by Ethagon
DeCIRO Catalogue Number
SC-049/100-049/103
Document Type
Step Compilation (Year/Step Number)
Dates Received
2049-02-25 through 2049-02-26
Operation Status
Never Closed
Foreword
A decade after the communist plague swept over my beautiful Druv'tuul, it is once again stricken by disease. But every crisis brings opportunity with it. Six cases of the Washington Virion have been confirmed. Only a fool would think it stops there. Already the Six Year Plan has been crushed; the seers left clueless, the factories helpless.
His Grace Met'heus had the right of it. Druv'tuul can only be saved by a central authority. My Insurgency is ready. We will not fail like those idiots in Silesia. I compel you to listen. Heed the will of the Engine.
1.STEP 49/100
Arrival
The Sons of Phomet have appeared. They do not know of us. They did not come for us. Still, this might interfere with the Plan. They say their global occult masters have sent them to quarantine the affected.
We all know that is not why they are here.
Catalogue Number: FR-49/100-001
Document Type: Summary Report
Author: Thousands of eyes of the engine bearing witness at the elevators to Druv'tuul
Location: The elevator stands at the end of a large cave. There is an empty subway station close by. These are not the only two entryways. Some passageways lead out, and others lead deeper still. The elevator is being manned by Yeren workers. The surface is not far away, yet they all carry the scent typical of Druv'tuul. Molten rock and earth.
Summary: The Sons of Phomet enter, led by Asbuk Inim. They smell of clear skies and bioweapons.
The workers notice the Sons. There are nods among themselves before the largest among them approaches the newcomers. The worker tells the Son the gate has stopped working. Inim does not believe the worker. They argue back and forth, but the workers stand firm.
The Sons are about to resort to violence. A young druid in the crowd beats them to it, starting to shout the words of an arcane chant. He is interrupted by a blow from Inim's battle staff.
The workers try to intervene. The Sons block them. Inim continues to beat the druid. He only stops when the youth says something between blows. It is too quiet for me to pick up.
Inim smiles. He orders the Sons back. They leave the area with the druid in tow, held by two of their own.
And so the Sons of the lesser brother walk the road of kings. Transport for the greater brother, the exalted Met'heus, was considered above mingling with the goods of the common folk. King Eldröl was no different. But don't feel special, brood of Phomet. They may lie still, but the royal roads transported their privilege long after any royalty tasted its fruit.
Countless footsteps have eroded dents into the earth. Here and there, plants are fighting for footholds in the disused crabways, growing between cracked tiles or in patches.
Inim: Druv'tuul is close. I can feel the pull of home.
Druid: (coughs) Druv'tuul is not your home.
Inim: Be quiet when your elders speak, boy.
Druid: My name is Yorung. And you're no elders of mine.
Multiple members let out a groll.
Inim: That a druid does not understand the pull shows how dire the situation is. Phomet teaches us that a place is its culture. When you had your little revolution you tore out that culture. Now Druv'tuul will be whole once again.
Yorung: All you're feeling is the gravitational pull of Druv'tuul. You're just mystifying your heightened sense of it. I know about true mysteries and you have none of them.
Inim: Stop talking and make yourself useful. See those vines?
Inim points at vines blocking the path.
Yorung: I've helped you more than I should have already.
Inim: And you call yourself a druid.
The Sons clear the path by hand. Inim sniffs the vines before abruptly turning around to Yorung.
Inim: That's a pheromone trail. You lead us down an alluru track!
Yorung: So what?
Inim: If you think a mere alluru is enough to kill us then you severely underestimated the folk of the prophet.
Yorung: (coughs) This is an old track. Besides, not like the trains are running anyway.
Inim: Why?
Yorung: (shocked) Wha– Why? Because they're crabs! They could carry the virus to any passengers. Aren't you here to enforce that kind of thing?
Inim: (turns around to continue walking) What a pathetic measure. Any strong Yeren should be able to overcome the virus.
Yorung: (mocking) Am I glad Druv'tuul has your help now.
2.STEP 49/101
Ignorance
The Sons pose no threat to our position. They arrive in a time of infection, and predisposed against true faith. I joined under invitation of the last king. They wish to leverage the scraps of power their occult masters granted them? Let them.
They will spar with quarantine. Our fight is for the soul of Druv'tuul.
Catalogue Number: FR-49/101-001
Document Type: Summary Report
Author: Hundreds of eyes of the engine bearing witness at a third-ring living district
Location: About three-quarters of the district is composed of standard Druv'tuul three-floor houses, a mix of metal and nature. Each one has a metallic cuboid framework surrounded by a single tree growing through and around it. Citizens have made minor changes to the template, growing a balcony or an outdoor staircase.
The last quarter of houses diverges entirely. Some overemphasize plants, growing their homes from various trees, while others discard them entirely in favour of metallic artwork. Those who can have turned any organic parts entirely inward. It is a preponed attempt at self-isolation. The streets are almost empty.
Summary: The Sons of Phomet pass through the district. They take Yorung with them. Most other Yeren on the streets largely avoid them where they can, except for a contingent of citizen soldiers. The soldiers have been following them since they first appeared in the city. For now, they keep their distance.
The Sons reach their target: The house of the confirmed infected and their family. The air here is thicker. A Yeren is seen briefly looking out the window, before quickly closing the curtains. The Sons do not approach the door. Instead one of them pulls out a titanian cage seed.
He throws it at the house. Within seconds, the whole house is enclosed by impenetrable wood. The soldiers act. Some rush towards the house, others towards the Sons. As the soldiers try and fail to pry the house open, the Sons only laugh. One of them playfully pulls out another seed, and the soldiers freeze.
The soldiers fall back into formation and begin to cast spells. Inim turns serious. He cites Druv'tuul's past agreement with the GOC, legitimizing their actions. The casting stops.
When the Sons leave, the soldiers stay near the house, unsure and directionless. A furious Yorung is dragged along by the Sons as they search for their next target.
Do the Sons take me for a fool? I grant you ignorance, yet you dare tempt what is mine. I may have had to sever arms to escape the virus's touch, but you will find me far from weak.
Try all you might, Inim, but they are all still trapped in my Six Year Plan.
Inim and Yorung enter the fifth ring, the innermost ring. A massive, inverted tree grows down into the chasm at the ring's centre, its branches growing sideways and downwards. Some branches serve as stairways between the pit's edge and the rest of the tree. Others are clearly only passageways for the alluru to reach the train station in the tree. The deepest branches reach the very bottom of the pit to mingle and entwine with the tendrils of a fungal network's hyphae.
Inim and Yorung walk together towards the inverted tree. Inim shakes his head.
Inim: How you trample your legacy. The palace of Phomet's brother, where our freedom was bought. All of it gone.
Yorung: (scoffs) Yeah, thankfully. Now this ring can actually serve its people.
Inim: (glances at Yorung) Hmm. You said your teacher works here?
Yorung: Yes.
Inim: Then you have simply replaced one good king with thousands of bureaucrats.
Inim glances down at the fungal hyphae intermingling and merging with the tree's branches.
Inim: What is this?
Yorung: (eyes lighting up) Something important to the Six Year Plan.
Inim: Important how?
Yorung: Well someone needs to connect all these visions of our future economy. If you want to conquer Druv'tuul, that's where you should start.
Inim: (furrows his brows) Why the change in attitude?
Yorung: (coughs) Maybe I've just decided overzealously following the quotes of a dead guy is the way to go after all.
Inim: (shakes his head) Your blasphemy won't help you. That's enough stalling, we're going in.
The two of them enter the tree via a branch growing towards them, forming a staircase.
The chamber's ceiling is lined with golden leaves until it shines like a starry sky. Many coloured vines hang freely from above, some glowing from within. The Archdruid-Seer sits at the far end of the chamber, her hands intertwined with the branches of the tree. Two of her eyes are closed, but her third eye is open. There is a wall of wind between her and the rest of the chamber.
Inim enters. Yorung hangs back at the entrance. He coughs, getting the Seers attention.
Seer: Come to return my apprentice?
Inim: We need your services.
Seer: No.
Inim: No?
Seer: I'm busy.
Inim: It won't take long. Just tell us about any virus carriers we haven't found yet.
Seer: So you can sit on that information to prolong your stay? No.
Inim: (grips his battle staff) Phomet teaches us that there are times when a chosen path is too costly to stay on. Can you afford yours?
Seer: (lip twitches) It's you who can't afford it. Your GOC contract may protect your 'quarantine' measures, but see what happens if you attack a seer.
Inim: We'll find someone else.
Seer: In case you haven't noticed, Druv'tuul's six-year plan was derailed by the virus. You'll have a difficult time finding any seer who isn't busy constructing the new plan.
Inim: …I don't know what you see in it. How can you still have faith, even after the plan failed to uphold its promise of a future where production meets demand in precision? Faith must follow from fact. Yours is nothing but a misplaced belief. Delusion.
Seer: Try finding your foothold with someone else. You won't have luck with the seers. And be quick about it. That contract of yours was with the old government. I can guarantee the Republic will have it annulled as soon as possible.
Inim: Yeah. (looks around the room and the expansive vines displayed for druid use) So much for equality. (leaves)
Yorung hesitates, then moves to follow Inim. A moment before he can leave, the Archdruid opens all her eyes.
Seer: You better not go out again without the mask.
Yorung clicks his tongue, but obeys. He pulls out a sponge and places it on his face. Immediately the sponge spreads to covers his whole body. A barrier against the virus's passage.
3.STEP 49/102
Confrontation
Is nature's mimicry of its master not fascinating? Trees allow their roots to be swallowed by the mycorrhiza in the hopes of being connected to the forest. It has been so long, that humans mistake the mycorrhiza as the original and us as the imitation. How endearingly naive.
It doesn't matter how much a single Seer can divine. The true might of divination can only be found in its aggregate. Six years of perfect economy. This is what you're trying to replace, Inim.
Let's see if you can fight the forest.
Catalogue Number: CO-49/103-001
Document Type: Covert Operations
Author: The Engineer
Location: A bridge of impossibly rusted gold. Vines have grown over murals of the servants of King Eldröls, hiding their eyes in greenery. A small river of magma runs under it. The rusted bridge is one of many that cross it. The others are black, stony trees that sit directly in the magma flow. This bridge is the Son's chosen passage between the Third and Fourth Rings, as they reconvene with the rest of their group to continue their quarantine visits.
The Plan:
- 1. Step A group of the Hivemind, seven Yeren strong, shall lie in wait for the Sons to cross. You will not be alone.
- 2. Step Catch the fish before they cross the bridge. Leave them alive, they are your future brethren. The druid is not to be touched.
- 3. Step Should your coordination as one fail to overcome the still-enemy, you need only to stall them. With the Sons turning violent, the network will reach deeper and mobilize more for this fight.
- 4. Step The Sons of Met'heus shall join our fight to convert this city.
Author: The Faithful Warriors of the Engine bearing witness
Summary: Blood. The broken bones of those who fought in unity. Tears and vomit given involuntarily. Despair as no help arrives from a promised connection. Hyphae cut off out of fear of the virus. The Insurgency has become one with Druv'tuul, with the city.
And the city is choking.
…
Inim steps into the factory. The steam blurs detail and distance, but it resembles an oversized greenhouse, if not for the fonts of magma dripping down from above, or the plants turning like clockwork.
Inim: Can I speak with your boss?
First Yeren Worker: We have none.
Second Yeren Worker: We are only slaves to ourselves.
Inim: No one to trade with?
Third Yeren Worker: Oh, we have experts.
First Yeren Worker: But the decision will run through all of us.
Inim: (scoffs) Don't tell me you're all like this. You can't run a group without a firm hand breaking any deadlock.
Second Yeren Worker: The gears do not wait.
Third Yeren Worker: Not all factories do this, but it's the popular model.
First Yeren Worker: There's never been a deadlock. If something gets to complicated, we all connect to–
Inim: Let me guess. Hyphae?
First Yeren Worker: Yeah.
Third Yeren Worker: The whole factory becomes connected. So we can decide.
Second Yeren Worker: As one.
Inim: (snorts) Alright, factory hive-mind. I have a deal for you.
Third Yeren Worker: Delivering to the Sons of Phomet would be …a bad look.
Inim: This deal's from a delegation of the Global Occult Coalition. There's a global crisis going on and you have what we need here. Deliver to us exclusively and we'll give you exact numbers. No chance of under or overestimation.
The workers think.
Inim: Of course, we can stop after a new Six-year plan's finalized.
First Yeren Worker: We'll have to discuss this.
So it has come to this. I'll see you down under.
Catalogue Number: FR-49/102-001
Document Type: Summary Report
Author: Dozens of eyes of the engine bearing witness all over Druv'tuul
Summary: The Sons stop quarantining people. Instead, they confiscated some bio lab that was outside of what the eyes can see. That isn't to say they forgot about the infected. All of them had already been located. Every so often, one of the Sons goes out and ensures the infected are where they're supposed to be.
At last, they emerge from their lab with more cage seeds. Many infected are driven out of their homes. Not all of them, some stay where they are, others are relocated. One they had been unable to find at all. Their new locations are evenly spread out throughout all of Druv'tuul.
All at once the infected are quarantined. Only these new cage seeds have an additional task. They forcefully connect to the hyphae, abusing the system to send their own signal. It is purged with ease, the connection severed. But not before the Sons see where the signals converge.
They see my Engine Fungus deep under Druv'tuul.
4.STEP 49/103
Usurpation
Hello Inim, how was the way down here?
Is that disturbance I see, Yorung? Don't worry, that body has not been used ever since I fully fused with the Engine. But you knew that already, didn't you?
Explain yourself.
It's quite simple, Inim. That boy only followed you in hopes of getting to me. Don't let him cough. If you keep him away a bit longer, all of–
What does he have on you?
He is the last infected. My old body is the only node I can't disconnect from the Engine, therefore any contact he makes with me will spread I understand the virus through all– DONT You had your KILL– chance boy HE HAS SPORES.
Thank you.
If you would please remove this hazard from my– That will help little. It will help because you two are not the only ones down here.
Show me.
The body of a gargantuan fungus sits at the centre of a tunnel system collapsed by its size. Some hyphae are connected to magma seas building near and under it. Most of them connect to the city above. Out of one cave swallowed by the central system of the fungus, Yorung is thrown. The cave entrance closes with hardened fungal tissue after he exits. From further up, his teacher approaches.
Yorung: Yeah, right. As if that will be enough to save you.
Seer: I distinctly remember telling you to wear your mask.
Yorung: Seer! (coughs) This is much more important than that. May I ask you to open this cave for me?
Seer: You may not.
Yorung: I don't understand. All our enemies are behind that wall. We can defeat them in one fell swoop! (coughs)
Seer: They are our enemies. But they are also the foundation of Druv'tuul. Cut out its roots and all we have built will suffer with it.
Yorung is about to say when more coughs take his throat. The Seer waits until Yorung is done.
Seer: The Sons of Phomet will have a lesser influence on the city than this Insurgency. It is a constant struggle but we will fight them back inch by inch.
Yorung: (hoarse) But they will never be fully removed.
Seer: No.
Yorung: (hoarse) You're an Archdruid! You can walk in there and wipe them of the face of the earth completely.
Seer: (shakes head) They would never let me. He would sooner destroy the Engine than let me control it. What we want with it is too different. Not so much with his guest.
Yorung is silent.
Seer: If that was the extent of your questions then let's go back.
Yorung hesitates. For a moment he turns back to the closed cave entrance.
Seer: I was not asking.
Yorung's shoulders sack. the Archdruid turns back up to the city. Yorung follows her.
Satisfied?
I expected more from you, Mek-zu-dam. More than forty years and you still cling to the system enforced by these humans you stole our Engine back from.
You will find them as useful as I did.
Only time will tell. All of these years were a wash, but I can see the last two days you finally reached the last enlightenment.
How can you tell?
This place may be a weakpoint for you, but you could have mustered more defences if you wanted to. That makes it easy to see how many chances you predicted for you to win our fight.
There isn't one. I should have seen it from the moment you entered this city, but I wanted to be blind to the truth.
True Faith is not given half-heartedly. Say it.
It is Phomet who is the greater brother.
