Today began a new adventure in our Atlantis: The Second age game. Rather, this was kind of a preparatory/interstitial game before the meat of the adventure, but sometimes that's nice.
We begin with a flashback: Thanos in the jungles of Khemit, outside the city of Acheron. He's been investigating stories of a cult of Set in the city, and has heard they have some kind of weapon or secret hidden in the jungle. As he leans down to a river to fill his skin, he hears a rumbling voice from the brush behind him: "Who are you?"
He turns, but he doesn't see anything. He sniffs the air, and smells the creature. Its odor is an odd combination of snake, crocodile, and matted fur. He also smells rotting meat. "Who are you?" he asks.
"I don't have a name," it responds.
"Shall I give you one? Or are you here to eat me? I think I'd be stringy, get caught in your teeth."
"With creatures such as you, with souls and minds, I find that the only part worth eating is the heart."
Thanos pauses. "Then maybe I should call you the Devourer, like the legends of Apep."
No response. Thanos waits, and then says, "if you're not going to fight me, then leave me be. I'm busy."
"Are those the only options?" asks the Devourer, and bursts from the brush, mouth agape. Thanos hurls his spear at it, trying to throw it down the thing's gullet, but it snaps its mouth closed and breaks the spear. It smacks Thanos with its tail and knocks him into the river, and then slips in after him. Thanos kicks off and swims beneath it, and bites its neck, tearing loose some of its armored skin. It screams and dives deep, and Thanos hears it say, "I'm not going to eat your heart! I'm going to bite your legs off and leave you, ruined and helpless!"
Thanos awakens with a start in the villages of Deshdara. He and his companions are preparing for their expedition into the sunken city beneath the oasis, but that's going to require some way to survive it. Eithne turns herself into a Triton and dives deep to do a little recon.
She emerges from the crack at the bottom of the oasis into the huge underground sea, and notes that the water here is saltier than the oasis - apparently the oasis isn't fed by this sea at all. She swims toward the city, taking note of schools of fish and a few predatory creatures hunting them, but sees nothing that looks dangerous or aggressive toward her. She notes the time it takes to reach the first buildings, and realizes that she and her companions are going to need some magical help - this place is huge.
She examines the building's exterior, covered in seaweed and centuries of dirt. She wipes some away and finds that the building is made of large stone blocks, but that there's gold inlay near the windows, and the windows have glass panes. It's not orichalcum, which is good, because contact with that would force her back into her true form. This appears to be purely decorative.
She swims in the window and looks around. This appears to be a residence, but very little is left. She finds the handle to a weapon and decides to bring it back to Akala to examine.
Eithne swims out of the building and does a quick circle to try and get some sense of scale, and feels magic - a place of power, and one that's pretty strong. That frightens her, because as a Jinn, if she gets too close the magic might change her in unpredictable ways. She makes for the surface.
Imani has been retelling the characters' battle with the giant demon to the children of Deshdara, having them help her to act it out. Eithne emerges from the water and changes back to her true form, and the other characters gather. She explains what she found and gives the handle to Akala, who deduces that it's probably the broken handle to a weapon wielded by a Lemurian or an Ophidian - it's too big to belong to a human or Atlantean. However, the gold inlay Eithne describes is very much an Atlantean aesthetic, so this city might be a former colony.
Eithne's description of the place of power she felt gets Thanos' attention, as he is fascinated with Vril technology. Imani asks if such a thing might be a portal of some kind, and the others remember what they've learned about the ill-fated Vril Gates that the Atlanteans built. They allowed instant passage between any two Gates, yes, but the space between was "the dreams of the Elder Gods," and it changed those who traveled through it. The Vril Gates were all dismantled before the Great Cataclysm, more than 500 years ago...or so they've been told.
The heroes figure that they need a way to breathe water and swim quickly, so Thanos asks Ashermata if anyone in this town has access to an alchemy lab. He's in luck - there's a fellow named Tahel who practices alchemy. Thanos and Akala go and visit him, and he agrees to let Thanos use his lab to brew some potions and so on. (This is after he taps Thanos' nose to make sure he's real, since the stuff he's currently working on tends to make one hallucinate.)
Thanos and Eithne (who is also somewhat proficient in alchemy) get to work the next day, and over the course of a week create some Vril-light (potions that create portable, long-lasting light) and Uthlanga Milk (a potion that allows anyone who drinks it to breathe water and swim quickly; Thanos even tweaks the formula so it lasts longer).
Over the week, Eithne indulges, telling dark stories of her homeland in Skye. Akala tries to buy some sturdier armor, but gets scammed, losing money on a flimsy fake to a traveling merchant. Imani talks with Thanos and Eithne about Vril tech and what kinds of things they might find down there.
At the end of the week, the potions are ready. The heroes are ready to explore the mysterious sunken city. Eithne mentions that she's concerned about this, and tells Thanos about relatives and friends of hers who got too close to places of power and shrank, lost body parts, and so forth. Thanos replies that he had a dream recently about an experience he had near Acheron, involving a river monster that has it out for him. He's apprehensive, too, but he's still eager to the see the city.
Next session, into the deeps!
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