Fear and Hunger: Pr_y For God - Part Three

The Officer, Theologian and Yellow Mage stood at the entrance to the Bunker Network, hestiating. They had a solid plan for escaping this Alll-Mer forsaken island but it involved getting past that flame-thrower wielding Sylvian Marriage below them. After no small amount of cajoling from his fellow Survivors, the Officer was eventually convinced to try and pull rank on the pyromaniacal monstrosity. The cowardly Bremen swigged the last of his beer and strode down the concrete steps towards the overpowering stench of burning gasoline and blood.

With the papist and oriental witch following nervously behind, the Officer blew upon his bugle and raised his voice at the masked war-machine. "At attention! Soldier, identify yourself immediately."

A pause.

The Officer's blood ran cold as ice as those emotionless windows of soot-covered glass stared him down. For a moment he was sure that flamethrower would be turned on him, burning his flesh to the bone. But then the Dragon Coin he kept in his pocket grew warm. He had looted the artefact months prior from a Xuanyuanese priestess who claimed it brought good fortune to those who carried it. It hadn't stopped his men from bayonetting the screaming woman to death. 

But now there was a change in the air. An invisible thumb pressing down on the scales of fate.

"Military designation 1-1-5-7. Standing orders - sanitisation of abominable organisms."

The three Survivors released an audible sigh of relief. Straightening his back, the Officer informed the Sylvian Marriage that there was an "abominable organism" in the Courtyard of the Bremen Fort that needed to be "sanitised". The towering soldier released a gravelly affirmation and strode up the stairs towards the unknown entity the Survivors had heard earlier. Soon came the sounds of a violent battle erupting above them: the deafening report of automatic gunfire, the roar of a flamethrower and ground-shaking explosions.

The Survivors didn't stick around to see who won.

Meanwhile, the Captain and his new ally of circumstance, the Sniper, made their way down the bell-tower's stairs quietly - trying to avoid the attention of the horde of mutants still milling around outside. It didn't work, and soon the enraged monstrosities were ripping their way through the barricaded windows of the Church get to them. The pair beat a hasty retreat into the Catacombs, stacking ruined pews to block the doorway and buy them more time to escape.

On the brightside, the Sniper found a new tunnel leading even deeper into the karst caves of Lantern Island - the site of some kind of archaeological dig. They didn't explore further, but the Captain did pick up an old sledgehammer from the dig team's abandoned equipment, passing his old spear to the Sniper (he kept the man's rifle, still not wholly trusting him).

Soon, the pair managed to rendezvous with the other three Survivors in the Generator Roon of the Bunker Network. The Sniper and Officer nearly came to blows, accusing each other of being an imperialist pillager and degenerate communist respectively, but the situation was diffused when the ex-cultist claimed he could help them transport the barrels of fuel in the room. He told them that the Royal Taxi Depot was nearby - if they salvage a working vehicle they could move all the diesel they needed to the Submarine and escape the Special Region.

Mollified, the Officer agreed to the plan and the Survivors set off into the overgrown Botanical Gardens once again. Thankfully, their trip through the fog-shrouded streets were uneventful and they quickly spotted the tall brick walls of the Royal Taxi Depot up ahead. There was several taxi cabs out in the parking lot, but they had all been destroyed by the omnipresent corrosive fog. 

The Sniper got a boost from the Captain to peek in through the main building's cloudy windows, but swore in Xuanyuanese after looking inside. He said there was a a pair of "Betrothed" within, passionantly rutting with each other. When asked as to what a "Betrothed" was, the Sniper explained that humans weren't the only things the Bremen Army experimented with - Betrothed are the result of forcing Bremen war-hounds to undergo a Sylvian Marriage. Put simply, they're massive, two-headed dogs that are incredibly violent and territorial. 

Nonetheless, the Survivors readied their weapons and swung open the doors to the building. The Betrothed were soon upon them, snapping and barking, but they were quickly dispatched with a bevy of gunshots and well-placed sledgehammer strikes. As the Survivors patched up their wounds, the Captain inspected the taxi cab - proudly announcing that it still worked. 

Within a few minutes the Survivors returned to the secret entrance to the Bunker Network, loading up as many diesel barrels as they could fit in their new taxi. However, the Officer wasn't eager to leave the Special Region with a mangled eyeball, and both the Theologian and Yellow Mage were eager to plumb more eldritch secrets from the disaster zone. To this end, they agreed to track down another suggestion from the Sniper - a Sylvian Ritual Circle hidden in the basement of the Lecherous Goose, a bar of ill-repute in the Residential District. 

The taxi couldn't move too fast with the additional weight of the barrels taking up its seats, so the Survivors (except for the Officer, who "bravely volunteered" to drive) formed an infantry screen around their precious cargo. The slow pace of the vehicle made the ever-encroaching sound of the Burning Tide's artillery all the more nerve-wracking, but least the journey to the Lecherous Goose was an uneventful one. If any of those pot-bellied mutants were around they weren't daring to attack the heavily-armed party.

The Lecherous Goose was destroyed public house that had been struck by an artillery shell. Nonetheless, the inviting smell of alcohol wafting from within was strong enough to overpower the acrid scent of the fog - earning a shared grin between the Captain and Officer. Upon entering, the place was indeed trashed - bar sundered, tables broken and bottles shattered. Strangely, there was a lone glass of wine untouched by the surrounding devastation, sitting innocently upon a pile of debris. The Survivors eyed it warily - it didn't even seem to have a mote of dust on it.

Well, all except for the Captain. He greedily swigged it down and declared it to be a delicious Europan vintage. The others stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded, before dismissing the drunken Rondonian and beginning to search the Lecherous Goose.

The Officer retrieved an armful of luke-warm pilsner from the remains of the bar, whilst the Theologian kept watch on the street and the Captain stared longingly at the empty wine glass in his hand. Meanwhile, the Sniper shifted aside rubble to try and find the basement. The Yellow Mage offered some unsolicited help, knocking aside a ruined table and gleefully using her metal staff to lever open the trapdoor beneath it - eagre to uncover the ritual circle.

A shouted warning came from behind. She turned in confusion to see the horrified expression of the Sniper staring at the opened hatch. Looking down, first she saw the basement was filled with fumes from several ruptured steel tanks. Next, the tiny spark her metal staff had kicked up against the brickwork - descending gently downwards into the dense, vapourised ethanol.

And then everything went white.

Fear and Hunger: Pr_y For God - Part Two

Clutching his flint spear tightly, the Captain exited the Catacombs into the Church itself. He discovered that it had been retrofitted by the Bremen Army into a makeshift FOB, albeit one that was filled with corpses. Inspecting the dead, the Captain found both Bremen soldiers and more mask-wearing cultists from the Botanical Gardens. Whilst all the ammo was gone and the weapons were too damaged to be useful, he did find some healing items.

As he looted the dead, the Captain could hear gunfire from a high-powered rifle continuing above him, so he eventually decided to ascend the Church's belltower, spear at the ready. At the top of the tower, the Captain found a man hunched beside a large radio, firing a sniper rifle at an unseen target in the fog. The Sniper was dressed in tattered Garden Cultist robes, but wore a looted Bremen Army helmet instead of an animal mask. 

Before the cultist noticed him, the Captain lunged forwards from stealth and scored a vicious blow into the man's back. The Sniper quickly surrendered after a brief scuffle, begging for his life. 

When asked what he was shooting at, the Sniper pointed into the foggy courtyard below the Church. There, dozens of those strange, pot-bellied mutants were creeping across the open ground towards the pair's position. At their rear appeared a Dark Priest of the Alll-Mer, his face disfigured with the Sigil of the God of Fear and Hunger. The Preacher extoled the mutants to retake the Church in the name of the Crucified God, for he would save their souls from their corrupted bodies. The Captain promptly picked up the Sniper's rifle and shot the Preacher in the head, sending his horde of pious mutants scattering in panicked confusion.

The Preacher

Now out of immediate danger, the Captain demanded answers about what was going on in the Special Region. His prisoner told him the Bremen Army had tampered with the magic of the Olds Gods' and corrupted Lantern Island with the "God-Flesh" - growths of anomalous tissue that devoured foodstocks and had driven most the island's population to madness or mutation. 

The Sniper further explained that he was a member of the Garden Cult, a group that originally inhabited Lantern Island and now tried to protect the remnants of its forests from the God-Flesh's corruption. However, he wasn't a particularly fanatical member - preferring rationality and firearms over superstition and magic. He'd only joined to fight the Bremen, but now he was more interested in just getting out alive. Mollified by this story, the Captain gave the man some medical supplies and powered up the old radio mast to see if he could contact anyone...

[Meanwhile, in the Bremen Fort.]

After the Officer, Theologian and Yellow Mage retreated up the stairs from the flame-thrower wielding Bremen Soldier, they were confronted with a three-way junction inside the fort. The first door was labelled the "Courtyard" - but they could hear something massive, metallic and vaguely moist-sounding dragging itself around on the other side, so that wasn't an option. The other two were labelled "Comms Tower" and "Officers Quarters". The Survivors opted with the latter, out of the vague hope of finding someone in charge of this mess.

Although the Officers Quarters proved devoid of life, the trio did find coded military files and (far more importantly) a sealed refrigerator with two deliciously ice-cold Bremen Pilsners inside. The Officer wasted little time cracking open a cold one and reclining in a nearby chair while the Theologian began deciphering and the Yellow Mage nervously kept watch.

The files proved to be a treasure trove of useful information. They described the Bremen Army's discovery of the Jade Temple, an antediluvian ritual site dedicated to the Old Gods located within Lantern Island's deep network of karst caves. At the prodding of the Bremen, the Vatican's Dark Priesthood exploited the residual power of the Old Gods present in the Jade Temple to construct a massive, prototypical Blood Portal of the Alll-Mer - the largest in recorded history.

Blood Portal

This endeavour was hoped to be a proof of concept that Blood Portals could replace conventional logistics. The possibilities for imperial expansion were endless, if Europa was capable of driving entire truckloads of war material across the planet in mere seconds. They would no longer need collaborationists like the Shi Dynasty, such efficient supply chains would let them rule over all of Xuanyuan (and beyond) themselves.

Unfortunately, the Europan's magical tampering resulted in the rapid spread of an "unknown proto-organism" throughout the caverns of Lantern Island, which consumed food-stocks and released a corrosive fog that destroyed any equipment left exposed to it. At first, the military tried to cover it up and prevent the spread, but things became so desperate due to the encirclement of the Special Region by the Burning Tide that all of their efforts failed. 

Another coded log detailed the sudden arrival of Crown Princess of the Shi Dynasty, Deng-Shao. The collaborationist noble somehow knew of the secret archaeological dig below the Special Region, and demanded access to it for an unknown purpose. She was denied, but soon both the Princess and the dozen Bremen soldiers assigned to escort her around Lantern Island disappeared without a trace. The files ended soon after this entry, describing complete anarchy and madness overcoming the remaining Bremen garrison of the Special Region.

As the Theologian mused over his deciphered files and the Officer continued to sip his beer, the Yellow Mage noted the low rumbling of a plane flying overhead. Soon, a piece of paper fluttered through the room's open window, which she quickly snatched up. Even with her darker complexion, the other Survivors saw her face go pale. What she held was a pamphlet from the Burning Tide, crudely translated into various Europan dialects, which promised to bomb the Special Region to rubble. It gave no terms of surrender, instead swearing the Burning Tide would torture and execute every foreign subversive and collaborationist they found still alive.

Realising they must make all haste to escape the Special Region before the Burning Tide's assault, the three Survivors moved to the Bremen Fort's Comms Tower, a large room at the top of the complex filled with radio equipment. Upon turning it on, they heard the following broadcast:

"This is Kapitänleutnant Artur Sperl of the Manheim submersible. We are stranded outside of Lantern Island without fuel. To any remaining Europan military forces, we require immediate resupply so we may evacuate civilians and the wounded. This message will repeat.”

Even more fortuitously, the Survivors heard the voice of the Captain interrupt the Submarine's broadcast. Kapitänleutnant Sperl was ecstatic to hear that someone was still alive and sane in the Special Region, confirming to the Captain that if he could somehow get around four barrels of diesel fuel over to their stranded Submarine, he would be very happy to bring them along when he and his crew departed for safer waters.

Now with an actionable means for escape, the four Survivors made plans over the radio to regroup and transport fuel from the Bunker Network's generator room to the Submarine.

Maybe there was still hope they'd make it out of this nightmare alive.

Fear and Hunger: Pr_y For God - Part One

The year is 1933. In the Far East, the Empire of Xuanyuan has been kept under the boot of the Europan colonial powers for the past three decades. Their labour pool has been exploited, their populace forcibly addicted to imported narcotics and their sacred sites plundered by the armies of the Bremen Empire's Kaiser and the Vatican's Dark Priesthood.

But this Age of Humiliation is coming to a bloody conclusion. The Burning Tide, a united front of agrarian-communists and Xuanyuanese nationalists, has swept aside the armies of the collaborationist Shi Dynasty and encircled their capital city of Yanjing - along with the Lantern Island Special Region, an international settlement ceded to the Bremen Empire.

You are the Survivors, a group of influential foreigners and military officials accompanying the Europan expeditionary force sent to crush this uprising and break the months-long Siege of Yanjing.Things have not gone to plan. The Europans barely retook Yanjing, whilst the besiegers merely withdrew into the surrounding countryside, where they have regrouped and mounted a fierce counterattack. The Europan line is failing, and you all have boarded a barge to flee to the Special Region - a fortified river island. However, you do not know the state of the settlement, it's been encircled for months with no communication forth-coming. 

But with a horde of rebels at your back baying for the blood of foreigners and collaborators, what choice do you have? 

The rickety river barge departed across the Triumvirate River, the four Survivors on board trying to avoid the hateful stares of the battle-weary Europan soldiers they left behind them.

• The Captain - Beau Fowler, a Rondonian ex-convict and violent drug-smuggler.

• The Officer - Herman Storl, a Bremen Oberleutnant and unrepentant coward.

• The Theologian - Milo Vaccari, a Dark Priest from Vatican City and amoral anthropologist.

• The Yellow Mage - Aya Yazar, an overconfident Yellow Mage from the Eastern Sanctuaries.

As the barge crossed the Triumvirate it entered an incredibly thick fog. The Theologian and Captain realised it was some sort of corrosive industrial smog. Not even the wind could shift it. The Mage noted that heavy fog was said in occult circles to bely the presence of the Old Gods pressing up against reality. However, the fog was low-lying - allowing the Survivors to see a Church’s belltower in front of them and a Clocktower to their left.

Unfortunately it didn't help them see the Ferry Station's concrete pier until it was too late. The barge crashed into the docks with a sickening crunch, immediately beginning to sink into the churning black waters of the Triumvirate. The Captain, the only swimmer of the bunch, simply dove into the filthy waters and clambered up a ladder whilst the Officer managed to (barely) scramble off the sinking ship onto the dock. Ever the gentleman, he quickly helped the Yellow Mage climb up - ignoring the Theologian who clumsily toppled into the water. He eventually managed to drag himself onto the pier, dripping wet and bleeding from his scalp.

The four Survivors then made their way down the pier towards the Ferry Station's toll booth, where the Officer grimly noted evidence of a firing squad being performed there. They decided not to look around and instead to head to the right - where the Theologian thought he remembered the Special Region's Bremen Fort being. As the group left the Residential District that the Ferry Station was located in, they entered a strangely overgrown area. Trees burst from cars, undergrowth consumed buildings and roots destroyed asphalt. The Yellow Mage recalled that the Special Region’s Botanical Gardens were nearby - it appeared something was causing them to expand and subsume nearby areas.

They then stumbled across a corpse blood-eagled on a lamp post. It had pink-tinged skin, thin limbs and a distended gut that had been disembowelled and stuffed with bundles of foul-smelling herbs. The Theologian pontificated that it was a execution method used by the primitive tribes of Vinland. The Captain and Yellow Mage dismissed the papist, saying that this was a universal ritual of the anarcho-primitivist cultists of the Old God Vinushka - a means of purifying those seen as "corrupted" by heretical magicks. 

The Theologian ignored the criticisms of his fellows, using his medical knowledge to diagnose the strange corpse with an Abyssonian disease Kwashiorkor, a disorder caused by malnutrition and improper protein intake. But it was the worst case he’d ever seen, especially in an adult male.

Moving on from the morbid display the group pushed deeper into the overgrown Botanical Gardens. The Officer soon spotted a strange, spear-wielding man in a sheep mask watching them from the bushes. After organising a whispered plan with the Captain, the pair grabbed their weapons and split off to flank the mysterious figure.

Upon being rushed down from two sides, Sheep-Mask panicked and threw poison darts at the Captain - missing. The Theologian shouted out to Sheep-Mask, asking which gods he served. He answered “Sylvian and her daughter Vinushka”. He claimed that he was guarding the Old Gods’ sacred Grove and asked the Survivors to leave peacefully. However, the Officer wasn’t going to let the papist talk down someone who was obviously a degenerate communist, and shot the cultist with his sidearm. Sheep-Mask responded by throwing a dart straight into the Oberleutnant's face - maiming his right eye.

The other three Survivors quickly mobbed Sheep-Mask, stabbing, bashing and throwing burning incense on him until he collapsed into a smouldering heap. The Theologian dragged the screaming Officer to his feet and patched up his mangled eye-socket, meanwhile the Captain helped himself to the dead cultist’s flint spear.

The group moved for the Bremen Fort before more mask-wearing weirdos showed up. However, they arrived to see the gates hanging ominously open and numerous corpses in the fog-shrouded parade grounds. With that in mind, they instead chose to use a secret passage to the fort’s underground Bunker Network which the Theologian had recalled from his academic readings. They found it in a nearby building’s basement, entering the subterranean concrete maze to search for surviving military personnel and supplies.

As they delved deeper they discovered that someone had dug a wood-framed tunnel off of the Bunker Network. The Theologian thought it might lead to the Catacombs of the Church they saw above the fog earlier. Most the Survivors continued ahead, but the Captain stayed back to examine this strange new tunnel. 

The other trio searched the Bunker Network, finding a generator room with a barrels upon barrels of diesel fuel - not useful for now. They did locate the base's armoury, but it was trashed - appearing that someone had scuttled the place thermite charges. Fortunately the Yellow Mage's thorough search found a working rifle in the wreckage, along with a fistful of cartridges. 

Most disturbing however was what they found inside the Bunker Network's ration stockpile  - what appeared to be pseudopod-like tendrils of red-tinged flesh digging out of the concrete bunker walls and into the canned food. The Theologian was especially concerned about the unnatural meat - it bore an uncanny resemblance to the Flesh of the Alll-Mer he'd seen summoned during the secret blood-magick rituals of the Dark Priesthood.

However as the trio examined their peturbing discovery, the Captain noticed a weird burning smell filling the air from his rearguard position. He made the wise decision to duck into the tunnels leading to the Catacombs to hide, narrowly dodging a massive Bremen Soldier who rounded a corner in flame-retardant clothing and wielding a flamethrower.

The other Survivors soon heard heavy footfalls approaching from behind them and, unwilling to face whatever the fuck it was, ran up a set of stairs leading out of the Bunker Network into the Bremen Fort proper. Thankfully, their pursuer’s gas mask meant it had terrible eyesight, so it didn’t notice the Survivors' retreat - muttering to itself “burn, fire, mutants, scrub, clean” as it fumigated a (completely empty room) with burning gasoline.

Now safe, the Theologian and Yellow Mage realised that the towering form was a Marriage of Flesh - the result of a secret ritual of Sylvian that unites two individuals in both body and soul, turning them into a new and more powerful being. They shuddered at the implications of the Bremen Army tampering with the magic of the Old Gods, but noted that hopefully the monster had enough sanity left to respect the Officer's rank. Albeit, everyone agreed that trying to order around a 7-foot-tall madman with a flamethrower would be their last resort.

 

Meanwhile the Captain realised his teammates were M.I.A and a pyromaniac killing machine blocked the way back to them, so he cut his losses and continued down the dirt tunnel. He eventually arrived in a series of Catacombs beneath the Church of the Alll-Mer. He soon made his way up to the surface, but not before taking the opportunity to plunder some grave goods.

And from far above him, in the Church's belltower, a gunshot. He wasn't alone here.