Temporal Rift RPG

[C S]

Kane came down next to Jacob with one final belch of flame from his boosters, landing with a thud. All around them, the inhabitants of the scrap-city observed them. Astoundingly, those that held weapons did not raise them in a threat display in spite of the fact that the two newcomers were alien in the purest definition of the word.

"Complicated? Complicated does not even begin to describe this ****!" Kane replied, his professionalism beginning to fall apart as the implications of the find made themselves known. To destroy the tether would spell out the doom for how many innocents? Beings simply surviving in the hostile world they had become a part of?

"So you're what Zulu'khan kept going on about!" a man called out from the group of post-apocalyptic settlers. The crowd that circled around the armored explorer and the cyborg parted as he approached. He was abnormally tall and lean, his flesh visibly charred on the right side of his body. So extensive were his burns that his extremities -arm, leg and the far edge of his torso- were replaced with smokey gray steel cybernetic-prosthetic augmentations...

[The Kingpin]

"Zulu'khan? Who?" asked Jacob as he eyed the man, inwardly thinking he was about to be introduced to an Afro-Mongolian C'thulu, though shrugging the thought off swiftly for the sake of remaining focused...

[C S]

"Our Elder One." said a tiny voice from somewhere in the crowd, a child hushed by their mother and forced away from the newcomers, hidden by the wall of onlookers.

The machine-man chuckled, his voice deep and resonating with a mechanical edge to it that was absent from his speech. "He does not like being referred to as such, really; but we do revere his unique...talents. He maintains our barrier and gives warning when the Mechnai are mounting an attack."

"Mechnai?" Kane queried.

The man nodded, panning his vision up and across the wall that enclosed the settlement. "They come from the inner workings of the All-Hollow. We believe they are its rightful guardians. It pains us that we have to strike them down for only upholding their duty."

"The robots?" the explorer asked. The man frowned, but nodded.

"They are more than simple automatons but...yes. The robots."

"They are certainly more alright. War machines tend to be a one up from simple service drones." Kane thought. Before he could reply however, the half-machine elaborated.

"There are what we call Prowlers, the dogs of metal. Then there are the Stalkers, men of metal. And finally the Eyes, birds of metal. Then there are the...others. We do not consider them Mechnai for they war against each other...consume each other...monsters. We consider them monsters..."

[The Kingpin]

"Right" said Jacob, as a message came up on Kane's HUD. "So. Any ideas on how to proceed? Or should I go ahead and improvise?". "Haven't you ever tried to find the source and destroy it?" he asked the apparent leader of the group of humans...

[C S]

The man laughed a joyous laugh with that mechanical twang. Such joviality seemed unfitting for a place such as this and more so in context with the question asked. "We are not warriors!" he replied. "We do not wish to seek fights, only to ward off enemies that find their way to us. Come, I shall take you to Zulu'khan. Perhaps he will explain our situation better than I can."

With that, the man turned and walked off toward the center of the settlement, his one metal foot thudding against the metal floor as he went.

"For now? We find out more about this place...I'm feeling a plan coming on but I need more information. It's along the lines of us clearing this thing out of anything that could pose a threat and getting these people out of it. Thoughts?" Kane replied over the private channel, his own armored footfalls loud as he lumbered on through the town.

It really was strange to see these people -complete aliens in their own right- be so calm and abiding of the hulking machinery. They truly were desensitized to it all...

[dinoman666]

Kane and Jacob did not arrive at the ramshackle town unnoticed. The Knight Lancer that had tried to pursue could only go so far, but its Watcher companions were not so limited. One of the flying constructs hovered into the abyss, instinctively knowing its way through the truly massive structure it resided in...

[Giratina93]

"Anchors... so we need to destroy the portal's anchor to stop it... But to do that, we'd need to find the anchor first, and who knows what it might be." Yukari said, not looking well with all this new information coming in. The excitment she had when they had first arrived was long gone... now she looked more exhausted and worried than anything...

Rebin nodded. "Yeah, this is just getting worse and worse... So do you have any idea what these anchors are like?"

[The Kingpin]

Or, we could just find the centre of this place, find a way to destroy the bloody thing, and obliterate it once we're back on the Felicity, survivors be damned responded Jacob as he followed the man to their supposed leader...


"They differ from anchor to anchor" responded Dietrich as he pressed his thumb and middle finger against his temples in thought. "Some are buildings, some creatures...some even portions of the environment. The only vay to tell they are anchors is to track the rift energy. They contain vast amounts of it, hence their nature as anchors" he added...

[C S]

"We can't just kill them all, Jacob. They have as much right to live as we do...as everyone on Earth does. I'm going to try saving both before having to choose one over the other." Kane replied. He couldn't bring himself to just write off these survivors for the sake of completing a mission. There had to be a way to go about this...

The half-machine came to a tent nestled between two metal shacks, raising up the tattered cloth that served as the entrance and waving to the two who followed him. He disappeared into the tent thereafter...

[The Kingpin]

Remember that the longer we wait, the more lives we're arguably throwing away. From what I can see, this place is much less densely populated than any spot on earth responded Jacob finally as he entered the tent, eyes instantly adjusting to the light within as he took in the details of the surroundings and the occupants...

[C S]

Kane frowned. The man had a point that he could not refute. They had already wasted enough time preparing for the task ahead, did they really have time to worry about ethics and morals? Regrettably, Kane mentally admitted that they did not and sighed. Even if he did manage to evacuate the people and destroy the tether in good time by some stroke of miraculous good fortune, what would happen to the survivors? Would he just leave them for the dangers of the outside world to kill them off?

It was a terrible decision to make, but he had to choose Earth over a small group whose worlds were already destroyed. With that on his chest, he entered the large tent as well.



The tent was strangely colorful, the strands in the canvas blending into a spectral display that was both dazzlingly vibrant or disgustingly dull where it was stained and dirty.

"That...is Zulu'khan." said the machine-man, he dropped to his knees and bowed in reverence of...a machine. Despite its impressive size and the cables which ran down into some hidden matrix of wires and machinery, Zulu'khan; the elder of this village...was a machine.

"Stus avarantly....golaos..." a distinctly mechanical voice emitted from the alien device. The speech pattern was the same as the haunting one from earlier...but it was far less imposing or unnerving.

"...So are you the wizard of Oz, then?" Kane asked. He knew he probably wasn't going to get a response and if he did, he wouldn't understand it.

"Wizard...of Oz? What is Oz?" said the half-machine as he stood.

"It's the setting of a long story. And several movies; in my world, that is."

[The Kingpin]

"We heard 'Zulu'Khan's voice when we first entered this place. It was as if it was in control of the machines in this place. In fact" said Jacob, gesturing towards the entrance. "...The bots we were fighting through to get here didn't show up until after Zulu'Khan here spoke" he added...

[C S]

"Gulorio astartiem." the machine spoke.

"Totally," Kane replied to it. "astartiem and the...other things you said."

He looked to the machine-man and asked "You said he...it was expecting us?"

"Yes, he was." the man replied, clearly not appreciating the objectification of his elder. "He is what allowed you to be brought here, for he is what keeps the monsters at bay and maintains the barrier which hides us from the Mechnai!"

"Allowed us to be bro- oh son of a bit-...gun."

Over their private channel, Kane said to Jacob: "The robot controls this entire monolith...and it is the center...and it has followers who think it's their messiah. Brilliant."

[dinoman666]

The Watcher hovered at the edge of the barrier, surrounded by several others of its brethren. They scanned the one obstacle in their path, probing for a way through...

[The Kingpin]

Things just got a lot simpler. As of now, they are no longer civilians. They are potential threats responded Jacob calmly. "So wait....According to you, we were 'brought' here. But why?" he asked as he looked between the machine and the cyborg...

[C S]

"I do not know. Zulu'khan protects for reasons I do not know. We do not question his motives." said the machine-man.

"I'm not even going to question how you understand...him" Kane replied.

He felt uneasiness creep up on him. Why would a machine with some sense of sentience call him and Jacob down to it? If it wanted to kill them, it would have done so as soon as they entered, either by crushing them with the rearranging walls or by directing more of the "Mechnai" and whatever these people considered monsters towards them.

"You're the military man here, Jacob. Your call, what do we do now?" he messaged the cyborg...

[The Kingpin]

Slow down. If we're too fast to take action, we could end up stuck in the middle of a shitstorm neither of us want to deal with. I say we take stock of our situation, get to know how things work here first, and then act accordingly. Whatever advantage you may have in a fight against them, try not to expose it. The more advantages we have when **** hits the proverbial fan, the better chance we have of getting out of this in one piece replied Jacob, as he said "Well, you can obviously understand 'him'. Can't you ask him what he wants us here for?"...

[C S]

"I refuse to dishonor our elder in such a way!" said the machine-man, as if the concept was of great insult to him.

"Well, your elder wants us for something and we don't speak the language of an alien machine...so...I suppose you will need to translate for us..." Kane said.

"Translate, I will do. But you will have to ask him yourself!"

Kane turned his sights to Jacob, shrugging the rugged shoulders of his armor. "Sure, that works." He looked over to Zulu'khan and asked the machine: "What do you want from us?"

"Masa anibidur....jarasii..."

"What!?" the half-machine blurted out in disbelief.

"So much for dishonoring your elder..." Kane mused. "What did he say?" he asked the machine-man.

"No...that cannot be right! Zulu'khan protects! He would not want you to murder his flock!"

[The Kingpin]

That was simple commented Jacob over the private channel, as he eyed the cyborg man calmly. "I suppose it leaves you with two options then. Leave or die. You COULD ask him again to be sure, if you like. But considering how this is a giant sentient machine of unfathomable age and undoubted complexity...odds are he meant what he said literally" he said...

[C S]

"Makes me wonder what the hell you guys did to piss him off. I mean...murder?" Kane replied.

"Wh-where could we go? Zulu'khan offers sanctuary-" stammered the machine-man.

"No he does not. He, it, whatever, wants you dead."

"No...no! You have done something to our elder! You must have! Zulu'khan PROTECTS!" the half-machine roared, his face contorting with raw fury.

"Urla matadimuur....asdaroi..."

"Your words have been tainted by the outsider filth! You have been too trusting and they have corrupted your will!"

Kane transmitted one simple thing to Jacob over their channel: "Jesus.H.Christ, he's lost it."