More chit-chat with Silus as the party move through the Pseudoflesh Farms on his pointless errand to feed “the maw”. The party move past the giant lake of pseudomilk and on to the eel storage. Here they found rows upon rows of eels in cryrostorage. They are admonished by Silus for nicking a few pods to take with them. Who knows when a frozen eel might come handy. The parties android coterie each take an eel. The room is quiet otherwise, besides the hum of the refrigeration units.
Moving on the party enters the head sculpting room, a horrific sight. The group must make their way through the rows open rows of heads, each being sculpted by strange tongue like devices reaching out from the ground. It’s all quite dense, so making it through without getting licked by one of these tongues requires some swift reflexes from the group.
Finally the group find themselves in the Waste Flesh Reclamation room, where they try and placate Silus by feeding the huge maw that takes up the middle of the room. Conversation continues with Silus about whether the amount of food they are feeding the maw really is substantial enough to constitute a feeding, and then more conversation about its relationship with Monarch.
The group moves on, heading up into a small maintenance room. Hazard strips mark a access hatch on the floor. Silus chirps up once more, warning the players off. Do they listen? Of course not.
The hatch goes down down down for a long while. They lose gravity at some point. The air is super cooled helium, their vacsuits working overtime. They drift for hours. And then they are deposited into a large open space, a cavern of slate. In the centre of the space, an upside down mountain, wires and cables flocking around it. They have found Monarch. There is silence save for the hum of the supercomputers.
Their is an obvious tear in the mountain, one they enter. Behind them they can hear the sounds of pursuers. They explore the mountain, looking for a place to use their Helbox. Kjell is on guard, floating up above the entrance to the space. Suddenly a wave of security androids begins to pour into the room, searching for the intruders. The marine keeps those he can occupied and distracted.
The Hellbox does what it says on the box. Monarch is no more? Seemingly so. The security androids look to revert to non-hostile programming. They mill around like mall cops. The group push their way past the androids, and back up the shaft, back to the 3rd floor.
The players leave The Furnaces behind as they move into a clean room of sorts. There are three interlocking sterile white rooms, each hermetically sealed. They enter into the space cautiously. There are other doors also leading into this initial space, but they decide to move further into this room, into the second sterile white room. Here a voice with a bad british accent informs them they must put on fresh containment suits, found in the room, before venturing to the Psuedoflesh Farms! This AI’s name is Silus. Decked out, the door infront of them unlocks, and they can move on to the final room and then through a chute towards the Psuedoflesh Farms.
Floating upwards they cover a good distance before they catch glimpse of a creature in the distance, barely lit by their lights. In pushes itself downwards, towards them, a big mess of flesh. An android twisted into something terrible. And there is much fighting in the confines of the chute, the players manage to make it out victorious. Well, except they are now covered in the disgusting ichor of this android.
Silus welcomes them as they reach the well lit Gravity Acclimator room. Gravity slowly ratchets itself up. This is the first well lit room the party have seen in some time, and the first gravity they have felt in ages.
They start travelling through the spaces, making small talk with Silus as they move from room to room. They check out the workers lounge, where they are told there are some choice snacks. They opt to not have any. They see Biocide Supplies, but leave them alone lest they upset the AI, that looks to have eyes and ears everywhere. In the course of their travels Silus gets a little frustrated in the conversation and demands the party feed some organic matter to the Maw further inside this factory space.
The first factory room they encounter is the Nursery. Giant vines of pseudoflesh grown around tall poles, each bearing fruit of hands, faces, feet, eyes, etc. Small androids harvest this ‘fruit’. They seem to take interest in the androids in the party, and so they decide to book it out of the room.
They move onto the Psuedomilk Vat storage room. Standing atop a gangplank they have a good view of a huge vat of grey sludge below. Strange eels can be seen swimming in the liquid. The whole mixture churns and roils. Disgusting.
The group leave the Mind Thief and back track towards the exit out of the Brain Construction zone. On their way back they stumble upon two children, clearly androids. They have escaped from the labs on level 4 and are seeking the The Mind Theif themselves. The party convinces them they are his representatives, and they should join them on their quest to blow up Monarch. The children are onboard and so off they all go.
They continue to backtrack, through the Maze Cage to the Condensation Falls. They pull themselves down on the chains that run from top to bottom in that space, looking to see what is below in the darkness. They find some industrial equipment they decide to leave alone, and full themeslves backup, exciting through a door that leads to cramped maintenance corridors. Making a left into an even small tunnel, they find themselves in a room that’s a jumble of cables. Kjell rigs one of his frag grenades up with a remote trigger, and leaves it behind. This might come in handy. They return to the original corridor and continue onwards, into a larger space.
A solid steel bridge covers the space with the occasional handhold. The walls are covered in a texture that on closer inspection is the phrase “BORN TO SUFFER” again and again, in languages dead, living, and imagined. It is unnerving. They continue on.
At a T-junction just past this space they encounter two androids fused together. They tell the group they are resting before continuing their search for the Minotaur, a name they haven’t heard since they first arrived at the Bell. These androids also believe the Minotaur is the saviour of all humanity, and though they are androids they feel compelled to seek it out. The party ask if they want to help destroy Monarch, and of course they do. They collectively refer to themselves as Erreh-4.
They move on to what looks like it might have been a former entrance into this space. A shaft leads up to the 2nd floor, formally the exhibition space on the station. The group move up into a meeting room where they see a floating dead body, it’s face completely pulverized. Scott Van Clapper investigates and determines the android died from his face being totally pulverized—good job.
They move towards a room emanating heat, and come up the furnaces, huge monoliths. There are 8 in the total, and they are covered from top to bottom in the graphic depictions of human suffering painted on in grease.
Back where they started, but with a plan to travel through the Brain Construction floor. Kant, now with some of the memories of an old Cloud Bank employee mixed in with his own memories, suggests a route that avoids the UV Blaster completely, and takes the players to an area of the factory that seems isolated enough to be a good hideout for the Mind Thief. They begin by backtracking to the the Power Bank, which they manage without incident.
While travelling through the Power Bank they hear another group of androids ahead of them, seemingly lost, but they decide not to find out. They give the group a wide berth and move on to the Engraving Needles room and then on to the Void.
The space is cavernous and pitch black. It’s almost disorienting. They hug a wall and move across the room, walking sideways along a wall. After travelling for some time they hear a metallic clink and from the darkness emerges 3 robotic dogs, barrelling towards them. The quick reflexes of the marine Kjell and a fragmentation grendade manages to take care of the beasts (and takes out a chunk of the room as well). And then they are back to marching through the blackness of the room, eventually reaching the other side.
The group carefully move through a room where silicon is being prepared, and on to a clean room. Past that they enter a circuit testing floor. The room is filled with small slices of silicon floating about like shrapnel. They move cautiously through the space, slowly, through a door that leads to … The Mind Thief!
He seems to be expecting them. Or, at the very least, doesn’t seem shocked or intimidated by their arrival. He makes them a proposition: help him kill Monarch. He gives the group a small cube he calls The Hell Box. He claims it can destroy Monarch, the group just need to find Monarch’s AI core. A quandary, this was the person they have been trying to find and kill. In the end the group decide to take Helios, The Mind Thief, up on their offer.
The group venture through the tight steel maze like space attached to the Condensation Falls, eventually stumbling upon a door leading to a maintenance shaft. Eventually this shaft narrows down to a duct and the duct deposits them in a white room, three dead security androids floating in the middle of the space, their heads ripped open, their logic cores missing. That seems like something a Mind Thief might do!
The group move through a door to the North into a space bisected by a large glass tube full of sand. The sound of the sand flowing is a quiet roar. Discussions about whether to blow it up and see what happens are had, but the party moves on. They move through a door marked with warning signs.
They enter a small room, black with yellow hazard stripes. There is some safety literature on the walls, discussing the dangers of UV Blasters. There are also some UV survivals suits, which on cursory examination are all clearly damaged. There is also a giant off switch, behind some glass. There is once again much debate on how to proceed, whether they can make a working UV suit out of a bunch of garbage ones, etc. The Android companions from Scrap Town that are travelling with the group convince them to at least explore the start of the UV Blaster, which they decide to do.
It’s a giant room filled with cat walks orbiting several giant lenses. They decide not to go into the room the lenses a focusing light into, and retreat back to the Safety Room and from there to the Power Bank.
The room is filled with massive capacitors. They line the floor and walls and equal intervals. As they explore the room they can hear the whine of the capacitors as they charge and discharge every five minutes. The group decide to climb/float up a ladder to the mechanical space that sits above this room and floor.
There are cables everywhere. This sea of colour makes movement difficult. They push their way through one clump of cables to find a “maintenance worker” starring back at them. He freaks out! Kant feels sharp pain in his logic cores as the creature relays his pain and trauma into him. It is a mind bending experience, and it takes effort to separate these other memories from his own. The group decide to flee, dropping down a nearby hatch.
They catch their breath for a quite moment, but when the create floats down through the ceiling they realize that’s not going to work. They decide to ask the Ghost questions, about what it wants from them. This seems to calm it down. It gives some confused answers, and then fades away.
As is the groups signature style, they are back in the room they started in (with three dead androids floating in the middle of the space).
The players are in the Scrap Conglomerate, a strange not-quite settlement full of escaped androids. Many exist in various states of disrepair, searching for parts to keep themselves running. The three Androids the group met initially are Scrap 17, 67, 74. Scrap 17 informs the group when they found this space they were Scrap 42, but as they lose Androids people’s names change to fill the gaps. The three androids leave to find the escapees the party saved in the second session.
Kant and Kjell decide they will try and convince the androids that Kant is their robot messiah—why not. Kant uses his advanced skills to repair one of the androids. The android is at first throughly unconvinced and skeptical about everything the pair say, but is desperate for help. Kant fixes him, and the android’s reaction is so incredibly positive. He is a true believer. Unfortunately attempts to spread the word, and ‘heal’ other androids doesn’t get anywhere. Kjell’s attempts at a more fear-based approach to proselytizing has the few robots watching the theatrics flee off into the darkness.
The group decide to sleep and start fresh the next ‘day’.
The party travel back through the ducts to the Brain Space, still filled with logic cores and cat sized drones. But, they meet another fellow as they move towards its exit: a diver! Sadly, it doesn’t look like they’ll be friends. He barks at them, “who are you?” When they explain they are synthetics travelling with synthetics the lone diver turns and runs. They cautiously follow him into the next room—they were going that way anyway.
The Security Dispatch is as they remember it, 9 huge spheres floating in the room, another bolted to the ground. The hatch to this sphere is open. Inside, past some deactivated security androids, is a chute down, out of this space.
A long corridor stretches out before them. They can see razor wire lines everywhere, and someone has clearly run through the hallway and cut themselves up. The group opts to carefully remove the wire, proceeding cautiously.
They end up at a door opening into a large cylindrical room. Their lights refract every which way: the walls are large sensor panels. At the far end of the space, previously hiding in the darkness, is the same diver from before. Injured, clearly. “Leave me alone,” he shouts. “That duct is your way out of here!”
They leave him be. Moving on to the Condensation Falls. An imense vertical drop. Taught chains slick with condensation stretch into the darkness. Droplets of water sparkle like a star field. There are two ducts leading out of the room, and a door further away.
They opt for a duct, and find themselves in a skinny steel labyrinthine space.
The players set aside their newly found artifact to continue on their journey through the factory. They head back to Flesh Sleeve Insertion, so that they can make their way towards Security Dispatch, which they were told is the way out of this section of the factory. As they make their way through this area the machines grind to a halt. It’s unclear what might be going on, but the party doesn’t wait to find out. They are hungry, however, and rest by the door that leaves the room.
They cross through Organ Implantation into the Brain Insertion, a room dimly lit by the glow of Logic Cores being inserted into the open brain pans of future androids. Across the room, crossing the floor of the factory, they see a group of 3 Security Androids make their way towards them. Up high on a cat walk they hope to go unnoticed, and are. The Androids seem otherwise focused or pre-occupied.
The characters move on Security Dispatch. 9 giant steel spheres float in the room, a 10th lays in the centre bolted to the ground. Internally illuminated, the only light in the space, the players can see they each contain Security Androids. Seemingly filled to the brim with them. They quietly move through the space, to a door on the other side of the room, trying to avoid spheres.
Though a small office door and a short corridor they find themselves in a ruined space. Logic Cores float through the space. Small cat sized insectoid drones jumping from core to core. They move through the room towards another door.
This one leads to a small and thoroughly suspect room. They can see trip wire emitters and the strange shimmer of some sort of force field. The marine spots some EMP grenades strapped to a door. Rather than figure out how to deactivate the traps they opt to set them all off: one of the cat sized drones is let lose in the room while they retreat away. When they return the drone lays on the floor, and the EMP grenades have been detonated. The marine sets off to destroy the other emitters triggering another smaller EMP pulse that deactivates the electronics on his person. The room seemingly clear the group proceed to the space protected by the grenades. They find the hideout of some long gone fellow, Renzo Novatore. His journal outlines the slow fall of the station to Monarch. The last entry in the journal reads, “MONARCH IS SOON TO BE CORONATED BUT I WILL HAVE EYES OF CRYSTAL…” The only other notable thing in the room are 27 jars of excrement.
The party return back to the Security Dispatch, walking in at the exact same time a group of androids float down from an air duct. The party surprises the androids, and with the advantage, they get to talking. The group learn they are more android cast offs from the manufacturing process. They live in a small community hidden away from Monarch nearby. The group tell the androids about the group of “failed” androids they had found and saved. These androids guide the group through the narrow duct work to their home, and then get back to their mission of searching for more of their kind.
The party find themselves floating up high next to an air duck, looking down on hills of scrap in the Scrap Conglomerate.
The characters leave the Final Testing chamber, travelling along maintenance catwalks that continue on and snake through the next room. Traveling through the space the players realize they are in the Nerve Threading section of the factory. Androids convulse in a disconcerting way as their nerves are woven through their bodies by needle tipped fingers. [A failed stress check causes UR182 and Kant to gain 1 stress.]
The Milk Injection room is up next. A cat walk stretches across the space, ladders leading down to the floor. Below them in the dark they see huge glass vats of psuedomilk. Though the room is as pitch black as the others, the few hazard lights scattered hear and there refract through the milk giving parts of the room an eerie glow. The players decide to cross directly to the next space, but as the near the end of the catwalk they encounter a man in factory coveralls, the first human they’ve seen in this space. Confused, they watch, and realize something isn’t right: the fellow seems strangely ethereal, living a moment on repeat. They do what anyone would: fold a paper airplane and toss it at him: it passes right through him and he turns to scold them “quit goofing, what are you doing!?” They apologize and ask for directions. This seemingly calms him down, and he lets them know what’s near by. They say goodbye to Glenn, and move on.
They move through the Final Construction zone without incident, watching the various parts of the androids get put together, and find themselves in the Flesh Sleeve Insertion zone. Off in the darkness, over the sounds of robotic arms picking up body parts and sliding skin over them, the party hears 3 people discussing how to try and steal some of this sweet skin for themselves. The group gets closer, and announces their presence: “we want to help!” And they do, in a way. 3 Androids need their help. And they do help, more or less. Two dead androids later, they are left with a new friend covered in pseudoflesh. The android doesn’t seem to bothered about her compatriots that didn’t make it. She tells the party about an artifact she found in an administrative room they found near by.
The party make their way to a small office space. It’s a bit disorienting to find themselves in such a small space after the scale of all the factory rooms they’ve moved through. The walls are covered with blueprints and charts. Inside a gutted terminal the group find a toolbox, and within, a strange artifact: tiny purple crystals which grow on Pseudoflesh. The androids try and interface with the thing, as one does. After some experimenting they hear a cacophony of voices in their heads—but that’s about all they can get the things to do.
The room seems like a safe space to rest, and so they do.
The party find themselves in a now silent factory floor, surrounded by darkness, when a voice makes itself heard: “I have ignored your dalliance in my factory thus far.” Monarch makes their presence known to the PCs: Monarch is annoyed. The androids the PCs “rescued” travel down the successful test chute the PCs climbed out of at the behest of the super-AI. Monarch then tells the PCs they can travel and explore the station so long as they no longer disturb the manufacturing process. Of course, there is catch: the group must also kill an android Monarch calls the Mind Thief if they want to leave the station. There is more back and forth. (“Will you help us?” “No, help yourselves.” “Will you pay us?” “Sure, why not.”) With that the sounds of screaming androids once again fills the space as the testing machinery turns back on.
The group opts to travel down the failed test chute, entering the Disassembly Yard. Another room filled with the sounds of screaming androids, this time ones being ripped limb from limb. Their lights can pick out the glint of huge robotic arms like trees, arms on arms on arms, careening across the room. They spot a duct and cautiously try to make their way towards it, managing to avoid being ripped to shreds themselves.
Moving through the duct they can hear the sounds of drones in the distance. But the duct work starts to narrow, and they are worried about proceeding any further. So they decide to head back to where they started this misadventure!
Back in the Disassembly Yard they start making their way back to the chute they entered from, but on the way back are both snatched up by huge robotic arms. UR812 attempts to cut himself free, but can’t manage to do so. Kjell’s marine instincts kick in and his sub machine guns blows apart the joint hold the arms keeping him and UR812 in place. The shot pushes them away from the arms. Freeing themselves from the now limp arms holding them in place they manage to make it back to the chute, and then back to the room they started. [I guess they really didn’t want to leave Josh out.]
The party return to the airlock chamber, planning to venture up the chute they noticed previously. As they peer through the doorway, making sure it’s safe before unlocking it, 9 androids drop down the chute. That’s unusual.
Kant quickly hacks the door mechanism to keep it locked. They wait to see if the group manages to escape, which they don’t. Returning, the group engages in a conversation with the androids through a speaker system in the airlock, convincing the robots they are part of a CloudBank team running experiments, hoping to suss out what their deal is. They learn they are failed androids, trying to escape. Good to know, but the party realize they their cover story is going to fall apart as soon as the androids see them. So they run away! And then come back and bang on the door pretending this is the first time they’ve seen these androids and that they are a new group here to help them escape.
They learn Android 842 managed to free the other 8 robots from a testing chamber at the top of the chute. They have no interest in returning, but describe the space as best they can. The chute leads to the Dis/Assembly section of the station. They give the androids a walkie talkie and tell them to wait for them in the elevator platform room. They then venture up this chute.
As they get closer to the end of the chute they hear the screams of agony from many androids. The room is pitch black, and they keep their lights down to not attract attention. [A stressful scene, so they roll to gain stress.] They move towards the loudest and closest sounds, finding one of the testing pods. They free an android, instructing it to go and free another, so one and so forth. They manage to free 14 androids in this way before that pod goes silent, the remaining deactivated androids being picked up and deposited down the success chute they just climbed from. As they look around the room they can see other pods slowly powering down. The room gets quieter and quieter, the screams abating as the testing ends abruptly, the androids and the testing machinery being powered down. [Another roll against fear to avoid gaining stress.]
Presumably Monarch knows someone is tampering with the facility.
