The multiverse beckons you riftwalker. How will you answer its call?

[Cassidy]

2) Get the hell out. Use weapons if needed to keep them away.

8) We need to get to the end of this. Using the RGM right now could be bad if there are CTPCT agents around.

 

[Kz3r0]

2)…try to run.
10)…visit a local gambling hall

 

[Zwist]

2/8

 

[m4davis]

Okay selecting 8 as my second choice

 

[Monty]

Yes, we've invested two turns in investigating Salvitto, we have to get to the bottom of his situation, as tempting as the options to investigate the alley and bring our container here are.

2-8

 

[Stygian Lurker]

2
8

 

[Hellraiser]

Landslide victory for 2) 8). I just noticed I forgot to use letters instead of numbers in the first choice.

Anyway voting is closed, expect the update tomorrow if all goes well.

 

[Hellraiser]

2.15 The midnight light show on Hercules Boulevard

You need to get out of here. But how? The Vigiles fire another shot, they mean business. You have an idea, risky but it might work.

The officers try to surround the building. The front entrance to the property is already guarded by them. You and Paul run out to the back of the garden. The magnificently trimmed hedges provide excellent cover from the prying eyes of the native policemen. You pull out your laspistol and cut out a hole in the iron fence with a few long pulses. Quickly you run into the property next door.

The vigiles grunts follow you, bullets fly through the air. One narrowly misses you. Luckily, it is dark and their guns are rather inaccurate. You avoid having to fire back. Soon however it becomes obvious you will only get out of here alive or free if you kill them all.

“The gate!” Paul shouts. “It’s locked!” There is no time to open the large gate surrounded by a tall wall. Unluckily you forgot that the other property with just an iron fence in the front was connected with Salvitto’s on the other side of the garden.

You don’t see any other quick way out, you are trapped. The other group of officers is charging towards the gate from the street. You and Paul try to take cover behind a pair of tall oaks present in the neighbors garden. It is time to make a stand.

When you notice one of them ran out of ammo you fire back. Three pulses are fired at the shadowy figures trying to hide behind the corner of the house. Beams of light burns through the night air. A scream can be heard. You got one.
The other officer tries to help his comrade by dragging him behind cover, a tactical error on his part. You shoot him twice and his wounded comrade just to be sure. Meanwhile somebody has opened the gate, the vigiles storm inside shooting in your direction.

Luckily they miss you. “Scheisse!” Paul screams, it appears they didn’t miss him. He needs to hang on, you just need to kill these two savages. May Hades have mercy upon them for what they did. Bullets keep hitting the tree trunks and the wall behind you. A you think a brick fragment chipped away by one of them hit you in the arm.

One of the officers hides behind a column at the entrance to the villa, the other stays behind the corner of the gate. They’re smarter than the others. When one stop firing to reload the other keeps the pressure by shooting. You force them to take cover with a few blind shots fired in their direction.

You can hear some horses, they appear to be terrified of the laser show you’re displaying here. The officers must have used them to get here. Finally, you notice one of the officers decides to try his luck and pop out of cover. The beam of light hits him in the right leg burning right through it, he starts screaming from the pain as he falls to the ground. You take another shot, this time at his chest and head. His face is now a charred mess, but you doubt he minds that as he is most definitely dead.

The other officer having noticed what happened to his comrade starts panicking. He fires frantically in your direction missing every shot. One, two, three, four, five, and finally the sixth shot. It is time to strike back. You run from behind the tree firing at the direction of the scared savage.

In a way he’s like an animal scared, trapped and terrified. The look of horror upon his face makes you pity him in a way. He’s standing their helpless paralyzed with fear just a few meters in front of you. But what must be done must be done, you end his life with one move of your finger. The savage never stood a chance.

Quickly you rush back to Paul, the bullet hit his left arm. In the commotion he managed to pull out some Reich bandages and stop the bleeding. “I took some pills so it doesn’t hurt as much and I can walk,” he informs you, “but we need to get me out of here fast”.

You run outside of the residence and into the dark back alleys on the other side of the street. Somewhere in the distance you can hear horses running. Probably reinforcements. This night has been far too eventful, but it has not yet ended. You quickly decide where to go now so that Paul’s wound can be examined more closely and he can hopefully be patched up.

*

Paul informed you that if nothing goes wrong within 24 hours he should be okay. Getting the bullet out wasn’t exactly what you were made for. It is a good thing he knew how to do it and that he was conscious enough to guide you through. The bullet damaged a few nerves leaving his left arm paralyzed. Nothing Reich medical science can’t fix, but you’re a long way away from the Reich homeparallel. At least he didn’t bleed to death or get an infection.

It is the morning of the fourth day, the fourth day since you arrived here of course. Today’s edition of the Vox Populi daily has a rather worrying front page.

Well Heracles, you have been in worse situations. These savages won’t find out you were responsible for that massacre. Or will they?

Once you escaped with Paul, you decided to…
A)…stay at the House of Liber until he gets better.
B)…spend the night at the railway station and visit then rent that apartment at Via Galicia.
C)…pay a visit to Bucco and “convince” him to let you and Paul stay at his place until Paul gets better.
D)…find some cheap rooms in the plebian quarter. There had to be something like that available there.

Considering you barely avoided getting shot by the native police force, you will now…
1)...get the container for Bucco. Transit to ββ-17 via αε-13.
2)...get the container for Bucco. Transit to ββ-17 via αδ-37.
3)...try to enter the "Parlor of Prestige". Meeting some of the local tycoons should prove prudent.
4)...visit the Coitus Maximus. Time to see if an expensive whore (or two) is worth the money.
5)...check out the Christian Society of Western Caesarea. Maybe the Christians know something.
6)...try to contact the head of the city's treasury. Ask him if he needs more slaves or knows anything that could be of use to you.
7)...contact the local governor and offering him technology.
8)…visit the Isaac’s Firearms factory and investigate Mr. Salvitto’s disappearance there.
9)…search the area where the pioneer/agent disappeared. He wanted to exit the streetcar there on his own, he had to have some business there.
10)…visit a local gambling hall, search for clues there. Surely Mr. Salvitto had to frequent one of them.
11)...visit the Credito Augustia Bank branch, try to find out something about Mr. Salvitto.
12)…get back to the Reich homeparallel as soon as possible so that Paul can get his arm fixed.
13)…try to enter the Naval Hospital and dispose of the surviving officer. Discretely of course.

Consult the map and info on parallels for details if you need them.

I was very tempted to kill off Paul. But let’s face it, Paul knows medicine well and you were facing a bunch of industrial era roman cops with revolvers. In the middle of the night at that. The odds were in your favor. Although not as much as you thought.

Still, deciding to make your stand at the house and start the fight yourselves would have proven to be a better choice. For one there would be less witnesses and more corpses, as you could pretty much gun them down from a window while they were still on the street before the gate. Not to mention Paul not ending up unable to move his left hand’s fingers.

Hiding inside would steal lead to a firefight, but it would be more lethal at least to Paul.

 

[Cassidy]

A 2

Time to get out of this parallel for a while, and the opportunity to close the deal with Bucco may be lost if it continues being delayed for too long.

 

[Arpad]

A 2

 

[Monty]

I agree, we need to get things moving with Bucco which should gain us some influence and allow us to come at this investigation from a different, more cunning angle.

A 2

 

[oscar]

A2

 

[Stygian Lurker]

A2

 

[Kz3r0]

A2

 

[CappenVarra]

Excellent work on the newspaper!

 

[Hellraiser]

Well alright, landslide victory for A2. Time to meet a new old acquaintance. You'll see what I mean when the update gets posted

 

[Hellraiser]

2.16 Some things never change while other things change only slightly

Bucco’s guard greets you at the gate, he seems nervous. You can’t blame him, the last time you were here you showed him that if you want to, you can cut him in half with a laspistol. It appears Bucco has hired some workers to repair the damage you did to his floor. They’re just leaving the place, no doubt finished with work for the day.

Finally Bucco himself appears, dressed in the most ridiculous-looking expensive outfit you ever saw. An outrageous mix of bright orange and pink with golden buttons and silver pins in way too many places. “I think that if you stare too long at it, it will make you go blind Herr Kyriazis.” Jokes Paul, luckily Bucco doesn’t understand that he his fashion sense has become the subject of jokes.

He seems troubled, Paul asks him what’s the problem. You follow him to his study, he locks the door and shows you what is wrong. It appears he also reads the local press. On his desk lies today’s issue of Vox Populi in which the “incident” at Mr. Salvitto’s house made the front-page. “He asks what do we know about this,” Paul translates Bucco’s nervous rambling, “and if we were involved.” Quickly you come up with an “explanation”.

*

It is slowly getting dark, by the time you get back here with the container it should be too dark to spot it, even if the rift itself is rather flashy. Secrecy is paramount after all. The less people know, the less likely those damn pioneers or agents are to find out what you are doing here. Sure, they will most likely detect the rift. But unless they triangulate the telltale signals, there is no way they can pinpoint your location. And if you don’t transit too often, they won’t figure out you are smuggling tech.

This place is perfect, an open field which is quite far from the nearest road, and just a few hundred meters away from the vineyard. More or less the place where you hid the container, either way getting it closer to Bucco’s property won’t be a problem. Bucco seems anxious, he doesn’t really know what to expect now does? After all until last week, he thought a Chinese Zeppelin or a Streetcar were the most advanced machines existing anywhere.

“He asks what happens now?” Paul translates the fat man's question. All he needs to do is to watch, it should take you an hour maybe two at most to get back. He needs to look for a blue glow when we get back, it may be a bit to the north-east but it will be there. Bucco nods, it appears he understood.

A moment later gone are the barriers between the parallel universes, the vortex glows in a furious shade of red. Bucco keeps gazing in amazement at the rift hovering just above the ground. You and Paul on the other hand begin your journey.

A kaleidoscope of colors, changing rapidly in a seemingly random manner, as various different particle types collide with the protective bubble of the “pocket universe”. Pure chaos, as it was in the beginning before the oceans formed and before the first gods emerged. Could the religious texts of old talk about this seemingly random storm of radiation and particles? In a way what they say seems to apply to the abyss between universes.

The first stop, αδ-37. „The city looks different from this side,” Paul gazes upon the city lights in the horizon, “but I can still see those three towers you mentioned earlier. How long before the Romans start building things like that?” With your involvement it may take them less than two decades. Assuming they are willing to pay for the know-how. With those Chinese on their mind, you doubt they will prioritize construction techniques over guns or devices that can be weaponized. The basic market law of supply and demand applies here as well, and you want to make a profit and earn some favors after all.

*

The blue haze lifts as the container along with you and Paul arrives in αδ-37. It took you a while to find where exactly you buried it, about 20 minutes in fact and you had to wait for the damn thing to resurface and open a rift. According to your RGM’s clock, 57 minutes have passed since you departed from the Roman parallel. Hopefully Bucco will still be waiting, you just need one more transit it should take no more than 5 minutes.

Just as you are about to punch in new coordinates for transit, a few not-so-friendly people with guns emerge from behind the small hills around you. They point their guns at you and Paul of course. Annoyingly enough, their flashlights are also pointed at you. Do these savages want to make you go blind as well? Bah, as if Bucco’s obnoxious dress hasn't caused enough eyesight damage already.

They don’t look like the military, they’re wearing black or maybe dark blue bulletproof vests. The FBI? No, not the FBI. At least they don’t look like any FBI agents you saw in any TV show on “Goliath Crime & Action”. Or on the news. “No sudden movements or we will shoot you, put your hands behind you back!” Yells one of them into your face. Oh, they don’t want to shoot you and there is no way in hell you’re doing what the barbarian wants.

“What did you find so funny?! Do as I say or we will kill you!” He barks again, like the primitive he is after seeing you smile in response to his earlier threat. You have some news for him, ones which he won’t like. “You will remain silent and do as I said! NOW!” He shouts. Well if he kills you, everything in a few hundred meter radius will get vaporized in a thermonuclear explosion. His facial expression turns from one of aggression to that of concern.

“Explain, now!” He barks, what a filthy mongrel he is. Well, in case he didn’t notice. The container behind him is powered by a fusion reactor. That reactor just happens to be linked to a device which monitors your vital signs. Now, if the vital signs drop too much, for example if you get a new, rather lethal hole in your skull, the device sends a signal.

As a response to this signal, the software controlling the fusion reactor will create conditions for an uncontrolled chain reaction. The result is what you call your life insurance, a roughly 500 kiloton thermonuclear explosion triggered when somebody kills you.

The armed agent’s concern grows, he radios somebody. A moment later a man in a black suit arrives at the scene, a stereotypical G-Man if you ever sam one. He was nearby, no doubt monitoring the whole operation. These savages managed to organize quite an ambush, no doubt even after over 5 years they have been keeping an eye on this area. Just in case you would have shown up here again.

“My name is Agent Michael Floyd from the Department of Homeland Security.” The G-Man introduces himself. Wait did he say he’s agent Floyd? You look at him closely for a moment, he looks older obviously but it is him. He picked a similar although slightly different career path here. So agent Floyd, no ruskis and other comrades to chase around as a CIA agent in this universe huh?

To think it has been nearly a decade since you first met him on the shore of Barssee lake in West Berlin, not far from the Teufelsberg listening post where you sent them that holoteaser. Granted that Mr. Floyd was a different man, he smuggled weapons to every god-loving part of the world that wanted to fight Ivan, as he called everyone who wasn't happy with communism.

This Michael Floyd however does not know you, he lived in a different geopolitical reality, you doubt he has even ever been to Berlin or the Grunewald forest fro that matter where you sold Uncle Sam all the merchandise. But while circumstances shape a man, if he joined the DHS he must still be a man who likes to keep his homeland safe from whatever evil lurks beyond the borders. You could use this past knowledge of him to your advantage.

“So you claim you have a nuke here?” The agent asks. Well not a nuke, if you had a proper nuke you would sell it on the black market after all. What you have is a reactor that for all intents and purposes will blow up like a nuke. Of course they don’t know it, but it’s a bluff which should fool the ignorant natives. There is no way in hell you can hack a reactors firmware to do that, at least you rather not try. After all you heard of a few people who did get blown up by accident when trying to make bombs out of legal industrial reactors.

“Well I don’t think we can let you go,” Michael explains, “you see your kind has been meddling into our affairs for quite some time. But maybe you'll tell me for how long exactly?” Paul while somewhat confused remains quiet. He doesn’t speak English anyway, why learn it in a world where the Reich reigns supreme? Plus he knows you are never to mention that you’re an Ahnenerbe agent, savages are best kept in the dark.

You inform Mr. Floyd that you have no idea what is he talking about, you were merely passing by. “Oh you can’t fool me, we know of your influence. You seek to undermine the hard-fought-for American freedom with your subterfuge and intrigue.” Oh gods, the patriotic gibberish again. You thought you would never have to hear it from him again, sadly the multiverse had to have at least two Michael Floyd’s full of nationalistic fervor so near each other.

Oh and who might you be in that case, the great enemy of American freedom? “The greatest enemy this freedom-loving country has ever saw. You look like us, carefully infiltrating every fabric of our society, science, arts and business, all to gain influence. Unwillingly, even the politicians are your pawns.” Oh great, who does he thinks you are? A freemason? NWO Zionist banker? Silly savage and his paranoid ramblings.

“I have seen your devices, I have seen your ships hovering in the sky." Wait, did he say ships? Hovering at that? Mr. Floyd may be on to something here. Lemurians? Or the makers of the human-like automaton maybe?

“We know you want to control us from within, so that you can subjugate our freedom-loving nation and the entire world when you are ready to strike. So you can stop your lies alien, humanity will not be subjugated so easily, I intend to fight for the land of my fathers.” Alien? Oh my, this is rich. Mr. Floyd has became an even bigger nut job with no Soviet Union around.

Still, this situation could be played to your advantage. The question remains how.

You will...
A)…play along with agent Floyd. Tell him you are an alien as he thinks, however tell him that you can work for him as a double agent. So long as your freedom is guaranteed.
B)…tell him of the multiverse and that you are a smuggler. Attempt to bribe him with technology to let you go, surely you can give him a laser cutter or something. If he wants to hunt “aliens” he’ll need lasers or some other tech will he not?
C)…refuse to do anything. Insist they let you go or the whole place will become a nice radioactive crater.
D)…tell him of the multiverse and that you are an Ahnenerbe agent of the Reich. He doesn’t want to piss off a Fuhrer with 4 rift-capable dreadnoughts now does he?
E)…tell him that you are but a traveler roaming the multiverse. You mean them no harm, but that reactor will blow up if necessary.
F)...tell him that you know of certain factions that might be these "aliens" of his. If Lemurians or the mysterious automaton-lovers are here, having the natives searching for them should make it easier to find them.

You explained to Lucius Bucco that the incident at the Salvitto Villa…
1)…was not your doing. Another party of travelers must be involved, possibly art thieves.
2)…was not your doing. It must have been Atlantean Pioneers.
3)…was your doing. You were investigating Mr. Salivitto’s disappearance.
4)…was your doing. You were investigating the origin of the box.
5)…was your doing. You were investigating the presence of an outside party from another parallel.

Vote now.

I did mention you were going to travel through the refinery area, the one where the deal gone wrong five years ago took place. And you did attract the DHS' attention there just before you left it a few months back.

Then again I can't blame you for the choice as the other parallel wasn't visited and there was also Chimera City which wasn't even a choice. Nobody likes having Lemurian freakshows running after them. Before you ask, IIRC while you did transit through the same parallel to get to the Roman one in the first place, you did it from the south not north of the city. And the south is safe as it's just a bunch of fields there anyway.

Oh yeah sorry if this one is a bit long, on the other hand the past few updates have been rather short anyway.

 

[Kz3r0]

E)…tell him that you are but a traveler roaming the multiverse. You mean them no harm, but that reactor will blow up if necessary.
3)…was your doing. You were investigating Mr. Salivitto’s disappearance.

 

[Cassidy]

F)

5)

Time to be open on the matters. Bucco already have seen so much that telling him the superficial reasons for the whole incident would be of no consequence, and once he sees the stuff he'll get in that container he'll probably even forget about it. And getting the paranoid Homeland Security after Lemurians and Automatons may either convince him to let Heracles go, cause a distraction for those two threats while the investigation in the Roman Empire parallel carries on, or both.

 

[oscar]

F3

 

[Stygian Lurker]

F 5

 

[Monty]

F 5

Torn between 1,3,5 but perhaps mentioning an outside party will convince Bucco that your actions were for the 'greater good'.

 

[Zwist]

F 5
Yeah we lied to you, we're no mere smugglers. But hey, it's for your own good.
What could possibly go wrong?

 

[skuphundaku]

I'll chime in with the F 5 crowd.

 

[Hellraiser]

F5 wins then. Expect the update tomorrow.

 

[Hellraiser]

2.17 So I heard you like smuggling technology

Fine, you will cooperate with this parallel’s Michael Floyd. In the end you may use them to find some information for the Reich. Explaining the whole thing takes a while, agent Floyd seems skeptical of the whole thing.
“An interesting tale,” Michael says in an unconvinced tone, “but I would sooner believe that they traveled half way across the galaxy rather than from another dimension. For one they’re definitely not human.”

Well, you could show him another parallel. “How do I know you won’t teleport me to your mothership and imprison me?” He just has to be that paranoid doesn’t he? Maybe some good will is in order. If he lets you go you will visit him in a while and help him look for his aliens, that much you can promise.

“You see Mr. Traveler-from-another-universe,” he says with a smirk on his face, “I find it odd that out of all places, you’re decided to drop by in this one in particular. A few years ago somebody, claiming to come from an advanced civilization from a parallel universe, sent us a message. A nice little holographic teaser to be precise. He offered to meet us in this place, show us the goods, by which he meant advanced technology he could sell us.”

You know where this is going, it appears the locals haven’t forgotten about you. “When he appeared,” Michael continues, “after disabling some kind of optical camouflage he used to mask himself, we told him to surrender or be killed. He started to run and managed to get away, although his stealth suit got damaged.”

Will he get to the point already? You have a fat Roman to meet. “Then a few months back, somebody breaks into the Infinity Apartments. The mysterious stranger manages to easily disable the security system and enter the building unseen. He gets caught in the act when one of the residents, Yuri Strelinsky a suspected Russian mobster, returns to his home. A fight ensues, the result is the death of Mr. Strelinsky’s girlfriend. It all looked like a drunken argument gone awry.”

“But there is one problem,” the agent continues his monologue, you’re becoming quite bored of the savages babbling already, “there were signs of involvement of a third party. For one somebody was using an unknown weapon. It just happened to do similar kinds of skin damage as one we recovered a while back. One of alien origin.”

“So tell me Mr. Traveller,” he asks with utmost confidence in the fact that he is right in his assumptions, “what do you have in that container? Why do you need it to travel around? It doesn’t look like a habitation module or a vehicle, more like a safe. I get the odd feeling we have already met, a few years ago during the incident I have mentioned.”

You deny it but can’t come up with a rebuttal to his argument. Nevertheless he never saw you, he can’t prove a thing and the damn thing will explode if needed. “I don’t buy it Mr. Traveler. Cuff them, shoot them if they resist.” His men point their guns at you as a few of them approach you. “Whatever you tried to sell us, I guess it was to further your agenda. Probably it had some built in system to stop working to make it easier for you to conquer us.

*

You have no idea where you are. They took you, Paul, your RGM and gear along with the container somewhere. It’s not like they could open it with anything short of a nuclear explosion or a lascannon anyway. Although the former would definitely destroy the contents as well, it is unlikely they would get that desperate though. You have no idea where Paul is.

The agent enters the room, he stares at you and starts talking. “Well I want to show you a few things, hopefully you will tell us what they are.” Mr. Floyd shows you a few pictures, one depicts a black triangle-shaped spacecraft with three orange lights glowing below it. Not unlike the pyramid ship you saw, however it looks somewhat different. For one the lights are orange. The image is too blurry to notice any other details.

“Our reports claim this was roughly twice as big as an average F-16 fighter jet.” Floyd explains. Do you know anything about it?” It is probably a scout craft, utilizing anti-gravity. It’s not Lemurian, it could belong to the automaton faction or whoever sent the Pyramid ship after that Vimana during the incident with the unknown communications device.

“You’re not really helpful here Mr. Traveller.” You tell him to call you Jonathan Anders, the name you wanted to assume when dealing with the native government in this parallel. “Well then Mr. Anders,” he shows you another picture, “ what can you tell me of this?”

A long tube, possibly a weapon. Electricity is arcing along its surface, it looks like a stun rod. Yet it is different from the ones you know, the markings on it are completely unknown to you. Wait, you think you saw one of them somewhere. But you can’t quite remember where.

“You’re rather useless aren’t you?” Michael says with disappointment. “We managed to guess as much ourselves. Perhaps some waterboarding might persuade you to tell me more.” Oh great, more torture. At least it can’t be as bad as the hell you had back in New Swabia. “One last chance Mr. Anders.” He shows you another picture.

It shows an assortment of various small objects, they all seem to be stylized to look crystal-shaped. One of them catches your attention. Could it be? Yes, it has to be. It is a data disk, or at least what you assumed was a data disk. And the symbol on it similar to the one on the “stun rod”, you recognize it as well.

However, this means that Civilization X, the ruins of which you explored in εα-3, regardless if it is alien or human, was also here. Or is here now. You tell Floyd that you have seen similar devices in another universe, however the people who made them were dead. Or at least they abandoned that universe.

“Oh, and you don’t know more?” Floyd replies sarcastically. “You did a poor job of studying those ruins in that case.” Well, you’re not an archaeologist, merely a traveler. “I’m not convinced. We’ll have to get that hose now won’t we Jonathan? Can’t waterboard anyone without a hose after all.”

Mr. Floyd is becoming rather annoying, you will…
A)…convince him that you can get him an expert from another parallel, or some information about the ruins. Get back to Ajax and explain the whole situation.
B)…open the container for him. They can take its contents in exchange for your and Paul’s freedom, as long as they let you have it and your devices and weapons. You will try to get in touch with one of your black market contacts afterwards to get new goods.
C)…play along with Mr. Floyd, claim you are an alien. Make something up as to the purpose of the devices, convince him to let you become a mole and work for him.
D)…convince him to let you see some of the “alien” items. Scan them for him.
E)…convince him to let you use your RGM under some pretext. Attempt to escape using it.
F)…insist you know nothing more. Because that is the truth.
G)…refuse to say anything at all not matter the circumstances.
H)…convince him that you can get him an expert from another parallel, or some information about the ruins. Get back to Osterhagen and explain the whole situation.

Vote now.