THE YEAR IS 199X AND THERE'S SOMETHING WEIRD IN THE OCEAN. ARE YOU TOUGH AND SMART ENOUGH TO FIGURE IT OUT BEFORE THE SOVIETS SINK THE WHOLE OPERATION?
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| Robert Caney |
Below is the session notes of the first session of a 90's schlock deep sea megadungeon(?) loosely inspired by The Abyss I ran today followed by the initial idea from my slush pile and the WAY too detailed notes I wrote up (and somewhat kept to) before running the session. I wanted to show the whole- incredibly rough and hard to read process from small idea to usable (by me) notes and then the session results.
Players in this game beware! There are spoilers within!
CREW LIST:
Player One:
Cean [Kohn] Shonnery: USSR defector, former member of the undersea Spetsnaz (Wetsnaz)
Bhey Hab: Marine Biologist, completely unintelligble
Player Two:
Billy Lowstat: America's least capable navy SEAL
Gregor Redacted: USSR defector, nuclear engineer
Player Three:
Lt. John Jack Foster: SEAL and commander of the crew
Emma Kolchek: Medic
It's the last days of the USSR and the world is scrambling to prevent loose nukes! A collection of clandestine Western agencies dispatch our crew to a Soviet research site 2.5 km undersea in the Northern Pacific. The goal: Recover the fissile material from the research site's reactor and extract Dr. Zharkova Filippovna and her research. They're told that the cover story they'll be using for the mission is as an inspection from the IAEA but not to expect that to hold up with the research team at all.
After a lengthy discussion of what equipment to bring and what was viable in 199X ("Computer stuff? There might be computers right?") the crew gathers and gets their briefing from their handler, Milos, on the contracted Oceanography ship the R/V Protean. They get the initial readings of the sensor equipment on the Protean, revealing that the site below, a geothermal well catalogued as the OMPHALOS site, is a sea mount rising 1 km up from the sea floor with its plateau'd peak at 2.5km below the surface. Eight protrusions, probably sea volcanoes, as well as some strange protrusions that are possibly rock formations towards the center of the sea mount.
The target is the Soviet deep sea research habitat, KURNAKOV-4, and from the maps and readings they got off the Protean the crew ID'd that it was probably attached to one of the sea volcanoes.
Billy Lowstat is put at the helm of the crew's modified bathyscaphe, Channer-9, and against all advice decides to descend "fast as hell and drift this baby straight up to the docking port". At 2000 meters the vessel suddenly suffers colossal malfunctions as its overpressurized interior emerges into a sudden low pressure zone- exterior pressure readings indicating a depth of only 14 meters evenly as they continue the descent. The crew is able to keep the bathyscaphe together and control the descent to the sea floor.
Bhey Hab is keenly watching for sealife and is rewarded with the massive amount of varied sea life all around them now, fish that shouldn't be able to survive at this depth and- even more shockingly- extinct species that he had only ever seen drawings of. As he's explaining this to the crew he catches site of a huge, bloated, 25 foot long megalodon lazily swimming in the distance.
On noting the megalodon the players have a quick panicked discussion about how sonar works and Bhey Hab pulls Cohn Shawnery away from the sonar panel to prevent him from pinging and possibly attracting the megalodon in the distance.
The crew notes what looks to be debris and shipwrecks towards the center of the sea mount but continue on to the supposed site of Kurnakov-4. As they get closer, with thermal and visual observations they make out a 30 meter tall black pillar of stone coming out of the sea mount with a habitat built next to/on it, cables for communications and lighting arrays running off into the dark. No exterior lights are on and the habitat looks quiet.
Identifying the pressure lock easily the crew barely avoids a catastrophic collision with the habitat (Billy Lowstat is still piloting the craft) before managing a seal and lock with the habitat. When they unseal and open the hatch they find the pressure differential to be lower inside the habitat than expected and nearly suffer an explosive decompression.
The pressure lock has a hacked in modification to one wall with a scrawled sign in Russian that reads "Dive Pool", but the crew ignores this and aims for the main habitat- noting that the whole habitat is dark, quiet, and the air stale.
Entering the main habitat ring they take scope of the other decks, identifying the engineering room, laboratory, medical lab, communications center, and armory. Nuclear engineer leading the way they beeline to engineering with a geiger counter out ahead, detecting trace radiation. They find the engineering deck has had its reactor half disassembled and the fissile materials removed, replaced with a hacked and wired in featureless black 1x1x1 cube that has had wiring attached with a switch. Flipping the switch the station powers back on as the engineer notes with confusion that the habitat's batteries aren't charging and the cube is outputting the precise power requirement for the station's equipment.
Billy Lowstat and Cohn Shawnery are up in the main hab ring meanwhile, investigating the duty roster and identifying the last time anyone was on duty was over four months ago. When the power kicks in they hear a fire alarm from the laboratory and a radio call from the communications center. Cohn Shawnery disables the fire alarm in the laboratory and says "We'll deal with that later".
Meanwhile meanwhile, Bhey Hab has been back in the Channer staring out the windows at the miraculous sea life. After staring long enough he begins to note and grow confused about the fine spread of silvery particulates across his vision and notes with greater concern that the fine particles are both in the water as well as in the Channer and the station.
Gregor Redacted and Lt Foster get to work in the communications center and quickly realize they are receiving an encrypted hail and have a discussion about whether or not they should respond to the request for a status update- ultimate deciding to leave it be as Billy Lowstat finds the vodka stashed in the communications center and then gets distracted by the padlock on the armory.
Emma and Cohn Shawnery head into the laboratory and note with dismay the acrid smoke pouring out of the room was from what looks to have been a hasty fire set to burn documentation. This is quickly overcome by the discovery of the strange airlock attached to the surface of the stone pylon they'd seen from outside as well as an aquarium tank with a huge Giant Pacific Octopus with a label reading "Kusachiy" (Bitey).
Emma has a brief moment of dismay as she remember what the Bends is and realizes that everyone present should be horribly sick but isn't. She call Bhey Hab in to see to the octopus and, on hearing about his particulate discovery, sees the particulates herself and tries to catch a sample of it with some tape- unsuccessfully. Bhey Hab notes there's no food at all for the octopus in here but that it appears healthy and in fact intelligent and watching him- but on the food comment everyone has the realization that the food in the main hab ring was virtually untouched and that none of them have any hunger pangs at all.
Lt Foster and Gregory Redacted are reading hydrographic maps and identify that the communications crewman had been using sonar and tracking two large objects, revealing that there are actually two megalodon that prowl these waters- as well as identifying a large metal object with a note "submarine?" towards the shipwrecks they had seen and an instruction to "ping the sonar if the sharks get within 100m". They then head to the laboratory where Gregory finds a journal hidden in the smashed computer and desk remains belonging to Dr. Filippovna and quickly discovers most of it to be encoded but the later portions contain frantic harried writing about Kusachiy, indicating that Dr. Filippovna discovered it to be extremely intelligent and had developed a rudimentary communications means with it- effectively teaching it Russian and learning how to read its color changes as alphabetic letters. They also discover a perfectly preserved, or at least maintained, German Luger pistol secreted under Dr. Filippovna's presumed cot in the corner.
Lt Foster picks the padlock to the armory and enters along with Billy Lowstat, finding it to be mostly bare- including the troublingly empty explosives supply- as well as the slumped body of one of the Kurnakov's crew- apparently alive but with a sphere of red metal encasing their head and loosely anchored to the wall and floor. They spend some time poking at the metal carefully, finding it soft but that it responds violently when pressed with force- as well as each time they were able to hear screaming from within the sphere while very carefully avoiding touching the metal at all.
Bhey Hab and Gregor are completely blown away by the discover of an octopus that understands Russian and begin chatting up Kusachiy, learning that it wants to know where Dr. Filippovna went and also wants to play hide and go seek. When asked about the red metal sphere in the armory, Kusachiy pulls itself out of the water tank, pokes its head into the armory and leaves immediately- signing "red goo bad". Bhey Hab spends a good amount of time asking about the particles he and Emma have been seeing, finally getting the meaning through to Kusachiy who calls it "mesh".
A brief trip to the well deck later and Kusachiy is swimming freely in water that should be extremely pressurized. Bhey Hab pokes his head in and finds the water to be somewhat warm, after which Billy Lowstat jumps in and plays tag with Kusachiy for awhile. When asked how long Kusachiy has been here they respond with "long, keep track in time cave at Martina" making gestures in the direction of the shipwrecks.
Back in the main ring, the crew discovers a live squid tied with belts to a surgical table, partially burnt with a nearby acetylene burner, and after reading the log book of various experiments done to it and recovery times (fire had none listed) Emma cuts her finger and watches it heal near instantly- confirming some suspicions but adding even more questions. They take the squid out to the well deck and return it to the ocean.
After some discussion, the crew ask Kusachiy where the Soviet crew went and get a response of "don't know, down pillar" and the crew decides they'll have to investigate the pillar eventually- but first want to check out the shipwrecks. With Bhey Hab and Lt Foster manning the Channer and the rest of the crew in SCUBA gear, the whole gang plus Kusachiy make their way over to the shipwrecks, carefully dodging a megalodon.
They find the shipwrecks to be of varied make and model ranging back hundreds if not thousands of years. The SCUBA team investigates the wreck of a galleon that Kusachiy heads towards while the Channer team inspects the buried hull of an apparent submarine with its conning tower ripped off. Inside the galleon, they discover everything has been stripped from the hammocks to the nails of the ship- with the captain's quarters left untouched and door shut. Half the crew heads with Kusachiy into a hole in the hull, finding the "rock" of the sea floor to actually be years of fossilized coral. Kusachiy leads them through into a large, open cave seemingly hand carved from amongst the coral, bits of shiny detritus carefully arranged but- most notably- millions of small marks covering the cave- which Gregor interprets as Kusachiy having carved out and representing millions of days of time tracking.
The other half of the team enter the captain's quarters and find the perfectly preserved- completely untouched by time and water- body of a Portugese captain who watches them as they enter. Using a diving board and testing a few languages they know, they settle on Spanish and find both they and the captain can write and talk in a limited manner to one another. He introduces himself as Henry Dias and this ship as the Santa Martina, indicating that one day in 1667 "the sea opened up and swallowed it whole". The crew notes a massive depression on Dias's head, flash healed over but still clearly a head wound, and Dias says he was hit by a beam when the ship went down. When asked he says the rest of the crew took everything and left "into the dark glass" and haven't been back since. He says simply that he didn't leave as it was his ship and the captain stays with the ship. Thoroughly creeped out, the SCUBA team heads over to the buried submarine.
On the Channer, Foster and Bhey Hab identify the submarine to be a sunken U-boat and pass its markings to the R/V Protean, discovering that it is a missing type XX1 U-boat last seen off the coast of France in the spring of 1944. The SCUBA team enters, has a brief "Indiana Jones realizing now we're fighting nazis" moment, and scour the sub to find that it too has had its valuables stripped but that its complement of sea mines and torpedoes are intact. They all then head back to the Kurnakov-4 and Billy Lowstat has a brief terrifying encounter with a megalodon, seeing it open its mouth and that its gullet is filled with squirming, living sea life. They find a poem scratched into the access hatch of the U-boat and Lt Foster identifies it as the latter half of Goethe's Wanderer's Nightsong I, (roughly):
"I am weary with contending!
Why this rapture and unrest?
Peace descending
Come, ah, come into my breast!"
At the Kurnakov the crew finds more messages in the communications center and identify that there will be a rendezvous with BEZDNA in 12 hours- a number that decreases to 6 hours after they fail a verification check while trying to convince them to "come back tomorrow". Finally, they decide they have to investigate the pylons and try and find the crew of the Kurnakov as fast as they can. While asking Kusachiy about the Santa Martina the crew is curious about the response "feel bad, sank ship" and the follow up "used orb, sank ship, down pillar, feel bad", asking Kusachiy to lead them to the orb.
Kusachiy heads into the laboratory and Bhey Hab opens the rudimentary air lock attached to the pylon wall, watching Kusachiy latch onto the wall, bite, and disappear into an opening that pours out water before closing. After Billy Lowstat heads in and bites the wall himself, the crew discovers that cutting the soft stone of the pylon easily opens it. Suiting back up in wet suits and refilling their oxygen (despite some discussions of "well if we drown we're in the mesh so we'll be fine").
Entering the pylon the crew finds it to be filled with water and note a dim blue light from below ("Cherenkov radiation!" "No, normal readings on the Geiger counter- but slightly higher" "So we're dog sniffing out those nukes?" "Probably?"). Descending 50 meters they find the pylon connects with similar descents to the other- eight- pylons all connecting in the center of the sea mount. The blue light is coming from the bottom of this central cylinder, another 100 meters down, and Kusachiy relays "orb, sinks ships, feels bad". A brief retcon warns the R/V Protean about the BEZDNA being a possible Soviet submarine and to "maybe head like two nautical miles away".
Cean Shawnery pokes at the orb as the ceiling suddenly becomes transparent, revealing a clear view of the ~2.5 km of ocean above and amplifies both the R/V Protean as well as a large, dark shape vaguely "Soviet submarine shaped". With another poke at the orb they see a large dark space opening up and, with horror, see both ships sinking into it and realize that the most recent poke began dropping the ocean's surface down, dragging the ships with them. Another panicked poke reverses this, explosively refilling the enormous empty space and creating possibly (probably) devastating tidal waves but discover that the R/V Protean appeared to be upright and the submarine appeared to be at an unhealthy 45 degree angle from the normal plane.
Emma spies the northern wall at the base of the cylinder to be covered in a thick green mossy membrane and on investigation finds it to be soft and permeable. Pressing an arm through it she feels air on the other side and relays this to the rest of the crew. Deciding to head through, they relay with gestures and head nods their intent to Kusachiy who signs back "I stay, no mesh in there, careful", and the crew has a brief panic that they will be "mortal again" through the membrane. Cean Shawnery throws himself through the membrane at full speed and hits the air on the other side before dropping into a one foot deep pool. A large, dark room is beyond with dark tiled floors on the other side, a doorway beyond, and a thick mist hanging low to the water. Cean Shawnery takes off his SCUBA mask and finds the air to be cold but breathable...
And that's where we ended! Both for time constraints and, conveniently, because that's all I had written down firmly. Check out below for some more details from my write up and to see how my process (ish) of translating it to play worked out.
THE INITIAL SCRAWL FROM THE IDEA PILE:
wreck of another submarine, lampshades danger
wreck of another another submarine, nazi uboat?
posthuman demon in the basement of an ancient ruin [editor's note: look we'll get there with this place eventually be patient]
THREE HOURS OF UNEDITED WRITING AND GOOGLING STUFF ABOUT THE OCEAN- I AM SO SORRY NO ONE SHOULD USE THIS AT A TABLE
Omphalos
0. The Setup
THE YEAR IS 199x, and the ongoing turmoil within the USSR has worried minds tracking their dissolving tendrils around the world for loose nuclear weapons and covert operations acting without oversight.
Your team has been contracted, nominally, by the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate an alleged deep sea nuclear research facility by the name of Kurnakov-4 located at a deep sea geothermal site in the northern Pacific designated OMPHALOS. Publically, this mission is a peacekeeping action to assess safe usage of fissile materials by the USSR, but your real handlers, a collection of covert organizations around the world scrambling to curtail the USSR's reach, provide the classified brief and real objectives:
- Recover any fissile material from Kurnakov-4
- Ascertain the purpose of the research team at Kurnakov-4
- Recover Dr. Zharkova Filippovna and all of their research materials
If the site is deemed by your team to be unrecoverable or otherwise hazardous:
- Destroy the Kurnakov-4, all of its personnel, and secure or render unusable any hazardous materials
For this mission, you will be working with the R/V Protean Oceanographic Research vessel and its clandestinely heavily modified bathyscape Channer-9.
Handler Milos
A cold, ruthlessly efficient man who insists to be called Milos and will not reveal who he works for exactly is in charge of the general operation. He will remain on the R/V Protean and provide support from there as long as he can, but if contact is lost with the party for forty-eight hours without explanation he will deploy the R/V Protean's low-yield nuclear depth charge and scram the OMPHALOS site. The Protean can be contacted as long as the Channer-9's communications cable is intact, but can also be contacted using the 2c. Communications Center.
Dr. Zharkova Filippovna
Russian-borne mechanical physicist, employed in top secret research by the Academy of Sciences for the past twenty years. 8 months ago contacted Milos's agency through a proxy promising "The most important research ever done" if she can be extracted. No communications since.
Channer-9
A heavily modified bathyscape that can just barely fit its pilot, navigator, and eight passengers. The bathyscape is equipped with a remotely operated vehicle (sea drone) that can be operated out to 20 kilometers. A cable runs from the Channer to the Protean for ease of recovery as well as communications. The skin of the Channer can be electrocuted to scare off ocean life.
The Crew
Crew should be a mix of security specialists, engineers, and a smattering of scientific experts in fields such as: Oceanography, Biology, Nuclear Physics, Geology. All crew should explicitly list which languages they can speak.
In the event of a character death while exploring the Omphalos, the pilot or navigator of the Channer should serve as replacements, or a notional "backup crew" filling the extra passenger spots.
1d6
- Navy SEAL: Diver, Military Training, Damn Tough To Kill
- Intelligence Analyst: Cryptography, Radio Equipment, Additional Language
- Nuclear Engineer: Nuclear Reactor Maintenance, Engineering, Physics
- Marine Biologist: Marine Biology, Diver, Oceanography
- Medic: Medicine, Field Surgery, Anesthsia
- Demolitions Expert: Explosives, Mechanical Engineering, Scrap & Craft
1d10 Languages (English Assumed):
- French
- German
- Bengali
- Russian
- Japanese
- Mandarin
- Spanish
- Portugese
- Hindi
- Arabic
Hydrographic Readings
The Protean's inital readings of the Omphalos site reveal the shape of the sea mount and the location of the Kurnakov-4, but anything further is out of range and fidelity for their radars. The pylons register as probable ridges of undersea volcanoes in a strange uniform distribution.
12 hours after the initial descent the Protean will detect an unidentified submarine loitering nearby. This is the Bezdna, a heavily modified Akula class nuclear powered attack submarine awaiting a signal from the Kurnakov-4 indicating it is safe to approach.
1. OMPHALOS Site
2.5 kilometers beneath the sea somewhere in the northern Pacific Ocean is a seamount that rises into a 10km wide flat plateau. At its center, eight 30 meter tall glossy dark stone pylons rise out of the sea floor. They form the outline of an octagon with 223.561 meter long sides. The area is known as the OMPHALOS site.
Attached around two pylons is a sealed deep sea enclosure (2. KURNAKOV-4) of recent make, with a series of modules attached and circling fully one of the pylons.
The center of the octagon contains a variety of wrecks of ships ranging from the early 1600s to present day. Most of these are buried in silt but diligent searching would reveal two miraculously intact vessels: 1a The Santa Martina, a Portugese galleon, and 1b. U-2556, a Type XXI U-boat.
Any lights shining in the area around the seamount will reflect tiny silvery particles in a fine mesh. Sampling the water and analyzing its contents will reveal these silvery particles to be clumps of nano-particles (Mesh) that are inactive and dissolve outside of the seamount.
Note: Pressure Anomalies
Water pressure readings in a rough cylinder rising 500 meters straight up from the sea mount indicate that this region of the ocean is inexplicably low pressure. What should be ~500 atmospheres of pressure (500 times that of surface pressure) instead registers as about seven atmospheres, allowing SCUBA divers to operate without additional gear in the area. Careful measurement and observation of this pressure boundary will note that its size and exact location fluctuate slightly.
Any pressurized vehicle crossing this anomalous pressure boundary will groan and squeal loudly as it suddenly adjusts to the massive pressure differential and all but the sturdiest vehicles will spring leaks and suffer other mechanical failures due to the stress of crossing the boundary.
For the Channer-9 this will result in it requiring 6 hours of repairs before the pilot is willing to bring it back up through the barrier. If the Channer-9 ascends without these repairs being done there is a 7 in 10 chance of a catastrophic hull collapse.
Observant crew will notice that despite the pressure shifts they do not suffer any degree of Decompression Sickness.
Note: Mesh
Mesh is the autonomous nanite cloud finely dispersed throughout the water of the seamount and similarly infiltrates the vessels therein. It functions by preventing any degree of harm or degeneration to organic material that it is exposed to, repairing any wounds or damage while exposed to the Mesh. This includes repairing your lungs if you are drowning in the Mesh, allowing unaided and unencumbered diving. Mesh only knows your biology while you are exposed to it, meaning any wounded who are then later exposed to Mesh may have horrifying repairs to keep them alive in their wounded state.
In particular, brain damage is "patched" preserving the appearance of life but in a zombie-like state of intelligence lacking consciousness. These consciously dead simulacra of people (C-Dead) retain as much of their personality and memories as well as behaviours as they can from their pre-dead life, and can converse politely but are otherwise unable to change their patterns or desires without prompting.
High heat as from an explosion does disrupt the Mesh and could be used to kill something by temporarily neutralizing the Mesh.
Upon leaving 1 and 2 the Mesh is no longer propogating or active.
Ocean Exploration
Any marine biologist will be able to spot an enormous variety of supposedly extinct sealife (Up to 26 million years old) living in abundance throughout the OMPHALOS site. The only predators to be found are a pair of Megalodon and they are the only thing to show up on an encounter roll here. When rolled, there is a 50% chance they will be sleeping, drifting by lazily.
MEGALODON
Lvl 10 Def none Thrash 2d6
Immortal - The Megalodons are kept eternally alive by the Mesh and have long since stuffed themselves full of similarly immortal yet continuously digested sea life. This makes them very slow and very large, but their natural killing instinct still drive them to at least ram into things they could eat.
Boot and Rally - If antagonized sufficiently, the Megalodon will vomit up its squirming totured meals and replace its Thrash with Devour 3d4. If this attack reduces a character to 0 HP or lower they are devoured and kept alive by the Mesh in the stomach of the Megalodon.
1a. The Santa Martina
Stripped paint and soaked wood poking out of the silt reveal the remains of the Santa Martina, a Portugese galleon constructed in the early 17th century. A single entry into the upper deck can be dug out of the silt revealing the interior to have been stripped bare, all of the fittings, cannons, and other acoutrements have been removed.
Wading through the 1/2 meter of silt to the back of the ship reveals the captain's quarters, where captain Henry Dias sits contentedly at his desk.
The captain was nearly killed when the ship sank but was preserved by the Mesh as a C-Dead. Much of his memories and personality are confused and lost due to the patching, but he responds politely to inquiries and knows the following:
-
The Santa Martina sank while exploring the northern Pacific in 1677 as if the ocean opened up and swallowed it whole.
-
His First Mate, Bonifacio Ramos, took the still conscious crew and as much of the ship's goods as they could "into the glass pillars" and have not been seen since.
-
Two great sea beasts (See Megalodon) prowl the waters nearby but are usually asleep unless disturbed.
To actually speak with Henry Dias you will need to bring him to somewhere dry. He speaks Portugese, Spanish, and a bit of French.
1b. U-2556
The U-Boat's conning tower has been completely destroyed, the only indicator of its presence is the rough outline and the open access hatch. Scratched into the metal exterior near the aft hatch someone has written:
"Ach, ich bin des Treibens müde!
Was soll all der Schmerz und Lust?
Süßer Friede,
Komm, ach komm in meine Brust!"
[Der du von dem Himmel bist (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)]
The interior is flooded and its electrical systems are completely ruined. There are no human remains within the U-boat and all documentation is ruined beyond use but careful searching will reveal that the watertight containers for documentation were removed from the radio room.
16 sea mines and 8 torpedoes are still usable in the torpedo room, though the firing mechanisms no longer function.
1c. The Pylons
The
eight pylons appear as pillars of glossy dark stone. If struck or cut
the impact site will open a tear into the interior of the pillar which
can be pulled further open. If left untouched for a few seconds these
tears will seal.
The interior is a vertical shaft filled with water that drops 50
meters and then slopes inwards, connecting each of the pylons into one
central shaft that drops another 100 meters. At the bottom, on the
northern wall, the glossy stone material of the shaft is replaced with
an archway of thick, water-impermeable membrane that can be walked/swam
out of.
2. Kurnakov-4
The deep sea research facility Kurnakov-4 was first constructed by elements of the USSR Academy of Sciences Oceanographic Research Fleet in 198X. It consists of a central hab structure anchored to the ground with a module enclosed around one of the pylons.
2a. Kurnakov-4 Pressure Chamber
The Channer-9 can dock with the pressure chamber and gain access. The chamber itself contains the necessary airlocks for pressurization as well as a side deck with a well for direct diver access to the site nearby. Lockers outside of the airlock contain 2 usable SCUBA tanks with wetsuits.
2b Main Hab Ring
Trash and detritus are scattered around. The air is stale and smells of body odor- but breathable. The power is out (2f. Engineering). In total there are eight cubbies strewn with personal effects as a still well stocked galley that's barely been touched. Searching can find the duty roster:
- PO2 PETROV [SEC]
- SEAMAN SOKOLOV [SEC]
- PO2 OSIPOV [COM]
- SEAMAN MAKAROV [SEC]
- SEAMAN RYKOV [ENG]
- INNA OSIPOV [MED]
- ALEXEEVA [CMD]
- LCDR NOVIKOV [CMD]
Also strewn around are a half-empty pack of cigarettes, a small journal containing a lewd fan fiction [Russian] of LCDR Novikov and a sea sponge, a machete, and a large nautilus shell.
2c. Communications Center
A bank of radio consoles and controls for a sonar array dominate the communications center as well as a half dozen binders and notebooks. The binders contain cryptographic information for one-time message passing and the notebooks are logs of messages sent and received.
Flipping through them reveals it starts from wehn PO2 Osipov was transferred here last year and most messages are routine updates of status good or bad, with the last update passing a coded message signed off ALEXEEVA. The last message was recorded four weeks ago.
When powered, the center can be used to communicate with the Protean as well as with the Bezdna which will be hailing the station using Soviet cyphers that can be reconstructed using the binders.
Stashed under the desk are three and a half bottles of vodka as well as a loaded pistol.
BEZDNA
The Bezdna was dispatched to deploy a recovery team to the site and is ready to descend and offload two platoons of Spetsnaz once the pressure barrier has been adjusted for them. They are monitoring a series of deployed sensor buoys and simply lying to them that the barrier is adjusted will be obvious.
With its depth modifications, the Bezdna could cross the barrier as it is but would lose half the crew before the Mesh went into action. After 24 hours if there is no contact they will cross the barrier.
Running silent, the Bezdna is unaware of the presence of the Channer-9 but is aware of the Protean but not its mission or allegiance.
The Bezdna is fully armed with a complement of 30 torpedoes, 2 SAMs, and 10 cruise missiles.
2d. Armory
A small, secured closet. It is locked from outside with a chain and padlock. The gun racks indicate that there were 6 rifles, a heavy machine gun, eight pistols, and several explosives that are now missing aside from one rifle with ammuition and two pistols.
Chained up in a corner is Seaman Rykov, as indicated by their uniform and dog tags. A mass of red, sticky, metallic goo surrounds their head and has grown small tendrils to anchor it in place. If rescued from the Red Goo, Seaman Rykov is already completely insane, their brain fully rewritten to experience only pain.
RED GOO
Lvl 2 Def Leather Ruin
Regenerative - Goo is a singular mass of nanomachines that restores itself rapidly when damaged. Unless killed with fire, heat, or anti-goo weapns it will regenerate itself fully within a minute of apparent destruction.
Overheat - The most effective way to defeat any mass of nanomachines, other than weapons specifically designed to destroy them, is with heat which will rapidly break down the machines and render them unviable.
Ruin
- A single glob of Red Goo is about the mass of a watermelon and acts
as one entity. It is programmed to dynamically affect the human brain to
suffer continuous states of agony and despair, adjusting and restoring
any weakened anatomy to ensure the human lives through the process and
their neurotransmitters do not dull the experience. When not attached to
a human, the Red Good will locate the nearest one it can and attempt to
attack them.
On a successful attack, the Red Goo encases the head and invades
the skull to begin applying its attack. For every ten minutes of
exposure there is a 1 in 10 chance that the human, if rescued, has
become irrevocably insane.
2f. Engineering
At the base of Kurnakov-4 is the engineering section which contains a series of ballasts, air tanks, batteries, and a nuclear fission reactor anchored to the sea floor.
The reactor is currently disabled and has been ripped apart. Its fissile core is missing and instead a black 1x1x1 cube has been wired directly into the battery supplies with a flippable switch that is currently off.
Black 1x1x1 Cube
When wired into a power supply and provided a low watt input, the
cube of smart matter encasing an ultra-dense pack of nanobatteries will
modulate and output the required power to fill the power supply with a
continuous charge. This cube currently has enough power to run the
Kurnakov habitat without interruption for 10,000 years.
Careful searching reveals a series of explosives designed to destroy the facility in an emergency have been removed.
2g. Medical Bay
A small suite of first aid and surgery supplies is dominated by a large surgical table in the center of the suite with a large squid retrained with several belts and wound medical gauze to the table.
Amongst the medical supplies is a small journal of notes kept by Inna Osipov that detail a series of experiments done to the squid testing the limits of the miraculous regenerative and healing properties of the Mesh, noting that everything aside from heated incisions was near instantly recovered. The squid is still alive and panicked but one of its tentacles has been burned.
2e. Laboratory
The laboratory module is the second largest of the habitat and is anchored to the sea floor as well as a Pylon. If the door is opened before power is turned back on the room will be filled with acrid black smoke. The source is a metal waste basket in the room that was stuffed with documents and burned haphazardly.
The laboratory contains a cot, a sealed glass water tank, a desk strewn with papers and diagrams, small personal effects of Dr. Filippovna including a photo of a german shepherd and a field of sunflowers, a large metal gate-like apparatus around the bare exposed wall of the Pylon, and a computer and printer that has been smashed to pieces.
Inside the tank is a large Giant Pacific Octopus, a note taped to the tank labels its name as Kusachiy.
The papers strewn about the desk have been picked and thrown about haphazardly, the ones that remain, if studied, are sensory readings outlining the pressure anomaly around OMPHALOS. Hidden inside the case of one of the computers and somewhat readable is a Dr. Filippovna's Notebook which explains the experiments taken that uncovered how to enter the pylons as well as describing a spherical device that is able to control the pressure anomaly- including lengthy asides about how to communicate with Kusachiy and how they taught Dr. Filippovna how to operate the device.
The metal gate apparatus is a crude airlock that allows one to open the Pylon without flooding the habitat- cycling the water back into the pylon at the press of a button.
Kusachiy
Large for its species, Kusachiy is a rust-red Giant Pacific Octopus and the oldest sentient earth-borne organism in existence. 22 million years ago Kusachiy accidentally entered the Pylons and was force uplifted to be sentient. Despite this, Kusachiy lacked socialization and has spent the last 22 million years living peacably around the sea mount.
Having not explored much of the OMPHALOS facility beyond the Pylons, Kusachiy is unfamiliar with any of its inner workings but is aware of how to use the Pressure Modulator in 3c. to alter the pressure field around the sea mount- having used it several times for fun and unknowingly resulting in the sinking of the Santa Martina as well as several other vessels.
Despite being sentient, Kusachiy has limited means of communication. Dr. Filippovna first identified Kusachiy as being extremely intelligent and developed a rudimentary way of communicating with Kusachiy through careful observation of color-shifts. Kusachiy, meanwhile, has a rudimentary grasp of Russian now and despite their advanced age is eager as a child to learn more now that they have had a conversation partner. Effectively, with the journal and by speaking Russian you can communicate one syllable intentions back and forth.
