Cyberpunk Session 17

The cavern and the statue

As we continue to move down the unexplored path it's hard to tell exactly how much time as past - even with checking our watches it's still uncertain and the cold is continuing to sap the warmth from our bodies. The murmuring ahead has a rythmic chanting feel to it. Shadow and Wakiya lead the party - using the technique of one moves, one covers even if there's no cover in the passage for them to use (the rest of the group lag behind to give them the room to do this).

The chanting gets louder and the passage brighter and the last few steps lead out onto a flat surface and a balustrade overlooking a rough hewn cave. On either end of the balustrade is a flight of steps leading down onto the bottom of the cave. Looking into the cave we see a cobweb-strewn floor with carved columns on either side of the cave. At the far end of the cave is a statue of some sort (from this vantage point it's hard to distinguish of what the statue is).

A quick radio check shows that those are working (in gact, working better than they did on the surface since it seems that the interference from the weather conditions is actually minimised.

We split up three and three to take the two sets of stairs in tandem (trying to keep roughly in step as we descend). The cavern is lit by candles set into alcoves in the left and righthand walls of the caves. The floor itself looks like a sheet of ice (i.e., smooth and highly polished, it's not actually made of ice!).

We stop on the bottom step of the staircases (there's about 20 metres between the two staircases). Nameraka cautiously touches the floor - it is cold, but not ice cold. Shadow moves onto the floor and hugs the wall as he moves deeper into the cavern. The room itself is symmetric (the statue at the far end, while centred in the cavern is not symmetric). The light is quite blue and bright with the polished floor being quite reflective (so much so that we can easily see our own reflections. We cautiously move up the room (along the walls) towards the far end of the cavern. Neither our footsteps nor the chanting is echoing.

The columns are made up of hundred if not thousands of bones, it is hard to tell it they compose the whole column as there is no way you can see past them, you have no idea what sort of animal the bones came from. These alcoves have been carved out of the rock - but using relative old techniques (no evidence that power tools were used). In the alcoves stand blood-red candles with red flames. The candles stand between one-and-a-half and six inches tall and are about two inches in diameter.

From a distance the statue seems to be carved out of a rocky base but as you get closer you can see detail in what you thought was bare rock. The base is made up of hundreds of small children, each raising the arms towards the statue, although there are no facial features it seems they are begging for attention. The statue itself is in the female form hands lowered towards the children, hands open wide as if ready to grasp. Again the face is featureless but it hard to overcome the feeling of dread that emanates from it. As we approach the statue the chanting stops and a very strong breeze blows from the hole above the statue. The candles flutter but don't go out. This lasts for a few seconds and then the breeze stops. There is a sweet smell to the breeze.

Ricky approaches the statue and looks up through the hole above it. The light is from it is dazzling in comparsion to the light in the cave and is coming from moss and crystals lining the hole which continues upwards beyond the moss and crystals. The cobwebs look like a cloak drapped around the statue.

Behind the statue there is no sign of any additional tunnels but to see the back of the statue requires climbing over the statues of the small children (they stretch the whole way either side of the main statue). Wakiya does climb over them but that doesn't reveal anything odd or strange about the back of the statue if you ignore the cobwebs.

Nameraka approaches the altar in front of the display of statues. This altar is made from black stone and there is a single blood red candle in the exact centre of the altar. Wakiya remarks that, to her at least, the chanting was coming from the small statue of the children. This leads Nameraka to closely examine the small statues - they are extremely detailed - except that their faces are blank. The clothing on the small statues is old-style european (i.e., not modern and not japanese). Nameraka now takes the glove off of his human hand¹ and, using a glancing touch, touches one of the small statues. He is freaked out to hear the word Father in his mind and a few seconds after that Nameraka keels over and collaspes.

Tharbin tends to Nameraka who is in shock and brings Nameraka round though he remains a little shocked. Wakiya now takes a more determined touch of the children and gets the same response (i.e., a mental sound of the word Father and then collapsing after a few seconds). She is in a worse state than Nameraka and takes several minutes to come round (during which time her face is caught in a rictus of terror.

I am now considering (a) whether we have any way to destroy the statue and (b) whether it would be a good idea to do so (as it could be cause of the portal). On reflection the team decides that returning and reporting to Kitsune is the best course of action at this point. As we leave Shadow sweeps the candle from the altar to the floor. The altar now shows no sign of ever having the candle on its surface nor is there any indication of the dead centre of the altar.

We return to the entrance of the temple. The amount of time that's passed seems to be different to our internal body clocks but, as it's night time, we camp in the relative warmth of the courtyard of the temple. During the night there is minor earthquake².

In the morning we head back towards the cave with the portal. This takes two days and on the second day we can see the cave and, looking back, Shadow sees a shape entering the temple (and this isn't the same shape(s) we saw leaving the temple on our original journey towards the temple). Looking more closely at the shape through binoculars Nameraka is able, after throwing up the remains of his breakfast, that the shape seems to be horrible and enormous spider).

Could this be the cause of the rustle and the webs?

We return to the portal and travel through it. Shadow sets up a shaped charge to attempt to destroy the portal. The explosion does cause the portal to flicker but when the dust clears it's obvious that the portal is undamaged and still operational. The same can't be said for Shadow who clearly mishandled the charge and is very badly injured and requires hospitalisation. As we return down the hill and through the second Torii, Wakiya spins round and sees both the rustle of leaves and some fresh webbing.

At the farm there is still many Section 9 operatives and they quickly call for medevac transport for Shadow. The rest move to return to base and prepare to report to Kitsune.