This session was played on 11/10/2025. Clark, Gaia and Maelle meet a squad of rigasian tank pilots and let me out let me out let me out let me out.

After the events of the previous session, Clark and Maelle meet with Djama and his council to give their version of events about the aberrations and the freezing of the wall.

Gaia wanders for a bit in search of Mauto, who she finds slowly walking back to her bed, with the help of Fulan, and both of them having a pretty heated conversation about Kesizma's policy of non-intervention on those territories they hold: Fulan insists they are just strengthening the position of slavery-based empires, whereas Mauto says that they have no right to erase the local culture of timelines that are not theirs.

Gaia talks to Mauto, and tells her that they need to keep moving as fast as possible; Mauto agrees, mentioning that clearly there's a portal storm going on, and further explains that this was probably caused by the rigasians forcing their portals closed, and is the reason strange aberrations are appearing in the surrounding timelines.

Gaia then proposes talking to Ariyadna so see if she can accelerate Mauto's healing process; Mauto agrees.

Still talking with Djama's Council, Clark and Maelle find themselves trying to explain why dealing with Rigasia is a bad idea, but they are stumped both by the language barrier and the fact that expectations of the locals are very different from theirs.

Back with the council, Fulan conmiserates with Maelle explaining that it's hard to explain the kind of pervasive power Rigasia holds over half of the world, for those who haven't experienced a world so interconnected.

Clark takes some time to study the still living lizards that Maelle incapacitated, trying to find a way to kill them without their tumors exploding. They deduce that maybe if they were drugged or cooled to death they might not, but doesn't have the means to experiment more, and clearly the aberrations are dealing with a severe case of zone withdrawal.

Gaia finds the adult version of Ariyadna, who is sitting on a roof getting drunk after her first talk with her past self, and they talk about the time loop (Gaia calls it stupid, Ariyadna agrees but also believes whole-heartedly that it's necessary to not cause a timeline-erasing paradox), and about healing Mauto (Ariyadna agrees, just not when she's drunk).

At the same time, Maelle is keeping an eye on the child version of Ariyadna, and taking note of her schedule (studying and training with a lot of abuse mixed in), and trying to make a plan to help her somehow.

The situation is interrupted when a squad of rigasian tank riders reaches the fort. They are led by a black man (Captain Zomajen) who seems to be fluent in the Rigasian timeline version of Maninka and manages to communicate with the locals.

Maelle manages to talk to Zomajen selling him a story about they being mesogeian allies investigating the same bullshit as the tank squad, revealing the presence of Corporal Schidera to them, and getting a bunch of interesting news in exchange: the rigasians are trying to find where the “root” Kesizman timeline is, but have only recently learned that they don't have one.

Maelle also learns that after Rigasia dropped a (conventional) bomb in the Nuskom Zone, Valtshora revolted, and they are getting support from both Kesizma and Zhongguo. Zomajen version of facts has a lot of rigasian propaganda mixed in, though, where the valtshoran rebels are being painted as blackcaps.

Gaia is as fascinated by the ela-GAT as ever, but this time, when she approaches them she start perceiving a voice that keeps saying “let me out”; this scares both Clark and Amanda, who try to pull Gaia off the things.

They end bringing Gaia to see Derek, who seems to be feeling quite a lot better, and then they get very distracted because apparently growing fox ears made Clark able to talk with Derek, to the astonishment of everyone present. The situation devolves for a bit into trying to pet Clark's ears, and Maelle starts getting into their wine stash, making them think that bringing Fulan to see the ears is a good idea. Fulan tries to be as polite as possible and pretends to not notice the appendages barely covered by Clark's hat, but winks to Clark as he's leaving.

Still wanting to see the tanks and find what is inside them, Gaia tries to leave during the night, but trips into a noise trap left by Clark, who anticipated the situation: Clark pursues Gaia through the fort as Maelle (still reeling from too much strong wine) makes a straight line for the fort gates.

Clark manages to catch Gaia and they have a heated discussion about the tanks, with both talking past each other, but this is interrupted when one of the tanks starts moving by itself, to the astonishment of the rigasian squad, who start trying to stop the thing unsucessfully.

Being the only one at the gates, Maelle watches how the tank haphazardly moves towards the closed doors and starts pressing towards them starting to bend the wood. The rigasians manage to use chains and hooks to grab onto the tank with the other two and start pulling back.

Reaching the gate, Gaia and Clark join Maelle at gawking at the situation. Maelle suggests that Clark takes the glove and freezes the tank, while Gaia tries to unsucessfully communicate with whatever it is, then puts the glove on herself and sees let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out.

She passes out.

• Clark Dubois
• Gaia Dynko
• Maelle Kurimoto
• Amanda
• Derek
• Mauto
• Fulan ibn Fulan
• Djama
• Jaled
• Ariyadna (Child)
• Ariyadna (Looper)
• Captain Zomajen
• Djama's Council
• Malian bowmen
• Malian spearmen

• Fulan: Heard you shoot a lizard and it exploded?
• Gaia: Yeah.
• Fulan: I have shot a lot of stuff but never got anything that big to explode. Was it the lizard or the bullet?

• Fulan: You know, the nice thing about the world is that if you keep looking around you are never bored.

• Mauto: Portals are made by bringing two timelines together, but timelines need to warp to do that; if you let them go suddenly, they will keep vibrating for a while and random events will keep happening.

• Councilwoman: Are rigasians killing slaves in their mines in droves?
• Maelle: Kind of?
• Councilwoman: Are they taking children and woman from their parents and husbands to “reeducate them”?

• Fulan: Welcome to the club of making them try to understand the kind of bullshit Rigasia is. I've been trying for years. I think Djama gets at least part of it at this point, but thinks he can ride the wave to get something out ot it without compromising too much. And well, at this point I kinda agree with him a bit because I have seen the mines.

• Fulan: The problem is, in our timeline at least, some centuries from now, Mesogeians will come down here and find that the slave trade is thriving, so they will optimize it by buying slaves here and sending them to the other side of the ocean. They will make it worse.

• Ariyadna: Imagine this: several years ago I had my first talk with older me, and it was kind of terrifying and weird. Today I was the older me, and I was just as terrifying and weird because that's how that talk goes.

• Gaia: Isn't [a loop] dumb? Just doing something so it's done? Like, without a real purpose?
• Ariyadna: It is very dumb, but do you know what happens if time goes wonky and the ends don't meet? The Umichooans found the answer: the fucking timeline stops existing. So my choices are either to do the loop or everyone dies.

• Ariyadna: One thing I haven't done: I never looked how it ends for you and your fiends. I know what you are going to do, but then you'll be free to do whatever you want. Consider it a gift.

• You get quite a bit of Baby Ariyadna's daily life that apparently consists on a lot of listening to lectures, and reciting stuff verbatim (and getting a light rap on the knuckles when she gets something wrong).
• Also apparently gift training, where they give her a small heap of sand and salt and she has to separate it. She is never left alone. Ever.

• Let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out let me out.

• Gaia: It wants to be free? No idea what it's about but we should take it.
• Maelle: What wants to be free?
• Clark: What? Want to be free? Are you feeling alright?
• Gaia: I talk to squirrels. I can now speaks to tanks too it seems.

• Zomajen: Oh, shit, where do I begin? Apparently the Kesizmensisis couldn't actually set a base on our side so instead they started doing backstabby bullshit. They actually got a deal with a bunch of valtshoran factions from the War, and apparently they are getting Kesizmensisis support. So it might be the second great war all over again. Fucking Blackcaps in charge, from what we can hear in the radio.

• Clark: By the way, Derek, how are you feeling?
• Derek: I am… better. I believe I will…
• Maelle: Did fucking Derek understand Clark?
• Clark: What the fuck?
• Gaia: He's… better?
• Clark: I understood you?
• Derek: You understood me? I understood you!

• Clark suddenly discovers that Maelle is a very good fighter. They think they are going to dodge and suddenly they are totally flipped around and immovilized in one move. And then Gaia takes the hat.
• Derek: (Seeing Clark's new ears) That explains nothing. I have more questions now.

• Maelle: (Patting Clark's ears) Feels somewhat like Derek's fur.
• Clark: Actually I'm pretty sure mine's fluffier; Derek's fur is quite rough. Wait, why do I care about that?.

• Maelle: Gaia, take his hat off again!
• Fulan: Come on, Maelle; there's this thing named consent. We respect people's bodily autonomy, okay?

• Clark: Stop trying to listen to the obviously dangerous voice telling you to go toward Rigasian stuff.
• Gaia: You risked your life to help people that tried to kill us, now you refuse to let me check what's going on with something that wants freedom? it also didn't try to kill us.
• Clark: Well its more that I distrust whatever mental magic bullshit is telling you to do.
• Gaia: What if it can help us? Also it seems that it can't do anything without us anyway so what's wrong with just checking what's all of it about? Also I really want to see the tank.
• Clark: You're not being yourself, there's something wrong with that obsession.
• Gaia: It's not obsession, I just want to see what is it all about. I'm sure there's something we can get out of it.

• Gaia puts on the glove, and as always AMANDA is there, large as the entirety of the land, and her eyes spanning the horizon, but then she sees the SKY it takes her breath away.
• Because now the sky is it's own thing, and it dwarfs everything you see, including AMANDA.
• It is sad, it is scared, it is in pain.
• LET ME OUT.
• LET ME OUT.
• LET ME OUT.
• And then her gaze turns towards the GAT and she sees that there's a fragment of the sky trapped inside it, its voice echoing the bigger whole.
• LET.
• ME.
• OUT.

Rose created this page.

Gaia's player lost track of time and we started the session twenty minutes later.

The scene where Maelle wanted to warn the council about potential depredations from Rigasia, but hit a bit of a brick wall because the medieval understanding of working conditions is a lot worse than a twentieth century one should have been a lot less favorable for the rigasians, because as a spy Maelle should know that the rigasians do a lot more than that… but they tend to keep the worst stuff outside their own state. Or restricted to populations that they consider fair target. Which the Malians would be.

Clark's ability to understand Derek started as a player joke, but it landed so well that it has become a thing.

“Zomajen” is the rigasian variation of the name “Thompson”

And yes, he calls them “Kesizmensisis” because rigasians decided to call them Homo Kesizmensis.

Between Ariyadna and Maelle, the number of people hiding into a bottle (actually a clay jar) to cope with the bullshit on their life is starting to get worrying.

On retrospect the second half of the session, after Gaia started to hear “let me out” coming from the rigasian tank might have been a bit creepier/more triggering than expected, and Gaia's player had a hard time handling the end.

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