Jack
"In need of a little ego boost, Gertie?"

Terra
"How is it the light doesn't blind you, though?"

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Terra's muscle-memory leads the lot of you behind the stage, over a tapestry of shoeprints left in the dust. "If I needed an ego boost I'd be looking for a boy's school," Gertie said. "You know how many boys got made into men at my hands and other body parts? More than you care to count. And then they aaaall died." She ends on a sing-songy note.

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"Sorcery, kid." She pats you on the head, Terra.

Wendy
"Gertie, anyone ever tell you you are weird woman?"

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"Every day of my life."

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There is a door. A padlock set with four number wheels keeps it shut.

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Terra: You know the combination.

Terra
Yep.

Terra
She puts it in.

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5-9-3-6. And the lock falls loose.

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The door is open...

Terra
She grips her horseshoe tight.

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There is a spiral staircase, leading down. Gertie goes ahead and takes initiative. "The depths~!" she coos.

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"Don't be so damn /eager,/" Robert mutters.

Jack
"And here we go." Jack gestures to the others to follow, going after Gertie.

Wendy
sighed as she got in. 'I hate being underground."

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The stairs go down--down--

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"...Hey, now..." Gertie says. Her eyelights shine over... furniture? Over /something.../

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She hops onto the floor and runs over to something in a corner--and with a sputtering sound, a generator kicks in, bathing the hidden room in light.

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It appears to be some kind of--combination of den and laboratory. Chalkboards laden with notes and equations. Stacks of books in glass cases. Five beds, dusty, but made.

Terra
I have very little clue what the equations are, right?

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And in the center of the room, in a great clearing, a fifteen-foot iron bar suspended in a mechanical assembly--a 500-pound flywheel without its protective casing--mounted onto an elaborate machine. Connected to it by a long cable securely bolted onto the floor is a second generator.

Wendy
"Well, guess I called it. It is some kind of mad science." She said, looking at it. 'I got no idea whats its for."

KriegsaffeNo9
Right over your head, Terra.

Jack
"-huh." Jack peruses the bookcases.

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Jack: The books are a bewildering array of subjects--engineering, electronics, physics, the occult, folktales.

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[Evidence Collection] There are two books out in the open, left deliberately out, you would say. Two copies of a children's book, one in English, one in what looks to be Finnish.

Jack
He grabs the one in English and starts to flip through it.

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Its title is "Fire Coming Out of the Monkey's Head." Its illustrations are simple pastels... but oddly /familiar./

=-=
KriegsaffeNo9 has changed the topic to “But I do not think those spears will hold against the queen of the country of armies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcFZWa8zH2w”

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"Once upon a time at the foot of a great mountain, there was a town where the people known as Happyfolk lived, their very existence a mystery to the rest of the world, obscured as it was by great clouds. Here they played out their peaceful lives, innocent of the litany of excess and violence that was growing in the world below. To live in harmony with the spirit of the mountain called...

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...Monkey was enough. Then one day Strangefolk arrived in the town. They came in camouflage, hidden behind dark glasses, but no one noticed them: they only saw shadows. You see, without the Truth of the Eyes, the Happyfolk were blind."

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The Strangefolk are depicted as men and women with dark eyes--connected to dark, moth-shaped shadows with glowing red eyes. The Happyfolk are dark-skinned, smiling figures, with no eyes.

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The Strangefolk invade the mountain Monkey, finding the Caves of Unimaginable Sincerity and Beauty. Interred here are bodies in respite--bodies set with green jewels connected by black tar in a crucifix symbol.

Wendy
Could I attempt to get a rough idea of what the FInnish book is saying?

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You could, Wendy.

Wendy
I know German and Finnisha ren't the same, but maybe I could parse it out.

Wendy
attempts to readh the other.

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With what little overlap there is in languages, you can tell that the Finnish version is much less poetic and more direct. The English story seems to be an interpretation of the art, not a translation.

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Both books come to an agreement, though--the Strangefolk mine the mountain with the aid of a strange glowing light, which brings misery and sorrow to the Happyfolk.

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The last few pages are difficult to misinterpret...

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"And then came a sound. Distant first, it grew into *castrophany* so immense it could be heard far away in space.

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There were no screams. There was no time.

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The mountain called Monkey had spoken.

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There was only fire.

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And then, nothing."

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The mining-light bursts from the mountain, emitting waves of aurora-like light and flame. In the last panel the mountain, and all its people, and all life around it, have been reduced to gray ash.

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If there's a moral in either book, it's not apparent.

Jack
"Well, that's a hell of a book to give to kids."

Wendy
then wonders aloud. "This... well..." She closed the book and thought. "Wasn't there a mountain in Russia? Blew up? Tongue-something?"

Terra
"Well, the Strangefolk are obviously Migou...?"

Wendy
looks at the book, wondering how old it is.

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Wendy: It's about two decades old. This is before whatever it was that happened a few years ago in Russia.

Jack
"Could be. If that part's literal, though..."

Wendy
discarded that thought, thinking. "Perhaps this... dohickey is trying to recreate it?"

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Jack: [Evidence Collection] You notice something out the corner of your eye. One of the blackboards is on a pivot...

Jack
Jack immediately goes to examine it.

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Robert approaches the the blackboard. "You see somethin'?" he says. Mary is examining a pile of loose-leaf pages.

Jack
"Turn it around, take a look."

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Robert flips the board!

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There is a message, scrawled in a steady but intense hand.

Jack
"Let's see here," he murmurs, flipping open a notepad and writing everything down intently.

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"To any who find our works: If we have failed, the future is up to you. The Dark Star Generator is key. Bring it to the caves, however you can. It's not too late to save St. Margaret's.

Jack
"-the hell are we going to get that thing out of here?"

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"To Terra--to 'Jack'--'Wendy'--'Nadine'--'Gardener'--we wish you luck. Death certain; hour uncertain."

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It is signed by Patricia "Pip" Masterson, Dafyyd Edwards, Albert Grant, R E D, and Sarah Royal.

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Jack: The machine has got to weigh at least a ton, and that's not including the generator. If only you knew someone with superhuman strength."

Wendy
"Dark Star Generator?' Thats what this big hunk of junk is? Did they leave a god damn set of directions? And why the hell is everything we find vague and ominous..."

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An [Evidence Collection] spend will expedite the process, those with Evidence Collection!

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Terra: Mary walks up to you. "I think you should read this," she says, quietly, handing you the pages.

Jack
Consider it spent!

Terra
She takes a look at it!

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Jack: You locate a paperweight-laden set of notes. The most pertinent instruction is this: "activate generator, hold on to something."

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There's a lot of references to Einstein and Schwartzchild... and math that divides by zero.

Terra
((So he discovered renormalization? Because that's an actual technique to get around dividing by zero in particle physics.))

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(He doesn't avoid dividing by zero.)

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(Division by zero is integral to the equation.)

KriegsaffeNo9
(Yes, that /is/ exactly as sensible and plausible as it sounds.)

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Gertie examines the second generator. "Looks pretty normal to me, guys."

Jack
"Now, I'm not exactly mathematically-inclined, but ah...if I'm remembering right, this shit is very, very far normal."

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Terra: The loose pages are written by Sarah. They're from her diary.

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For several pages, she's absolutely miserable, following the disappearance of Terra Fowler.

Terra
And after that?

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She writes about how Grant comforts her--and how he gathered, over the course of a few weeks, like-minded individuals and opportunists for the effort of investigating mysterious events.

Wendy
starts looking for the easiest path to their destination

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Much of the rest of the year--skimming somewhat--concerns Sarah relating the adventures of the Ordo Veritatis.

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Wendy: There's a map on the wall, with, conveniently, an ideal route outlined from the theater to the beach--and from there, to a cave in the side of the island.

Wendy
looks it over, nodding

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The writing gets rather unhinged at times, Terra. Terror is evident in her words. The adventures are... rather on the bleak side. Migou infestations of small Scottish towns. A serpentine warlock, ancient and powerful, only defeated after it killed and ate one of their number. They decapitated the beast and cast its still-living head in bronze. Occasional battles with "the twins" and...

KriegsaffeNo9
...their blood-drinking, invisible horror.

Jack
"Hey, Wendy. When you change, how much can you lift?" He gestures towards the generator.

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"Tested the machine. My God, it worked. Fed the cube to it. Slept well tonight; either the serpent is dead at last or it is no longer coterminous with our reality. A victory either way."

Wendy
does the math. "I'm... not exactly sure..."

Wendy
How much is it?

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Wendy: You can drag several tons. You could easily carry the thing on your back. The real trick is maneuvering the device around--it's not exactly easy to do so.

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/THUMP./ "Whoops," Gertie says, lying, having flipped the switch on the generator.

Wendy
backed away. 'Gertie? The fuck did you do?"

Terra
Is it dark now?

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"Tuuurned it on," Gertie says. The machine hums to life. The flywheel begins to spin...

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The second generator, Terra. The wheel slowly picks up speed--you're all outside the reach of the 15-foot iron bar, as it happens.

Wendy
"Oh god... shut it off... shut it off..."

Jack
"For the love of- everybody get back," Jack growls, edging away and grabbing hold of whatever's handy.

Terra
"Turn it off! It's not for here!" She runs toward the generator.

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Terra: The wind begins to whip up... "Come on, they had to turn it on in here once, right?" Gertie says. "Think of it as--you know--forewarning!"

=-=
KriegsaffeNo9 has changed the topic to “And that is all that will matter in the end. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA8bSCf2N-s”

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The flywheel spins faster... faster...

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...soon it is a blur of steel, moving at lethal speeds.

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Did any of you secure the children's books when you were done?

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If not--they begin sliding from their resting places, towards the flywheel. Robert lunges for them, keeping them in place.

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And that's when the generator shuts off on its own. And the flywheel keeps turning.

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In moments... /something/ happens at the axis of the flywheel, a foot or so above it.

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You can't see it. Your eyes seem to glide off of it. You see it by what it does to the light surrounding it--distort it, like a watery lens.

Wendy
"Gertie... I think you just killed us all..."

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Dust and pencils and pens are drawn towards the tiny lenticular phenomenon. The dust disappears--the utensils slowly fall into the radius of distortion, stretch out, distort, and disappear somewhere unseen.

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After a minute or so, the flywheel slows, and the distortion ends.

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Every one of your hairs is on end. But the room is now rather cleaner than it was before.

Jack
Would a [Physics] spend reveal anything about what just happened?

KriegsaffeNo9
It would.

KriegsaffeNo9
Einstein and Schwartzchild wrote an /extremely/ controversial paper on the subject of stars whose mass reach a certain point and collapse in on themselves. They would be too dense for even light to escape.

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Dark stars. An idea proposed by Einstein's theory of relativity...

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It appears that Grant has designed a machine that generates them.

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Terra: The last words of Sarah's diary...

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"Grant says that we can't give in to the temptation of sorcery. 'We must win by man's rules. To practice black arts is to admit defeat.'

Terra
"This must be to eat something, to remove it from reality completely."

KriegsaffeNo9
"He says I shouldn't have cast the spell Terra taught me. I don't know. I don't know if I can rightly call what he does science..."

Wendy
"Yeah, Like what?!"

Terra
Did Sarah ever mention what spell it was she cast?

Terra
"I don't know. I suspect we'll find out in the caves."

Wendy
turns to the machine. Any killswitch?

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She gathered together a bundle of flowers, immersed their petals in perfume, and cast the to the wind. It was supposed to help her find her true love...

Wendy
"Its already on here!"

Jack
"A weapon against that Beast of theirs, I guess. Dark stars...Jesus Christ."

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Wendy: the machine's got no killswitch, but it did turn off by itself after a few minutes.

Wendy
(wait)

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It appears, Terra, that your spell found Sarah here. The petals you've been finding--they were from /this/ Sarah, here. Never quite reaching you.

KriegsaffeNo9
(Look up, Wendy. You missed some things, I figure.)

Wendy
(Yeah, I missed the Distortion ending)

Wendy
(I thought it was still on)

Terra
"Question. If this thing ate its own flywheel, would the distortion vanish or be self-perpetuating?"

Jack
"I don't know, and I wouldn't want to be around to find out."

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"See? That was a /good/ thing I did. Am I not a useful sidekick?" Gertie says. "Maybe," Mary says, "but Jesus Christ, warn a lady next time."

Jack
"Fuckin' hell," Jack mutters, rubbing his temples. "You've got a hell of a way of being useful."

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Terra... there is a little more left, in the last diary entry.

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"In my dreams, the Beast laughs at me. 'You know they've fixed me, right? Terra doesn't even want you anymore.' I can see the look in Terra's eyes. and [erased] [erased] [blacked out with pencil] It will not be enough. I will never be enough. Not anymore. Tomorrow we will ride out and we will kill the beast that has brought about the dying of St. Margaret's. If I die I will die...

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...myself and I will die in love with Terra Fowler. Not what she has become. God help us all we are marching to death. I love you Terra. Please still love me."