Ylva Talks to the Fairies, part 13: A Narrow Escape

That could have gone better.

Things are fairly peaceful in the Greenwood right now.  Turgut is officially the leader of all the tribes.  We still have our agreement with Gallia though, and the enchantress showed up to talk to us.  Lord Vexil has gone mad.  We explained something of what had happened with the White Witch of Gallia, but not really understanding what happened myself, I don't think it was a very clear explanation.

Some of the forest fae also showed up, to warn us that some redcaps had now gone to join up with the wendigo.  At some point we would have to deal with them, but that didn't necessarily mean having to fight them.  I don't want to fight my own people.

We came up with a plan where we would hide our tribes' forces and lure the hobgoblins into an ambush, while the enchantress arranged for a distraction at the walls of Gallia, and we would sneak in and try to deal with their leadership.

Well, we tried.

We got in without attracting attention, following Vared's lead.  I enlarged Turgut and we went in to fight.  We were up against a formidable enemy - the lead hobgoblin and his pet wolf, the lesser wendigo, and some kind of devil.  Yes, a very impressive beard, and he stuck it right into Aunold.

What happened?  Well, the wolf got blown up by Aunold's first fireball.  Turgut took on the lesser wendigo, and a joint effort between Aunold, Vared and me dealt with the devil.  But the hobgoblin leader was horrific.  He managed to knock out Vared just with the power of his words.  And he almost killed all the rest of us with some kind of necromancy.  Aunold was taken down, and the only reason I survived was because I was just outside the spell's range.  Turgut, being undead, was healed rather than injured by the spell.

I ran.  Or rather, I flew, shouting to Turgut to run away.  We were in no state to fight this creature.  We got Vared and Aunold back, with some help from the enchantress.  Now we have to decide what to do next.  The hobgoblin siege will hopefully be broken with our tribes' help, even with their leader still alive.  But there is still the wendigo.

I know, you want me to be the leader.  The child of the forest.  It's not what I sought out, but if we are able to fight the wendigo then Turgut's obligation will be complete and he will be no more.  Someone has to step up then, and I will not say no to you.  But that will only happen if we succeed where our ancestors failed.  I don't know if I'm ready for any of this.  But I have to try.

A Long, Dark Day

Six of us sat down on Saturday afternoon to play the modern day Call of Cthulhu scenario, Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home.

The scenario comes from The Things We Leave Behind, a collection of modern day scenarios from Stygian Fox.  It's written for Call of Cthulhu, but we played it with Cthulhu Dark - or rather with the GM's own slight variation on Cthulhu Dark.  For a one-shot pick-up game that was a good choice - character creation takes minimum time and effort so the GM didn't have to go to the effort of making pre-gens or worry about exactly how many of us there were.

This scenario has the PCs playing the members of a child abduction response team.  We assembled a police pursuit driver, a forensic IT specialist, an FBI field agent, an FBI profiler and an ex-military paramedic.

(Apparently FBI agent is my default character in investigation games in the same way that ranger used to be my default class in fantasy games.)

The story involves searching for an abducted child, although it rapidly becomes apparent there is a lot more going on.  The scenario is very well put together, and comes with a bunch of handouts, plus one particularly interesting thing.  One organisation the PCs end up looking into has a website, and said website actually exists.  Being able to browse the site on a phone made it feel a lot more real than just reading it off paper.

There's also a bunch of material for the GM, including a chart with key clues in boxes, which the GM was marking off as we found each one.  (I would recommend using a screen when running this adventure, as I had to make an effort not to let myself read anything when he was using this chart.)  What it apparently doesn't include is a timeline of events up until the present, as the GM had to write his own.

One oddity of this scenario is that as a fairly genre savvy person I'd figured out pretty early on that certain actions would be at best very unwise and at worst disastrous.  The characters don't know they're in a horror story though, and so we were having them act accordingly.  Trying to find the right balance between having the character act like a real person and my own reactions to all the weird things going on was quite a challenge.

Ultimately we failed to avert disaster, ironically by being compentent at our jobs and still clinging onto sanity.  Had we taken longer (in game) to complete our goals, things might have gone differently, and had my character failed that last sanity check it would have pushed her over the edge to the point where she might have done the thing that needed doing.  But we all kept it together until the end.  And it really was the end.

This scenario is one of a set of six, and apparently there is an overarching campaign thread that can be used to tie them all together.  Unless this is the last scenario in that campaign, I can only assume that it expects the investigators not to fail the way we did.

Despite our absolute failure I liked the adventure, and it worked very well with the Cthulhu Dark rules.  It did take a very long time to play.  We started some time after lunch, took a break for dinner, and finished in the late evening.  I hope I can find an opportunity to play the other five scenarios, but we're going to need to allow a substantial amount of play time if they're anything like that one.

While not the best Cthulhu adventure I've played, this one is well worth a look, and I feel like I could run it myself with reasonable competence despite not having done much horror GMing.  And while the Cthulhu Dark rules are a little on the light side for my tastes, they work well, and for this type of game I can't fault them.

Crew of the Aliya, part 13: Rescue

Pulling the ship's log had revealed something important.  This wasn't actually the Fatima's Bounty - just a very simliar looking ship.  We were actually aboard the Akander.  Perhaps we could leave the cushions after all.

There was still the matter of the crew, however, one of whom was dead on the bridge, having failed to get his spacesuit closed in time.  Looking down the corridor that lead to the other airlock, we found a second body.

Gurgeh sent in his drone to observe, and confirmed that the body was definitely dead.  We could see now that the second airlock had become damaged, and wouldn't close.  Past it was a corridor leading into the asteroid.  Once again the drone took the lead, finding some strange writing on the wall.  It looked a lot like the writing we'd seen on the towers on Kua, but Lila confirmed that it was a more modern version of that script, unlikely to be used by portal builders but potentially the work of the first come and around three hundred years old.

Alqadi took up a defensive position near the writing, to ensure we had cover as we approached the end of the corridor.  There it widened out into a small hall.  Another body lay on the floor, dead and burned according to Gurgeh, while another floated in the minimal gravity.  This one was different, however.  Not only did a green light on his suit suggest that he was still alive, but when we checked the name tag on his suit, it read 'Lavim'.

Above the bodies was a strange black inverted dome, depicting some kind of white flower that Sayah recognised as a Zarak flower.  Gurgeh recalled that they were said to have healing properties.  But this wasn't the time to hang around admiring the scenery.  Lavim was badly injured, and we would have to work fast to get him back to the ship.  Sayah was getting increasingly on edge from the number of dead bodies, reminding the others that last time she saw this many corpses they'd got up and ripped Lila's arm off.  Along with the worrying messages she was getting from Suleiman about something trying to affect his systems, she was keen to leave, and nobody disagreed.

Gurgeh took Lavim down to the med lab while Sayah took Jinna up to the arboretum to keep her out of the way.  It was obvious that Lavim needed a proper trauma lab if he was going to survive, so Gurgeh stabilised him and put him in one of the stasis pods to keep him alive while we flew back to Djachroum.

Tahir took the helm, and the rest of the crew settled down to various activities.  We were maybe ten hours into our journey when we got a sudden warning message that we had strayed into Legion space and were required to change course immediately.  Tahir made the course change and tried to find out what had happened.  We shouldn't have been anywhere near Legion space on the course he'd set.

We consulted Suleiman.  He didn't seem to think anything was amiss.  He was following the set course.  Everything was fine.  Finally we got him to compare the position of the stars with where he claimed we were and what appeared on the maps.

"The stars appear to have moved."

There was nothing for it.  Something had gone badly wrong with Suleiman and we were going to have to do a restore from backups.  Out in a particularly dicey bit of space didn't seem like the ideal place to be doing it, but it was the best of the available choices.  Fortunately Sayah had come down from her latest opor high, and was ready for work.  Essential systems were switched to backup, and the reboot began.

Without Suleiman to help, it was down to Tahir to pilot alone, but even his skill wasn't enough to avoid a huge ion cloud.  We could only watch helplessly as electricity and radiation coursed across the hull.  The Aliya was well shielded though, and it looked like she was going to weather the storm.

And then the light on Suleiman's console went out.  Sayah's scream could be heard throughout the ship.

Of all the Aliya's parts, Suleiman was the only one that wasn't a good fit.  He hadn't been made for light freighters, and even after having to leave parts of him behind on the Ghazali, his installation was very much a case of shoving bits in wherever they vaguely fitted.  With Gurgeh busy monitoring Lavim, it fell to Sayah and Tahir to locate and repair the fault.  A few fervant prayers later, Tahir had spliced the damaged cables back together.  Sayah waited with bated breath until finally the lights came back on.

Suleiman was brought up to speed on recent events.  Tahir set a course for Djachroum.  Sayah spent the rest of the journey hugging Suleiman's data cores.

We made it back to Djachroum without further incident this time, although it was obvious the ship was going to need a full service before we could risk flying again.  Karim managed to get us booked in for repairs at a reasonable price, but soon had other problems to deal with when the harbour master complained that the mineral extractors we'd sold were defective, and also refused to let Lavim out of the ship without paying his debts.  The situation was only resolved when someone from the Union showed up and browbeat the harbour master into letting us through.

Alqadi and Karim took Lavim down to the local surgeon, accompanied by Jinna.  They were treated to the unsettling sight of a spider doctor robot opening up Lavim's skull and doing extensive work on his brain.

Lila had more interesting things to think about.  Lavim had had a small stone in his hand, decorated with the same white flower as the dome we'd seen on the asteroid.  Unfortunately, despite heartfelt prayers to the Gambler, she was unable to learn much about it.

Back at the ship repairs had been carried out and the Aliya was spaceworthy again.  It was time to get answers to some questions.  Why had we felt so ill on the journey back?  What was causing the nosebleeds?  What had happened to Suleiman?  And most of all, what would Lavim have to tell us?

Ramos Reportage, episode 9: Bodyguarding

Marlon's player was away this week, so Rolando's player was actually controlling him this week. The band mentioned below are the PCs from a previous Cyberpunk 2020 campaign, that was if anything even more insane than this one.

We learned that one of the girls was Angeline, the daughter of one of Night City's biggest drug barons, and her friend Mandy. She was extremely worried that we might be working for her father, and was very relieved when we said we weren't. She asked to hire us as a private security team, which we weren't sure about until she offered us a daily rate of 1000eb each. She explained that she and Mandy were going to join a church called Trinity, and her father disapproved. Given that Trinity were the same people who'd shot at us and tried to steal our netrunner several weeks earlier, we weren't too impressed with the idea either.

"Aren't they run by a pervert?"
"Which one?"
"The one we saw on TV."

Requiem decided to take advantage of the fact they were now all staying in the penthouse of Night City's most expensive hotel, and ordered room service on Angeline's bill: six burritos and a bottle of WD40. Angeline was planning on a bit of a party in the room before any religion joining happened, maybe hiring some hookers.

Rolando: "They come wherever you want."

Mandy's opinion on this was unavailable as she was in the bedroom with Marlon, a.k.a. Bruce Leeroy. He had recently acquired a Jeet Kun Do martial arts chip, and while it hadn't settled into his mind properly yet, he was still quite determined to attempt to teach it to other people.

Or at least, we assumed that's what the sounds of vigorous exercise coming from the bedroom were.

Room service arrived. Real food was a bit of a novelty for the team. For Requiem it reminded her of the only other time she'd eaten real food: her first date with Ricky. She put an Adele cassette in her Walkman and sat down to cry for a while.

The night passed uneventfully, the only thing out of the ordinary being Mandy getting up in the middle of the night for a snack and being surprised to find Quinton still awake. (As an appropriately accoutremented borg, he didn't need to sleep every night.) Mandy wasn't quite so keen on joining Trinity, despite having already received the 'first blessing', and reckoned Angeline would be bored with it in about a week and they could move onto the next thing. Quinton wasn't quite so sure that was the way cults worked, and giving her a careful scan he noticed that her muscle density was significantly higher than usual.

The next morning the team awoke bright and early, unlike Angeline and Mandy. There was just one issue with being a security team however; weapons. All they had on them at this point were their Arno pistols and Requiem's mono power wolvers, and while this was a pretty respectable armoury by itself, it couldn't hurt to add a few bigger guns. So Nemo and Requiem went back to the house to collect weapons, photos of Ricky, and Virtue, as the team expert on Trinity.

With Angeline and Mandy finally awake and drinking bloody marys (inexplicably without petrol or hardware), Virtue attempted to convince them what a bad idea joining Trinity would be. They were not swayed, however, and Angeline wanted to go shopping.

Several hours of torture followed, as Angeline tried on almost everything in the shop, until Requiem noticed some suspicious looking types that were staying unsettlingly close to them. She asked Nemo and Quinton to go and talk to them, and there were almost weapons drawn until we established that they were actually working for Angeline's uncle Jorje who was there to attempt to convince her to come home. He failed.

Back at the hotel, the attempt continued, with Requiem finally making some progress by pointing out that the cult would probably take her clothes away and make her wear boring stuff instead. Before we could get much further down this line of reasoning, however, she decided that she wanted to go out for the night.

Quinton booked tickets for a nearby venue that were hosting a Doomcow concert, paying a small fortune in Angeline's money for VIP tickets for all of them.

The venue was heaving with several thousand attendees, and even the VIP area involved a queue to get in, but once inside they were treated to Doomcow playing some of their greatest hits, including 'I'm On Fire' and the classic 'Bro Tube'. With the entire band being heavily addicted to sweetness and therefore subject to severe time dilation effects, it was always 50:50 whether a Doomcow concert was going to be prog-rock or speed metal, and this time it was prog-rock.

Dancing ensued. Quinton and Requiem both gave creditable performances, but the star was Bruce Leeroy whose moves quickly got the attention of most of the club while everyone else took notes. Nemo, Rolando and Requiem decided to take advantage of the opportunity to get drunk on someone else's dime, Requiem being particularly keen to get blackout drunk as her obsession with Ricky Sixx had returned full force along with her empathy. Unfortunately with her cyber liver activated she was unable to get drunk at all, and even after turning it off could only manage moderately tipsy despite a lot of vodka.

At last they left the club. Quinton had called a battle cab, but when it arrived he noticed that the driver did not match the picture on the cab's registration. He refused to get in, and we all started walking back to the hotel instead.

Part way there, we noticed the same cab was parked on the street we were walking down. We pretended to ignore it, but then it suddenly started up and drove right at us.

Requiem grabbed Angeline and dragged her out of the way. Quinton jumped onto the roof. Bruce Leeroy attempted a flying kick to the windscreen, went right through the screen guard, kicked the driver in the face and ended up stuck in the car. Requiem and Rolando shot at the car, wrecking its wheels and bringing it to a stop. Then the car exploded, as cars are wont to do in Night City. Quinton survived unscathed. Bruce Leeroy survived, thanks to emergency medical intervention from Quinton, but his right leg remained in the windscreen while the rest of him was carried away.

Will the team successfully infiltrate Trinity using Angeline as an unwitting mole? Will she decide that having to dress in religious garments is too horrible to contemplate and go home to Daddy? How will Bruce Leeroy react to having lost yet another leg? Find out in the next thrilling episode of Ramos Reportage!

Ylva Talks to the Fairies, part 12: Giants

It has been nice being back in the forest, even with everything we've had to deal with.

Once Aunold had stopped being a squirrel we had to decide what to do next.  Our own people were safe from the undead threat, but there were still the giants attacking the Blood Druids, the hobgoblins attacking Gallia, the sea devils attacking the port, and of course the White Witch of Gallia and the ongoing threat of the wendigo.

We concluded that while the Blood Druids were our enemy, they were our enemy, and we didn't want them to lose, especially not now that we'd heard that Taint had survived being nailed to a tree and had become their religious leader.

No, I don't know what happened to the tree, but I doubt it came out of the experience intact.

We headed for the giant's camp, and Aunold and me put on our cloaks and flew over to scout.  Quite a lot of them weren't actually giants.  If we called on the remains of our tribe, they would be well able to handle the smaller threats while we took on the leader and his fellow giants.

We began in our usual style, with Aunold and me sending in some fireballs.  I summoned a flytrap to provide Turgut with some melee backup.  And it would have all gone smoothly if the leader hadn't turned out to be some kind of shaman like Aunold.  Fighting someone who couldn't be hurt by spells was quite a challenge.  The invisible wall he put up wasn't helpful either.  All in all it was quite an embarrassing fight.

It would have been more embarrassing if we'd lost, of course.  Once you've won it's much easier to triumphantly appear on top of a hill and declare your magnificent victory.

The White Witch showed up again afterwards, apparently not unhappy with us.  It probably helped that certain people shut up and let me do the talking, of course.  I seem to have a little of the fairy charm that my tribespeople lack.  I still don't really understand what her plan was, and why it involved quite so many armies and manipulating people into fighting them, but she has promised to release her control over Lord Vexil.  Whether that turns out to be a good thing I couldn't start to guess.

Then she turned into a silver dragon, which by this point didn't really surprise me at all.

I think we're going to help the Gallians next.  We have an agreement, after all.

I really hope this isn't what the wendigo wants.

Ramos Reportage, episode 8: Out On The Town

Roleplaying therapy had proved highly effective, and the team were feeling a little more sane by the end of it with some basic grasp of how to human again.

Well, most of them. Exactly what had happened to Marlon was a bit of a mystery. Bross Kemp was still popping up from time to time, but interspersed with Dick Hunter, Kirk Shatner, and a variety of other characters. Fortunately the therapy meant that Requiem was dealing with this pretty well, and had even managed to stop listening to The Smiths and switch to Adele. She had remembered the assassin who attempted to shoot at them during the gang war between Bushido and Stomp Street though. She kind of wanted to kill him, but felt that perhaps questioning him about why he had been trying to shoot them might be a good idea too, especially given that he definitely had high level trauma team cover.

Quinton, having got the assassin's ID details while treating him, looked up his details. His real name was Henry, although he went by a number of aliases inclusing Deadyeye, Heatseeker and William H. Bonny. Also, Arasaka had a bounty on him from several years ago when he supposedly stole one of their cars. A 50K bounty definitely sounded like someone worth finding.

Everyone hit the streets to try to learn more about him, where Nemo quickly discovered that Henry was currently going by the alias of Heatseeker - but more importantly (and annoyingly) the bounty was out of date. Nevertheless, Requiem was still interested in finding him, so the team took a trip to the Afterlife, a solo bar in a rather nicer part of town.

After complaining about the parking fees and the entry costs, the team got down to the serious business of complaining about the drinks. On the second level they encountered a fixer, flanked by two catgirls. He apparently knew all about Heatseeker and could tell them practically everything about him - for a price. Since the price was 50K and all they really wanted was his ICQ number or AIM screenname, they rather lost interest at this point and returned to complaining about the drinks.

"Why is my drink made of petrol and worms?"

Nemo was very keen to find a ninja, having heard there were some in the buildings, so along with Requiem he headed for the third level. It wasn't long before Requiem spotted the ghost suit clad ninja following Nemo, and sat down with a couple of other guests to enjoy the show. Instead, Nemo was invited to visit the fighting pit in the basement.

After a bit of confusion where it was established that nobody actually wanted to fight a ninja, everyone found seats in the fighting pit's spectator area and watched a fight between Average Joe and Mike the Masher. Rolando bet on Average Joe. It seemed like Mike was going to win at the point he had Joe on the floor, sitting on him and preparing to beat him to death. However, this was, as Requiem predicted, the point at which the fight got more interesting when Joe sat up and bit the end off Mike's penis.

Rolando collected his winnings. Requiem, suddenly reminded of earlier conversations, reminded everyone that she had not been on any dates before Ricky and did not have a drawer full of severed penises. Much ribbing speculation then occurred about whether she had them about her person instead. She insisted that she only had one, and it was in the shrine at home. Rolando teasing her about the shrine was not appreciated, and when Nemo backed her up, reassuring her that her pain was justified, she kicked Rolando. It was an impressive and educational display of martial arts, but despite this and her cyber legs, she only gave him a light bruise, much like when she shot Nemo.

Around this time it was decided that leaving the bar would be advisable.

Outside, they were walking back to the car when some of the team noticed something odd: two sedans about to perform some kind of pincer ram on a limosine. (Requiem for once didn't notice, being both irritated and somewhat adrift without anything to focus her obsessiveness on.) What to do? It was impossible to know who the baddies were in this situation. Before they could do anything though, the cars crashed and people got out of the sedans.

Two of them had SMGs. Remembering what happened last time they'd taken on a group involving SMGs, Requiem drew her Arnos and killed both of them. The others started taking down the rest while Marlon, who by now had settled on the character of Bruce Leeroy, attempted to communicate with the occupants of the limo.

The remaining attackers shot rather ineffectually at Requiem, causing only minor scrapes to her cyber limbs. Realising they were somewhat outgunned, some of them got back in their car and started driving away. Rolando shot at them, as did Requiem after taking out the last two people from the other car, but they were unable to stop the vehicle.

Finally, the limo door was opened (largely due to Quinton pulling until it came off). Inside were two frightened looking girls, one of whom was holding a small pistol with the safety on. Quinton went to apply first aid to the unconscious driver, and Requiem got in with the two girls.

"Call that a gun? Now this is a gun."

The girl dropped the pistol, and Requiem put the Arno away.

The girls were on their way to a hotel, and were clearly in need of an armed escort. Perhaps some sort of compensation could be arranged on arrival? Quinton, after much insisting from Requiem that he not be shoved in the glove box (she was sure that's not what Persophone Cardiff would have done), put the driver in the recovery position in the back of the limo, and drove everyone to the hotel.

Will the girls' family pay for the armed escort? Is Heatseeker relevant to anything? Will the GM remember to stop expecting us to be decent human beings and get us railroaded back to the actual plot? Find out in the next appalling episode of Ramos Reportage!

Call of Cthulhu: The Case of Cinthia Castillo

This is the character I played in a modern day Call of Cthulhu game at Tales from Dreaming Spires.  While 13 is not my record for SAN loss in a single game of Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green, never before have I had a character end an adventure so utterly broken.  Which means the only way to get her out of my brain is to tell her story.

"It would really help if you could tell us what happened."

Cinthia Castillo sat hunched up on the bed, arms wrapped around her legs.  Physically she was looking better.  Neat dressings covered the tissue damage, and she'd finally submitted to having her hair brushed.  But one look into those haunted brown eyes was enough to see that she'd suffered far worse than physical damage.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"You won't believe me."

Not the first time she'd heard that.  "Miss Castillo...may I call you Cinthia?"  She waited for a nod, then continued.  "Cinthia, I've heard a lot of strange things.  You can tell me anything.  There's no need to hide.  I need to hear the truth so I can work out how to help you."

She watched the girl.  No words, but the shift in body language gave her her answer.

"Shall we start with the plane?"

"We were all sitting together at the back."  Cinthia's voice was hesitant.  "Me and Doctor England.  Doctor Chandrasekar and Doctor Green.  Nick, the other student.  The Japanese doctor - Hina?  Doctor Gates.  The Russian and the Italian  I...I can't remember their names."  She took the offered tissue, and composed herself again.  "There was turbulance, but I wasn't worried about that.  Someone said we'd been struck by lightning, and then...then the crash."  She paused for a deep breath before continuing.  "Nine of us made it.  The others...all we could do was make them comfortable."

Nine survivors.  There had been considerably fewer than nine people airlifted off that mountain.

"We could smell the jet fuel, so we grabbed what we could and ran.  We were in the forest by the time it exploded.  We had to keep walking.  It was the only way we could keep warm.  We found a river and decided to try following it downstream.  That's when we found the writing."

"Yes?"  She could guess which writing.  One of the survivors was still clutching a book, with notes scrawled in two different hands and two different alphabets.

"It was written on the trees.  We thought it was old Norse at first, because of the runes, but then we realised we could read some of it.  So we made a copy and I wrote it out in English, but I was still working on it when we found the first stone.  It had carvings on it, and...blood, I think.  Doctor Green was the first one to touch it.  He went a bit strange for a few moments, and then told us about how he'd seen himself as some kind of barbarian with a spear.  So we decided we should have several of us touch it at once.  Doctor England was doing it and I couldn't let him think I was scared."

"You were Doctor England's research student, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"But you were paying your own way on this trip.  A long way to go for a conference.  Was there more to your relationship?"  A long silence followed that question, which nonetheless spoke volumes.  "I'm not here to judge.  Just to understand."

"No.  But I hoped if...if we spent this time together..."

She handed Cinthia more tissues.  "It's OK.  I understand.  Shall we go back to the rock?"

"Yes.  Yes.  We all put our hands on it together.  I thought maybe I'd see something like what Doctor Green talked about.  But it was...it was..."  She hugged her legs tighter as her whole body began to shake.  "I was trapped in a box.  Surrounded by fire.  My shoes were melting.  Then my feet were burning.  I thought I was going to die.  And then I was back with the others and they were talking about Romans and stuff but all I could do was scream."

A hallucination, of course, but nevertheless one that had profoundly affected her.  It was some time before she found the strength to talk again, and when she did it was in a quieter voice.

"It was getting dark.  We went back into the trees and the others lit a fire.  I was so cold.  But I couldn't...I couldn't..."

"It's OK.  You're safe here."

Cinthia nodded, took a few deep breaths, and carried on.

"We managed to get some sleep, but when it got light something had happened to Doctor Gates.  She started wandering off back to the stones, and then she fell over.  Doctor England said she'd had a stroke.  If we could have got her to a hospital she might have been OK, but out there there was nothing we could do.  There were these little crystal things in the ground that froze anything they touched, so we pushed her onto one of them.  So at least it would be quick and painless."

She didn't wait for the offer of tissues this time, reaching out to grab a handful instead.

"We had to leave her.  We followed a game trail through the trees.  There was a little hut and the others found some old things there.  Someone else who'd been here years ago.  And then we found the clearing with the stone altar.  That's when they started putting it all together."

"They?"

"The others.  Some of them saw that altar when they touched the stone.  We found remains in the snow.  Romans.  Some of them saw Romans.  And the messages on the trees.  It all fitted.  But we'd left two people in the hut.  I don't know what happened but when we went back..."  She paused for a moment, steeling herself to continue.  "One of them was dead.  The Italian, I think.  The other one killed him.  He came out with blood on his face.  He was holding an arm.  I think he'd ripped off the body."

"Did you see the body?"

"No.  One of the others did.  But I couldn't go in.  We ran when he came out, back to the altar.  They'd all figured it out by then.  The reason why the tree messages said the way out didn't work with only one.  The way to escape was to sacrifice someone on the altar."

"And did you all choose someone to sacrifice."

"Yes.  They chose me."

She was rocking back and forth now as well as shaking, and had given up any attempt at keeping her eyes dry.

"I ran, but they chased me.  All except Doctor Chandrasekar.  And Doctor Green wasn't well and couldn't keep up, but it was...it was Doctor England who caught me.  I tried to stop him.  I tried to make him understand.  But I was so cold and so scared and he dragged me back through the woods to the altar.  That's when I saw what happened to Doctor Chandrasekar."

For a while she was sobbing too hard to carry on, but with an effort she managed to pull herself together enough to speak again.  "The Russian.  He wasn't even human any more.  He stabbed Doctor Chandrasekar with a pen.  I saw him die on that altar.  He was the only one who didn't try to kill me, and all I could think of was how this meant I didn't have to die."

"What happened to the Russian?"

"The others tried to fight him, but none of us knew how to fight.  I stuck him with an epipen and he ran off.  And that's...that's all I can remember before the helicopter arrived."

"That's OK.  You've done really well."

Five people had been pulled off that mountainside alive, all frostbiten and hypothermic.  She had wondered how Cinthia had been the worst affected, despite being the only one wearing a proper coat.  Now she understood.  But the frostbite was already healing.  There were other wounds here, that had cut much deeper than mere snow and ice.  And they would take longer to heal.