Temporal Rift RPG

[The Kingpin]

"Excuse me, could you spare some time for your Lord and Saviour?" said Jacob humorously as he poked his head through the newly formed entrance, before walking through it, entering the massive facility, assault rifle in hand. "Know what? We don't care. You're making time" he added jokingly over the comms as he entered...

[C S]

"I got me a lot of hits in there, Jacob." Kane said with a comically southern dialect. "All same the same synth-type as that one robot we hit a while back...which means these ******** are distributed over quite some distance" he continued much more seriously. He walked over to the makeshift entrance and dropped into it, rockets roaring to life. He came down on the floor of the upper level of the gigantic construct that was...smooth stone. Despite there being many thin, dim glowing green lines on the wall with otherworldly runes and numerals zipping along them, the interior of this tether seemed like that of a primitive ziggurat. It seemed more like a place of mysticism than the mechanical bastion its exterior made it out to be.

Kane switched on his light magnifiers, the dark hallways illuminated by ghostly light inside his helmet...

[The Kingpin]

"Then keep your senses sharp, your trigger finger steady, and your gun on the target. Avoid making noise if at all possible" he said, his landing having been buffered by anti-grav fields rather than thrusters, the man landing without so much as a tap of his boots on stone. Eyes shifting to Low Light mode, he glanced around at his surroundings warily, heat signatures coming up and trackers marking potential threats in the area, giving him a view of everything carrying the synthetic energy signature the Felicity detected when they had hit the robot a while back...

[C S]

"This thing isn't one of the most stealthy things out there but I'll do my best." was Kane's response. He started scanning for concentrations of anomalous readings, sure enough getting a lock on a spot several levels below where they were now. Many readings were not nearly as substantial...aside from the fact that they hinted at other forms of life in the ziggurat. The robots were not the only ones to prowl these dark halls.

"Be on your guard...I'm picking up on other anomalies running around-"

"Rhy'luagh asatiduum..." a deep gurgling voice in some alien language, the sound loud and all encompassing; running through the walls of stone like a quake, as if the pyramid itself just spoke.

"...and that. Disembodied voice, can't forget about that."

[The Kingpin]

"Changes nothing. Still means we have to keep our guard up. Anything pokes it's head round a corner, we knock it's block off" responded Jacob simply, shockingly calm despite the sound. It spoke volumes of what he had been put up against in his long, bloody history...

[dinoman666]

A pack of Crawlers, their blue lights dim in the dark halls of the pyramid, moved around a far corner and into view. They didn't seem to be aware of the human intruders, but only for the moment. The machines scuttled slowly, low to the ground, their pincer-like heads chirruping quietly. They seemed reminiscent of a pack of Earth wolves: coordinated and cautious in their stalking...

[C S]

Another quake rippled through the structure. "...Ethu ala'theem..."

Kane raised a brow. Was this thing...self aware? Was this a machine of metal and rock that he and his security escort had just broken into?

Stone slabs grated against each other. The wall behind him and Jacob parted with a stronger tremor than before. The path revealed then and there was a cylindrical tunnel, lined by the strange green glow. It had windows which let in streaks of soft orange light, windows holding back some kind of incandescent gas, plasma perhaps. It was all so very peculiar. The read on the centralized anomaly became just a tad bit stronger, as if the way to it had just been cleared of a major obstruction.

"Wanna bet that's the way we need to go to shut this thing down?" Kane asked. Paused. "Wanna bet it's one hell of a trap?" he added.

[dinoman666]

The Crawlers definitely noticed that. The lead construct, this one an Alpha, raised its head, staring straight at Jacob and Kane. It let out an alarm in the form of a shrill call, and the rest of the Crawlers formed behind it answered by opening fire on the two human interlopers...

[The Kingpin]

"Doesn't look like we have much of a choice. I hope that suit of yours can move when it needs to. Otherwise I'll be tossing you across the tunnel" responded Jacob just as the alarm call came from the creatures. "Oh bloody hell. Get moving" he said to his companion, before turning towards the creatures, a bright whitish purple glow forming where the grenade launcher was attached, the barrel splitting and rotating around a bright purple-white core, a low mechanical warble being heard before a boom was unleashed from the weapon, the blast soaring forward, hitting the ground right under the creatures, a massive energy field encasing them and locking them in place, their rounds bouncing off the inner walls of the circular field generated by the Relativity Coil Field Emitter, turning the place within into a death trap, rounds ricocheting around and hitting the attackers from all directions as Jacob bolted through the tunnel, knowing they didn't have much time...

[dinoman666]

The Crawlers, though injured by their shots, were not completely destroyed. Lights flashing in alarm, they almost immediately ceased fire, screeching angrily at the humans just out of reach. Now alerted, however, they weren't the only Promethean constructs aware of the humans' presence...

[C S]

While far cry from graceful, the hulking exploration suit did get up to a decent running speed thanks to the mechanical enhancements it sported. It certainly was not silent, Kane's heavy boots thudded against the stone floor all the way down the tunnel, through the passage lit by unearthly light.

Its walls depicted...things upon it, carvings that were embossed on the black stone. Primitive art that was regal and refined at the same time, each edge curved smoothly and deliberately. The carvings seemed more like the work of precision laser beams rather than chisel. What they depicted ranged from what looked like buildings to monstrous looking animals and...cheese? It couldn't be!

"Thunatuum Mad'arxim..." the rumbling voice echoed. Somewhere unseen, machinery whirred to life. The clanking of metal components sounded off from behind a wall and sure enough, a slab sank into the floor with dust billowing up from the hair thin seams.

"How very unsettlingly fascinating..." Kane thought with a frown, heading through the doorway with slight difficulty. It wasn't built to accommodate something wearing a hazardous environment suit so he had to crouch awkwardly and walk through. There the confined hall opened up into a humungous maze of gigantic mechanisms. Cogs and gears ticking away while pendulums swung across the abysmal chasm. To contrast, hubs of advanced looking machinery, be it computers or otherwise jutted out from the walls like outcropping, lights blinking in apparent random order, cables hanging like silvery vines.

According to his readings, the anomaly was directly at the bottom of this breathtaking section of the monolithic tether...

[The Kingpin]

"This place is like a bloody labyrinth" grunted Jacob in passing as he reached the end of the tunnel. glancing around to take in the details of the area, he gave a quick view behind him. The trap wouldn't last for long. In moments, the mechanical beasts would be free to pursue. He was prepared for it however, his shotgun waiting to mangle the creatures beyond the tunnel...and failing that, his host of other weapons and utilities...

[C S]

"Labyrinth meets...clock tower and...starship..." Kane said absent mindedly. "All controlled by Cthulu, of course!"

He pointed downwards with his large robotic glove and without further ado, leaped off the stone ledge to the awaiting abyss below. A darkness with specks of light twinkling in the shadows like those of stars, the air echoing with thumping and thunking of gigantic components shifting in place in a grand design even the most brilliant of human minds could crumble trying to understand.

The jet exhaust of Kane's thrusters only parted the darkness so much, as if the shadows were a fog that went out of its way to consume light itself. The readings from the anomaly grew ever stronger, a staticy interferance starting to develop over the communication system between him and Jacob...

[dinoman666]

The trap had indeed vanished, leaving the Crawlers quick to pursue. However, by the time they were free, a single Knight Lancer had joined them, plodding along at a slower pace behind them. The hulking machine's "Promethean vision" allowed to spot Kane from his position down the hall well before it was worried about rounding the corner. Signalling this information to the Crawlers, it stayed back, and the quadrupedal constructs sprang into the open... attached to the ceiling and walls instead of the ground. They opened fire instantly, filling the narrow hall with orange energy bolts as they rapidly closed on the human...

[The Kingpin]

A grenade flew at the attacking robots, thrown by Jacob just as he leapt into the hole, out of sight. At that moment, the grenade began to let off a warbling mechanical roar as it lit up, internal mechanisms accelerating a radioactive substance in an internal magnetic field, the timer detonating a charge which superheated the substance and launched it outwards, a massive plasma blast blowing outwards right at and around the Promethean machines, the surfaces the plasma touched instantly detonating, engulfing the entire hallway in the destructive wave of the blast and rupturing the windows lining the hallway, unleashing the strange glowing substances churning within down into the hallway, blocking it off entirely as the strange glowing gas expanded violently to fill it. "Well they're in for a bad day" he commented to Kane with a chuckle as he dropped after him, keeping close as he noted the interference getting in the way. Lighting dropped, but his visual augmentations were compensating for it, thus far handling it well, though obviously showing this was no ordinary darkness....

[C S]

In time, the choking darkness became a sickly green mist. The interference over the com-link abruptly became a mind rending hiss then just as quickly subsided, as if Kane and Jacob had passed through some kind of barrier of some sort.

And that was because they did.


"Urla ghou'air, moresti badgho..." the ominous voice rumbled, but it was less intense and it did not shake the tether so utterly. It sounded a lot closer. The two were descending towards a strange sight, a platform suspended in what seemed to be a void of space, a wide gulf in the green mist. There were many walkways extending out from this circular platform, with small arches in between them making small circles-

"Its a...gear? The anomaly is a gear!?" Kane blurted out in disbelief. Then it occurred to him; there was something at the center of the humungous component. Relative to the gear, there were small protrusions reaching up from it...buildings. Buildings that were on average two to five stories tall with a few larger ones made out the same black and silver alloy as the exterior of the tether. There was something distinct about these constructs however, something that set them apart from the rest of the place. They looked like they were cobbled together over time rather than built in an unimaginable scheme. Like this was a place made entirely of scrap and salvage, something reinforced by the wall that formed a circumference around this...town. It was dinged, dented, scratched and ringed by yellow lamps at the top that flickered on and off occasionally.

Small shapes were visible scurrying along at the top of the fortification...

[The Kingpin]

Seeing the ground, Jacob flipped so that he was facing downwards, taking control of his fall as he went into a dive. Closing in fast on the small patchwork city, he held tight to his weapon, his eyes acting as a tracking system, pinpointing each and every one of the small specks scurrying across the haphazardly assembled town...

[C S]

People. That was what Jacob saw. Except, not all of them were human. In fact, humans of some variation were a minority, and even they were as 'human' as the vampire the two had met before was. Despite their differences, one thing was clear. They were all survivors. The tether was a home...to who knows how many. Maybe there were other remnant-cities elsewhere in the monolithic structure. Something, however drew Kane and Jacob to this one in particular. An entity capable of manipulating the makeup of the ziggurat.

Kane adjusted the angle of his thrusters so that he too was jetting over to the wall of the city, as slowly as he went. Small windows appeared on his screen, magnified images of weapons those on the wall held. Guardsmen, sentries. Their weapons ranged from mundane firearms such as small, ballistics based guns to bulky, energy condensers and resonating blades.

Thus was the way of the portals...

[Godzilla Forever]

"Christ," Damian replied. "This is a lot worse than I thought. I assumed that the rift was simply.. an alien world for us to explore. An alternate dimension of sorts. But, now that you've told me this..."

Damian paused, as he turned in the direction of the probes, before he began to steam forward at full speed. The sands of the desert danced around them like a cloak, strange creatures watching the machien as it whizzed by, almost too fast to be seen by the eye.

"We need to get these probes quick, and, hopefully, get out of here. I certainly don't want to get trapped in this hellhole..."

But something watched them from a distance, curious to this new intruder to its domain....

[The Kingpin]

"Great...Things just got a whole lot more complicated" said Jacob as he spotted what had to be dozens of people, if not more. Not only did they have to figure out how to destroy this thing; they had to do so against the efforts of the people living here...

A thrust of his jets slowed him down as the Anti-Grav emitters counteracted his fall, disabling just before he reached the ground, Jacob flipping as he landed in a kneel, rising to his feet and looking around at the people present...



"Even if you succeed in finding the probes, you will need to destroy the anchors, or tethers, holding your world and the rift together. Otherwise, you won't be able to destroy the portal at all" warned Dietrich as he noted the man's actions...