Clockmaker

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======Session 4======

This session was played on 27/07/2025. Several days after the
[[session:3|previous one]], [[pc:clark_dubois|Clark]] and
[[pc:gaia_dynko|Gaia]] are recruited to escort [[pc:Maelle Kurimoto]] to
investigate the freezing of [[npc:zach_shpak|Zach]] but instead find a very
strange person being hunted by the [[org:rigasian army]].

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

Iorena meets with Clark to discuss the events that resulted in Zach being frozen and in rigasian custody. Clark refuses to elaborate and is very defensive, but Iorena refuses to press on and instead offers her help if he ever feels himself cornered by Rigasia and in particular the Paranormal Foundation

Gaia returns to the [[place:Pole Land]] to do more testing with [[thing:the glove]]. Once again, [[npc:Amanda]] becomes visible as something gigantic other than a simple squirrel, and this time she actually exchanges some words with Gaia. Amanda tells Gaia that she should take the glove off before she can't anymore, and Gaia suddenly finds herself lying in the floor, the short exchange having actually taken more than one hour in real time.

Maelle manages to get access to the frozen body of Zach, despite a lot of obstructions put there by the Rigasian administration. She interrogates doctor Halkin and attempts to measure the amount of reality variance being put out by the effect, discovering to her surprise that there's none. Halkin ignores her observations though.

Maelle then recruits Clark and Gaia as the people who found the body originally, and is led by them to the place in the stream where the fight with Vituska took place. Maelle is very confused by the signs the fight left in the land, but is interrupted in her investigation by an helicopter flying dangerously inside the zone blasting a message telling all army units that there's a "dangerous psychic" loose inside.

Gaia is ambushed and attacked by [[npc:maal|someone]]. To the party's surprise, she looks like a neanderthal woman. She can't communicate with them or defeat them, but she manages to escape, with Gaia close behind her.

Gaia follows the trail of the neanderthal woman towards the deep zone, but falls prey to a gravity distortion and ends falling down a hill, unconscious.

Clark and Maelle meet a rigasian patrol who are searching for the "psychic", and Clarke reveals they are in the trail of one of them, who is herself on the trail of a strange woman. They join in their pursuit.

Gaia wakes up tied in the ruins of a basement in the outskirts of Nuskom and discovers that the woman she has been following is talking to Amanda. After a lot of mimicry and some misunderstandings the woman, who calls herself Maal, seems to understand that "Rigasia" is not the same as "Nuskom"

Clark, Maelle, and the patrol follow the trail to the ruins of a house in the outskirts of the deep zone, but get into a discussion about Clark and Maelle going inside with the patrol. The discussion is interrupted by Maal, who has apparently a //very// good sense of hearing, and knows how to shoot Gaia's rifle.

Being slightly high from being close to the deep zone for the first time in years, Maelle says a couple things she should not normally say, and the patrol interprets it as they being on the side of the shooter, so Maelle and Clark end having to take refuge in the basement and defending it from the patrol.

After the fight is done, and with Clark being extremely pissed off and Maelle still quite high on the victory, Maal communicates her farewells, walks up to the border of the deep zone, and opens a stable gate to [[place:Kesizma]], returning home, to the astonishment and horror of the party.

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

* [[pc:Clark Dubois]]
  * [[pc:Gaia Dynko]]
  * [[pc:Maelle Kurimoto]]
  * [[npc:Iorena Sevel]]
  * [[npc:Maal]]
  * [[npc:Ossip Halkin]]
  * Unnamed Not-My-Problem Soldier
  * Unnamed Patrol Sergeant
  * Unnamed Patrol Soldier 1
  * Unnamed Patrol Soldier 2
  * Unnamed Patrol Soldier 3
  * Unnamed Patrol Soldier 4
  * Unnamed Patrol Soldier 5

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

* **Clark**: So lass, what do you want to talk about?
  * **Iorena**: I haven't been a lass in decades, young man, but regardless […] if you have secrets you'd rather don't have told, i'm on your side. I have seen to many young people who were recruited by the Paranormal Foundation, and either never wrote back or their letters look very strange. If you want to keep that on the low, i will say nothing else about it, and if you need someone to help you keeping it quiet, you can count on me, alright?
  * **Clark**: Me? I'm sorry madam but I feel like you got the wrong impression here, the only witchcraft I do is placing traps where those monsters walk, nothing else. I Ain't a freak

* **Maelle**: What's with the circular saw, Halkin?
  * **Halkin**: Forensic analysis will not give us a hint because she does not defrost at all. In fact nothing can penetrate the ice because it freezes if you push hard enough.
  * **Maelle**: Y-you tried to fuckin' penetrate the ice? Isn't she alive? Why the hell would you even do that?

* **Gaia**: (looking at drugtrip world-spawning Amanda) Did you unlock like an ancient knowledge or something?
  * **AMANDA**: I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN WHAT I AM.
  * **Gaia**: Do you talk differently now or do I heard you weirdly and with changed speech patterns?
  * **AMANDA**: YOU ARE LOOKING UPWARDS AND SLOWLY. SO SLOWLY. IF YOU KEEP SLOWING DOWN YOU MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO GO BACK.

* **Iorena**: So, do you want this, Mr. Dubois, or would you rather go into a more regular hunt and let Miss. Kurimoto to her own devices to find whatever happened there?
  * **Clark**: I'll accept that job. I don't like that we came back without even seeing that lynx last time
  * **Iorena**: Well, this job does not mention the lynx explicitly. just keep Miss. Kurimoto safe.  Maybe answer her questions if you're comfortable and haven't been forbidden to do so already.
  * **Gaia**: If she touches me with her weird doctor metal sticks I will kill her on the spot.
  * **Iorena**: Just sign here and here and you're ready to go. Next!

* **Clark**: Nom di dju who the fuck are you!

* //The woman has very buff arms and is easily pushing Gaia off her. Gaia is trying to resist and bite, but can't do anything as she is pushed off. Then Maelle and Clark come. Maelle hits the woman who flinches, and Clark accidentally hits Gaia so in average you did nothing to the fight.//

* //Oh. We're doing it. Grievous harm with a body. First time in this campaign. Clark gets hit with Maelle's head. In the face.//

* **Maelle**: I've… got… this…
  * //Maelle and Clark are in the ground and do not have this.//

* //…you follow the track beyond a hill, and then you stop for a moment, because you can see Nuskom. It's the closest you've ever been to the city in all your life and it's kinda creepy.//
  * //There are very few standing buildings, and most of them are overgrown with vegetation. There's a lot of stuff that can grow over some city ruins during twenty years.//
  * //For some reason you expected it to be silent but instead it's very noisy. The wind blows, and you can hear running water. there are birds crying somewhere.  What you can't hear is people. no shouts, no sounds of talking, no engines.  Nature has claimed this place.//

* //Okay, you slowly make your way up the rock. starts a bit steep, but it gets easier as you go up and the slope becomes less. And then you notice that it's getting too easy.  Like, you are climbing this with very little effort.//
  * //You kick up and almost are thrown up to the air because you suddenly feel entirely weightless and lose your hold on the rock.//
  * //And the next thing you see is the ground coming up to your face.//

* //There's a shoot and the sergeant falls to the floor, injured.//
  * **Maelle**: Oh! Good shot, Clark… Was it you?
  * **Clark**: That wasn't me, take cover!

* **Clark**: What the fuck is going on, why are we shooting at the soldiers?
  * **Maelle**: Well they started first! And, they would've killed her! I fucking know they would've killed the neanderthal!
  * **Clark**: You told them I shoot the fucking sergeant!
  * **Maelle**: I thought it was you!
  * **Clark**: Why the fuck would I have done that?
  * **Maelle**: I have no idea! How could I have known she could shoot a rifle?

* //…Maelle was exchanging blows with the other soldier and then Maal came from behind with the metal chair she was sitting on when talking to Gaia, and broke it on the soldier head. That soldier is very down.//

* //Maal stops, spreads her arms wide, and **the sound** starts.//
  * **Gaia**: Run!
  * **Clark**: Nondidju is that?!
  * **Maelle**: What the hell is she doing?
  * //It's louder and clearer than you have ever heard it, and then all around
    Maal you can see it. Like a million small bubbles of mercury, reflecting
    everything around themselves, merging with each other to form a stream of
    shapes around Maal, until they gather in front of her, slowly becoming a
    perfect sphere, taller than two people.//
  * //Maal turns to you for one last time, waves and says "Kesizma" before
    pushing her hand into the ball. And then as she goes in, you can see
    something through waves in the surface. It's gigantic. It's a fucking city
    inside a cave. And she steps into it.//
  * **Clark**: The fuck.
  * **Maelle**: I.
  * //Small droplets of floating mirror vanish into the air as if they were
    never there, and everything is calm again.//

======Trivia======

Apparently Maal has extremely good luck when performing awesome or hilarous feats of strength: first, she got a perfect roll when hitting Clark with Maelle; then she managed to finish a rigasian soldier with a broken-down metal chair, prompting Maelle's player to call her "neolithic queen".

Clark got a new tick where he will to start speaking in Wallonian in moments of stress. Sadly, the poor man has a lot of those.

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