let me out. Let me out.//

Gaia and Riung are understandably creeped, not only because of the usual, but because the message is getting stronger and stronger. First Maelle, and then Claire start getting it.

Gaia has a brainwave and notes that the dream message becoming stronger sounds very similar to what the glass bones she has been experimenting with do. She says this aloud, but neither of her companions remember having a glass bone on them. 

Claire just… forgot about it.

And then the bone in Claire's possession manages to actualized an echo of something that looks very much like a woman, flayed alive, and it attacks Claire as it shouts "Let me out!"

They soon discover that whatever this one manifestation is, it is continuously adapting to what they do. It first becomes hard enough to not be hurt by Maelle's sword, then its body becomes a loose collection of worm-looking things that can't be hurt by bullets, then they become bubbling and hot, and immune to Claire's attempts to freeze them.

And then Gaia tries to connect with its mind, and can only feel something incredibly vast and far away repeating //Let me out// time and time again.

Claire finds herself in trouble because the mass of worms tries to drown and choke her, but in the end, Maelle and Gaia manage to improvise a molotov cocktail to burn what remains to cinders, and they tend to Claire's wounds.

Maelle and Gaia decide that they have now a probably intact Koteglia Mechanism that they can take, and try to convince Claire (still disgusted by the worm situation) to unfreeze the tank, and Riung (still reeling from whatever the mind connected to that thing was) to help them disarm the mechanism. Both Claire and Riung accept, and Maelle goes into the very dark and cramped tank to disengage the safeties and take the core.

They manage it, but while they're celebrating, the Puppeteer appears behind them, faking worry for what Riung has done, and what will her handlers think.

Gaia and Maelle explode in anger, and the Puppeteer brushes most of it off, but draws the line at Maelle shouting at his face. He then holds them in the air and threatens, and is only stopped by Riung getting in the way and saying she accepts whatever he wants.

So now they have a Koteglia Mechanism, but Riung owes the Puppeteer a favor.

======Cast======

  * [[pc:Claire Dubois]]
  * [[pc:Gaia Dynko]]
  * [[pc:Maelle Kurimoto]]
  * [[npc:Amanda]]
  * [[npc:Derek]]
  * [[npc:Ferret]]
  * [[npc:Eliza Baron]]
  * [[npc:Riung]]
  * [[npc:Puppeteer]]
  * Confused Trucker
  * Valtshoran Militiamen

======Quotes======

  * **Maelle**: Did you all need steel for something?
  * **Ferret**: Well, I was trying to negotiate a payment, and you know that the price of gold and jewels fluctuates a lot? So apparently ms. Riung here decided that steel had a stable enough price that she could pay us a couple million in ingots.
  * **Riung**: Finding the right kind of impurities you need to use them in your usual work was an interesting exercise.

  * **Claire**: Wait, are we gonna do mercenary work for them?
  * **Ferret**: Okay, so, Ms. Riung here wants to take a vacation day. And she wants to actually do the tourism thing. In the deep zone.
  * **Gaia**: Can I go too?

  * **Gaia**: You are floating; isn't that using the Machine?
  * **Riung**: Passive uses of the Machine don't count; otherwise I'd have to go naked, unable to understand your language, and probably brain dead.

  * **Claire**: If you want us to keep you safe so you don't have to do anything, then I'll have to ask you to not do anything without our express permission, and to do as we say.
  * **Riung**: I am very good at doing that.

  * **Ferret**: Uh, Claire, Gaia… and… I don't think I need to explain this to Maelle: you understand that the vacation thing is bullshit, no?

  * //You can see a couple of wererabbit corpses they shot recently. They put them in a row to photograph them, like Ferret did so many sessions ago. That brings up memories.//
  * **Claire**: Damn, I wish I could make sausage of that.
  * **Gaia**: Were the last ones good?
  * **Claire**: Pretty tough, but filling.

  * **Claire**: I don't think my power is influenced by movement and position, so I'm not sure how that works for me.
  * **Riung**: Not influenced? What do you think heat is, Claire?
  * **Claire**: It's fire stuff? Like warmth
  * **Gaia**: Yeah when it's not cold its warm
  * **Maelle**: (dies inside)

  * **Gaia**: Can you freeze metal?
  * **Riung**: Metal is already frozen. but you can melt it if you heat it enough.
  * **Maelle**: ..Its.... Already frozen Gaia...
  * **Gaia**: But its not cold?

  * **Riung**: Are there any particular stories tied to this one path?
  * **Maelle**: We found an Anagusi lady here
  * **Claire**: They were very lost     
  * **Maelle** By the time we got to any shelter we were in Nuskom and had a gunfight with some Rigasian soldiers…
  * **Gaia**: Actually do you think we will ever meet her again?

  * **Maelle**: Hope is better than nothing anyhow. It brought countries up from disaster in the past.
  * **Riung**: My experience with hope does not match. the Old Empire hoped that if we ignored the signs of a coming apocalypse it would not happen. And now we live in a world after the Breaking.

  * **Riung**: Long-term planning is not a luxury; it's a burden. Being able to live without care for the future, because you have hope… that's a luxury.

  * **Maelle**: I did hear someone mention that war is humanities gift, so…
  * **Riung**: Whoever said that has never watched ants, or mushrooms. War is the natural state of every single being alive. achieving peace requires an effort of will.

  * **Riung**: A sad fact about being so connected to the subtle machine is that I'm always seeing corpses. I try to not get used to tragedy. I have known many who are just numb to it, and they are not… well.

  * **Maelle**: °We already know its made of Sludge, we could maybe see what the hell its about a bit more from this…°
  * **Gaia**: °Are you hiding your thoughts from Claire? Riung can hear us anyway. Say hi, Riung.°
  * **Riung**: Hi.
  * **Maelle**: °Fuck.°
  * **Claire**: Hm?

  * **Gaia**: I checked on my zone bones recently, and they were not fine. Whatever is happening right now reminds me of how bones are supposed to work, did any of you bring a bone here?

  * //In the most Cronemberg transformation you have ever seen, the thing falls from Claire's hand and becomes a roughly humanoid skinless shape.//
  * **Thing**: Let. Me. Out!

  * **Thing**: Unmake this prison of reality and Set. Me. Free!
  * **Claire**: We are trying, stop moving!

  * **Maelle**: Get out of Claire you wormy son of a bitch! Burn!

  * **Claire**: I'm gonna need to take my monthly bath early this time.

  * **Riung**: You killed an echo of a dream of a fragment of a little piece of something that is in truth very far from here, and at the same time, too close. Something that wants the entirety of the reality that sustains us to stop being so it can be free.
  * **Maelle**: What the hell is the core, Riung?
  * **Riung**: …//Hyuní//.

  * **Maelle**: Hah. Hahah. Hello. I have a Koteglia Mechanism in my hand.

  * **Maelle**: We need to get this to Iorena and Kesizma as fast as possible. Thank you very much Riung.
  * **Puppeteer**: (suddenly there) Yes, thank you very much, Riung. Haaa-haa.

  * **Maelle**: Eat a load of shit //Pete//.
  * **Puppeteer**: Oh, how forward. Also, I tried that once. I did not like it.

  * **Puppeteer**: I have been keeping an eye on this one little keepeer. And I was right! she's getting into trouble. What would happen if her overseer learned of this? Shameful, plainly shameful.

  * **Puppeteer**: I only need a little favor from our keeper, and it will be like I was not here today. What do you say, Riung?

  * **Puppeteer**: No one is supposed to know about the Clockmaker.
  * **Claire**: What's the Clockmaker?
  * **Gaia**: Did he make the thing where Iorena stores her alcohol?
  * **Maelle**: So that's the name then? Clockmaker? That's what the //Hyuní//'s name is?
  * **Puppeteer**: Don't you hear it? Screaming to be let out like the biggest screamiest child fallen in a well? It has been there since the Breaking. Umichoo's biggest shame.
======Trivia======

[[pc:Rose]] was getting ready to release [[https://git.gay/Stigstille/Secret-Santa-Game-Jam-2025|a game]].

An alternate title/tagline for the session would have been Memory Lane, since quite a bit of it consisted on the party showing Riung the places where most their adventures in the zone happened, and reminiscing about it.

After the attack on the Valtshoran delegation in [[place:Dimes]], at least one of the candidates for the elections has dropped from the race and lost his foot; in contrast Iorena had some posters of herself done showing her eyepatch that says "Still Here".

The fight with the Demiurge's Manifestation's Mote's Echo was not actually in the original campaign notes; instead the players would face a quite powerful but regular aberration. But Claire's player decided to play with a glass bone to see what happened. She found out.

A Demiurge Mote would have been the monster hunting the party in the halloween session if the players had chosen to play as the Rigasian spelunkers that found the original Sludge.

At the end of the fight, Claire was considering jumping into a gravitational anomaly just to get something new to hurt the Thing, then Maelle remembered the bottle of almost pure ethanol they were carrying.

Getting the Koteglia Mechanism out of the tank required a natural +4 in addition to Riung's guidance and Maelle managed it, even if they had to burn all their remaining fate points to do so.

We thought that the players hated [[npc:Victor Vituska]], but that hate is nothing compared to the //loathing// they seem to feel for the Puppeteer.

[[thing:The Clockmaker]] wants out.