ALBA
Page 59
Lux eventually stops as the thin staircase opens out into a room. Here you can definitely see the marks of the Old World. Heavy metal beams run along the roof to keep it from falling in on itself under the weight of the ground above it, but the most striking thing is the door in front of you. It’s ten feet across, made of thick steel and locked with a complex wheel, and there’s a smashed keypad beside it. It looks like, in its heyday, nobody would get in there without the correct code. But today, instead of entering a code, Lux heads straight to the wheel holding the door closed and struggles with turning it.
Even though you may not know the ins and outs of this place like the villagers of Prie, you’re smart enough to recognise that the bright yellow and red signs around the outside of the massive, foreboding door can’t be anything but warnings. Another chill runs through you; this time, you know its cause.
Read signs – Turn to S.2.13, Needs Old World Language.
* * *
Decipher pictures on signs – Turn to S.2.14, Needs Chemistry OR Medicine.
* * *
Ask Lux about the signs – Turn to S.2.15.
* * *
Follow Lux without question – Turn to S.2.16.
S.2.8
“Do you know anything about these?” you ask, giving Lux the papers you found back at the powerplant. If he knows so much about the Old World, he may be able to give you some insight.
He raises his eyebrows upon seeing them, and leafs through the papers thoroughly, leaving no sheet unturned in his inspection. “You got these from the powerplant?”
You nod, and he hums sagely.
“Yes, I thought as much. These are recording radiation output levels back from before the war. Do you mind if I keep these?”
You have no reason to hold on to them, so you nod. He tucks them away somewhere deep in his robe.
“Please, let me repay you for your kindness. Take this as a little memento of our business.”
He walks over to one of the incense burners, blows out the tiny smouldering flame, and hands you the stick and the tray. You’re not entirely sure what to do with it but tuck it away in your pack anyway. Maybe you can light it up one night to cover the smell of mud and dirt from the outside – if the smell of it doesn’t remind you too harshly of this strange little village.
Add Compassion to your character sheet.
Add Incense (F.30) to your inventory.
* * *
Ask him what proving yourself means – Turn to S.2.7.
* * *
Ask him about the village – Turn to S.2.6.
* * *
Ask to leave – Turn to S.2.12.
S.2.9
Probably best to hear it from the horse’s mouth.
A woman sits in the opening of one of the little ramshackle tents. She, like some of the other villagers you’ve passed, is licking a brush into a tiny point and illustrating the back of her hand with the bright green paint. She looks up when she notices you, pausing with the brush over her hand. Her face is friendly, but her eyes are sunken into her skull, and you can see the shape of her eye sockets.
“Good morning,” she says, her voice quiet and scratchy, as if there’s an itch in her throat that she can’t quite get out.
“Hello,” you say, perching on a stool nearby to get down to her level, not wanting her to be intimidated by a stranger looming over her, “I’m new around here. I was wondering if you could tell me why you’re all using that paint?”
She pokes out a sickly pink tongue and dabs the brush against it again.
“It makes us stronger,” she tells you. “That’s what Lux says.”
“Who’s Lux?”
“He’s in charge.”
“How does it make you stronger?”
She pauses as she thinks before giving up in a shrug and going back to her artwork. Frustratingly, you don’t think you’ll be getting any more out of her.
Try to sneak around – Turn to S.2.10.
* * *
Find Lux – Turn to S.2.5a.
* * *
Do some investigating – Turn to S.2.11, Needs Chemistry.
* * *
Leave – Turn to S.2.17.
S.2.10
Incognito is the best way of getting around this place, you decide. And it’s going to be easier to do here than any other place because of the uniforms everyone is wearing.
A man removes his cloak as he leans over the back of a chair to get his back painted. It’s easy enough to snatch it and put it on as you quickly walk past the small group.
The cloak gives you a little bit of reassurance, even if it’s just in possible anonymity. The people in the village don’t seem to want to look at you too hard anyway, and now they completely ignore you. You’re glad of it – you don’t want to be watched.
That is, until you feel a hand on your shoulder.
You jump and turn around. Rather than being met with hostility, though, you’re greeted with a smile from a bald man with luminous paint on his bald head.
“You aren’t from here, are you?” he asks.
“I, erm—” you flounder, but he gestures to your trousers.
“You’re not wearing the proper uniform.”
Damn it.
“It’s all right,” he says quickly, trying to calm you, “you don’t need to sneak around here. I’m happy to show you around the place. I’m Lux, the leader of Prie. Come, I’ll bring you to my home.”
You don’t have much of a chance to object as he ushers you through the streets and towards the largest building in the village. The other villagers smile and nod with deference to the two of you. Clearly, Lux is well respected around here.
When he opens the door to the building, the smell inside is almost overpowering. There are dozens of candles lighting up the room, and where there aren’t candles, there are little dishes of incense burning away into noxiously sweet smoke. Much like the corridor you went through as you entered, the walls of this room have been painted with exquisitely detailed, glowing paint. Lux turns to you with a smile as he takes a seat on a pile of pillows in the middle of the room.
“Well, traveller, it’s good to have you here. Please, feel free to ask me any questions you have about our little village… or about this great land in general, if you are as I suspect a stranger from across the ocean. I’m lucky to come from a line of archivists who kept track of the local area from both before and after the war, so I can help you with whatever information you require. Whatever I can do to make you feel at home. Of course, any more… sensitive information I’ll have to ask you to prove yourself to our cause before I divulge.”
Ask him to tell you more about the village – Turn to S.2.6.
* * *
Ask him what proving yourself means – Turn to S.2.7.
* * *
Ask him about the powerplant papers – Turn to S.2.8, Needs Power Plant Files.
S.2.11
For the first time in a while, you root through your pack for your Geiger counter and turn it on. Something doesn’t feel right here, and you’re going to follow your gut.
The second it’s active, it immediately goes mad.
High radiation levels. Dangerously so. The little machine is screaming at you to get out, get away, to not be here without adequate protection on.
Villagers look at the odd noise coming from the counter, and you meet their eyes desperately. This place isn’t safe for them to be – do they know? If not, they have to get out of here now. The longer they stick around, the more likely it is they’re going to get very sick.
Try to warn people – Turn to S.2.19.
* * *
Leave – Turn to S.2.17.
S.2.12
“I’m going to leave now,” you tell Lux, thoroughly unsettled by everything that you’ve heard so far. A look sweeps across his face, one which he isn’t quick enough to catch and plaster his smile over. It’s somewhere between surprise and anger.
“Oh, are you sure? I could always tel
l you more about—”
“No. I’m fine, thank you.”
He furrows his brow, stepping towards you.
“But you don’t know anything about our village, not really. Please, just sit down and—”
“I said no,” you snap, stepping back from him. Before he can say – or do – anything else, you turn on your heel and leave. You have a one-track mind now. You’re going to get the hell out of this place before anything can get any weirder.
Turn to S.2.17.
S.2.13
The signs aren’t detailed, but they don’t have to be. Pretty much every single one of them says something of the same variation.
Hazmat suit required.
Do not enter unless properly protected.
SERIOUS RISK OF EXPOSURE TO RADIATION.
These, coupled with the pictures on the signs depicting exclamation marks and skulls, do not fill you with confidence.
“These signs say it’s dangerous to go in there,” you tell Lux. His hands are still on the door’s wheel before he casts you a look over his shoulder.
“It’s perfectly safe,” he replies. With a grunt he goes back to trying to open the lock.
Somehow, you’re not sure.
Add Instability to your character sheet.
* * *
To continue – Turn to S.2.16.
* * *
To leave – Turn to S.2.12.
S.2.14
You’ve seen symbols like these before. In the textbooks you were studying to learn your trade. Every single one of them screams danger! From the radioactive trefoils to the bright-red ionising warnings.
“I don’t think we should go in without proper protection,” you say, nervously. Lux throws a look at you over his shoulder, one that doesn’t meet your eyes but tells you he can’t be bothered with this.
“We’ll be fine,” he says.
If you want to follow him, you’ll have to trust what he’s told you is true.
Add Resolve to your character sheet.
* * *
To continue – Turn to S.2.16.
* * *
To leave – Turn to S.2.12.
S.2.15
“What do all these signs mean?” you ask, letting your eyes wander over them, taking in the words and symbols you can make neither head nor tail of.
“They were here when we moved in,” Lux replies, straining to open the door. “They’re irrelevant.”
“Then why haven’t you covered them up, or got rid of them?”
He doesn’t reply; it’s more worrying than if he had.
Add Resolve and Instability to your character sheet.
* * *
To continue – Turn to S.2.16.
* * *
To leave – Turn to S.2.12.
S.2.16
After some time having a small fight with the locking wheel, Lux manages to force it open. The smell of mildew hits you as the door swings open. He smiles and walks inside, telling you to follow him.
The vault is dark, only illuminated by a couple of candles Lux is going around and lighting. This place clearly used to hold a lot more items of value; only about a quarter of it is filled now. Odd cubes and rectangles of grey material sit stacked neatly in rows on one side, either sitting freely or boxed in strong containers, with huge pots of paint on the other side.
Paint you recognise.
“Is this—”
“Radium paint,” Lux tells you, hauling a pot off of a shelf and turning to you. “It’s part of what we collect here. It’s very powerful, and can only make us stronger.”
He reaches into his robes and pulls out a fine paintbrush.
“To prove your commitment to Prie, you must do two things. Be painted yourself and paint somebody in turn.” Realisation begins dawning on your face, but he continues, oblivious, “Of course, you must make sure the paintbrush stays at a point after every stroke.”
To demonstrate, he licks the top of the brush into a fine point.
“So I have to do that—”
“Even when it’s been dipped.”
He wants you to ingest this stuff. He wants you to eat it.
Tell him no – Turn to S.2.20.
* * *
Tell him yes – Turn to S.2.21.
S.2.17
You hurry through the streets of Prie. People stare at you as you go, confusion painting their faces as clearly as green patterns paint their bodies. You don’t want to know any more about this horrible little village in this stadium. Your people aren’t here, and you want to leave.
You stride through the same corridor the guard showed you in through not so long ago. He catches sight of you as you head towards the doors, and goes to call out to you but you shoulder past him, ignoring his calls and questions.
It’s no great loss to never see this place again.
END.
S.2.18
You leave Prie to the sound of cheers and claps on the back from the sick-looking villagers. They seem glad to have you as part of their ‘family’. You’re not sure if swallowing all that paint was worth it. Looking into the sunken eyes of a frail citizen, you fear your future self will end up looking exactly like them.
“Remember,” says Lux as you leave, “spread the good news! Tell people to come here and join us. We are stronger together.”
You certainly don’t feel stronger as you stumble out of the stadium. In fact, you run to a nearby shrub to empty the contents of your stomach behind.
Either way, the choice has been made for you now. You’re a part of Prie.
END.
S.2.19
“You need to leave,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper as you speak. Nobody notices you at first; instead they continue with the hustle and bustle of everyday life. You have to speak again, and again, and again for them to even begin to pay attention to you.
“You need to leave! It’s not safe here!”
A few villagers of Prie turn to you with confusion painting their faces along with the bright green. A couple of them look concerned, but less with your warning and more with the level of panic you’re displaying.
“It’s not safe! Everyone needs to evacuate the building immediately! You’re sick and you’ll only get sicker the longer you stay here!”
People are actively listening to your ranting now, stopping and staring at you in the narrow street. You run forward and grab the nearest watcher, a woman whose wrists are so bony your fingers easily wrap around their circumference, and try to tug her with you. She looks frightened at first, but after a moment yanks her arm from your grip with more strength than you thought someone so frail was capable of possessing.
“No, you have to…” you begin saying after her as she retreats, but you’re interrupted when you feel strong hands on your shoulders. Either side of you is a member of the village, but bigger than most of their counterparts. Wordlessly, they begin to drag you away from the group of spectators and out through one of the decorated corridors.
You struggle against them, but they hold fast. All you can do is scream your warnings as you’re taken away from the stadium and thrown out on your behind. The doors are shut in your face and the guards step in front of them. You’re not getting back in there.
Hope drains from your body like grieving tears as you realise, with a heavy weight in your soul, that all those people will die.
And there’s nothing you can do, except try to make sure you aren’t one of them.
You struggle to your feet and, with a parting glance at the guards, walk away, hoping your group never comes across this cursed place.
END.
Add Instability to your character sheet.
S.2.20
“I don’t know about this,” you say, stepping backwards. You don’t watch where you’re going and end up bumping into one of the shelves. A tin of paint falls down and splatters open, spreading a bright green lake on the floor. You hop back even further away from it, not bothering to hide the look of concern on your
face. Lux follows you, stepping through the mess without any bother, coming closer to you. Too close.
“You’ll be fine. Trust me. Why would I lie to you?”