Zhiyu-Ji Djinn, Campaign Notes

Episode 7

“That was the thing about bees. They always guarded the entrance to the hive, with their lives if necessary. But wasps were adept at finding the odd chink in the woodwork around the back somewhere and the sleek little devils’d be in and robbing the hive before you knew it. Funny. The bees in the hive’d let them do it, too. They guarded the entrance, but if a wasp found another way in, they didn’t know what to do.”
--Terry Pratchett, “Lords and Ladies”

With quick reactions, we though the eye might have missed us, as no cry was raised against us in our subterfuge. But then, on closer inspection, milady Endless brine thought the eye might not be animate, and so we were safe.
We walked out onto a gantry, surrounding but above the factory floor. The eye and other human organs were attached to a conveyor belt, being deposited into a vat. We observed that the Prætorian Stalkers drank from it – their sustenance a soup derived from men.
We made our way down to the far busier ground level and blended in. There were four distinctive groups of people: the slave workers; the senior workers, who bore machinaical implants; the scientists/technicians, which we were disguised as; and the overseers, who were all heavily machinised.
We explored the factory, seeking a way out. We left via the canteen, which we strolled through as if we belonged there.
Out of the factory and down a stone corridor took us to a lift, though cruder than the one we had previously ridden. It took us one floor further down, to the food storage facility. We passed through this into another stone corridor which had become metal by the time we reached the far end – the metal still bleeding into the stone, even in this deep within the city of metal.
A priest was walking down the corridor. We followed him until he turned in to a door, one of many that lined this part, and when another door opened ahead of us we hid in a cupboard to avoid detection.
Following this corridor to its end took us to a train station. A train sat abandoned at the solitary platform. It held a cargo of Prætorian Stalkers, though all non-functional. A second held a cargo of Raseed, likewise inactive.
We followed the train-tracks up the way we had deduced the trains had come from. The tunnel went round, and up – a spiral? As we sought to go deeper into the city, we turned around, and back beyond the station we began at, the tracks continued down. Down. This was the direction we wanted to go.
We came to another station where implanted workers were loading a train with larger-than-man-sized crates. The train was pointing away from us, so milord Carlos suggested we sneak on board and ride the train. Which we did. It took us deeper – in a spiral, as we had suspected. During our trip, we looked in one of the crates – it contained a large, metal skeleton-creature. We theorised it might be another type of Nightbreed. As we were to see more of these things later, I will say now that they shall be henceforth referred to as ‘skeletons’, until such a time as we discover their right designation.
Half the crates were unloaded at the station we stopped at, and then the train moved on, with us still stowed away on board. At the next station, the train terminated and the rest of the crates were unloaded and taken off somewhere. Except for the crate we had opened, which was returned to the platform – rejected?
Out of the station we were in for another surprise. The corridor we found ourselves taking was not metal, nor even stone, but organic – made of a green fleshy substance that pulsated and disturbed us all. As we progressed down it, the green gave way to red, and the foul stench of rotting and blood assaulted our noses.
The organic corridor took us to an organic door, partially transparent. There was some movement beyond it - we could tell that much. At this point we divided our number into the stealthy and the non-stealthy. The stealthy, myself and milady Endless Brine, proceeded forward first to make sure the way was safe. Beyond the door we saw the skeletons, active and acting as men, attending to vats with bodies inside, connected to machina. The skeletons paid us no heed, so we brought the others to join us.
We heard one of the skeletons chanting over its vat. Milord Theo said it was “like Sorcery.” One of the bodies began moving as a result, and was taken out of this room into an adjacent operating theatre.
Opposite where we had entered from, there was a corridor that took us to a metal room, from where we could see into (but not be seen from) an arena where there was lots of machina. In the centre, a lone Dragon-Blooded exalt in a blood-red Warstrider fought a vast machina, vast enough that it towered over the Warstrider. The fight was somewhat one-sided; the Warstrider lost.
Beyond this ‘viewing room’ was a room full of computers, which milord Theo reported were full of ‘test data,’ to do with the very large machina, called a ‘Desecrator.’ It was apparently only working at 10% efficiency!
We passed through four further computer rooms, each monitoring different aspects of the arena fight, and beyond them was a meeting hall. Milords Carlos and Theo thoroughly investigated that room, which appeared to be the control centre for this facility. Milord Kino kept watch for them, while myself and milady Endless Brine scouted ahead. We went out onto a platform overlooking the arena directly. The chequered arena floor had many doors – one of which was huge, opposite the platform; the doors the Desecrator had used.

There were two other doors off the platform. One door led to a lift, which could take us up or down. The other led to a choice of corridors, the first of which led to more computer rooms, and then a dead end. From the second we heard approaching footsteps. We hid from them in the computer room, and snuck past the skeletons and passed the way they had come from. That way lay design rooms, one of which had a cleaner in it. This was also a dead end, so our untaken choices when we regrouped were the arena floor or the lift.
The two-man lift took us down about 50 feet, where we re-assembled. Rather than risk the arena, open and exposed as it was, myself and milady Endless Brine took the lift up to the higher floor. The injured Dragon-Blooded (from the arena fight earlier), practically cut in half, lay semi-conscious on a trolley, unattended. Milady Endless Brine fetched milord Kino, and we put the unfortunate man out of his misery. Milord Kino sent his soul on properly; it was the very least we could do for him.
The machina the Dragon-Blooded had been connected to began bleeping when he passed on. Milord Kino and milady Endless Brine went down in the lift while I hid in the lift shaft to listen in and give the all clear when the attention the bleeping had attracted was passed. It was only after I had done this that alarms began to sound.
We ran across the arena floor to another lift shaft. The cab was a level above us, but had been deactivated. I jumped up to the cab, braced myself against the shaft and pushed it up. Milord Carlos assisted me and so we made our way out onto that level, from where we could see the Desecrator walk back out into the arena, so recently vacated by us.
We moved swiftly through the area, putting distance between us and the place we had been when the alarm was sounded. We came out of the facility into a ruined, stone city.
This gave us some much-desired cover, but it was not long before, hiding in an empty building, we heard a strange noise seemingly coming from above us.
As we cautiously looked out from our cover, trying to identify the source of the noise, I had a sudden premonition of danger. Clearly milord Kino did too, for we both dived away from the exposed window scant seconds before an explosion destroyed part of the building we were in, hurting the others that had remained by the window.
A flying machina, huge and bloated, and buzzing like an angry wasp, dropped down and covered us with the cannon that protruded from its front like some hideous nose. Foolishly, I stood out in the open as it opened fire. Deadly metal projectiles were spat at me, and to save myself I pulled Price of Freedom from its hiding place and wielded it to block the shots. I had saved myself, but I had revealed to the flying creature my nature as one of the exalted. I had no choice now but to slay it, so it could not bring news of us to its masters in this city. I watched milady Endless Brine leap upon it, but it jinked and caused her to fall. It fired a missile at those of us that were still within the remains of our cover, which I leapt over as I too jumped for the thing. I fell short, but slashed at it with Price of Freedom before landing beside milady Endless Brine. Together we leapt into the air, she hooking her fearsome fighting chain onto our waspish adversary, me stabbing Price of Freedom deep within it as I drew my other sword and began wildly slashing at its body. Its gun maneuvered to point at me. I hacked at the weapon, but it fired and injured me. As it rose straight up, I attacked it again and again, causing it to leak black ichor. It dived for a building and I leapt off it, tearing Price of Freedom from its steel hide as I did so. It crashed through the building and out the other side, flying off into the darkness. As I fell through the air, I stabbed Price of Freedom into a building and cut into it. I slid rapidly down the side, but the friction of the cutting slowed me sufficiently that I was descending without danger. I reached the ground safely.
We had all survived our encounter with this enemy, but it, too, lived. I had failed to prevent it escaping. Doubtless word of us would not be long in the spreading.

“Wasps looked pretty enough. But if you were for bees, you had to be against wasps.”
--Terry Pratchett, “Lords and Ladies”

Episode 8

“The Zhiyu had three different divisions, or sets, of holy days, one for each of their castes. The Hi, the lowest status worker-caste, had the least total number of holy days and the Beä, the highest status caste of females, the most.
The Hi were granted all days that followed moonless nights as their days of rest, which, of course, included the whole of the Calibration. This gave them 50 holy days per year.
The Ji were granted every seventh day, what we would recognise as the last day of the week, as a holy day, which was not a day of rest for them, but rather the one day of the week in which they were allowed to relax some of their sacred taboos. For example, they were only allowed to drink mead on such days. In addition, they also received the first day of the year that followed a night in which the moon was seen in the sky, the 3rd day of Ascending Air, as a day of rest and feasting to celebrate the passing of the Calibration. This gave them 61 holy days in total.
The Beä holy days consisted of 80 days scattered throughout the year, with concentrations around the spring equinox and winter solstice. On these days the priestesses would conduct the various religious rites of the Zhiyu. For further examinations of these, see chapters XXI and XXIII to XXV. They also treated the whole of the Calibration as a hallowed period, which takes their number of holy days to 85.”
--Excerpt from “A Comparative Study of Extinct Primitive Civilisations, vol. I” by Mnemon Anna

While making her way back to rejoin us, milady Endless Brine had seen, about 40 miles away in the distance, a large, central building that was not in ruins. Machinaical energy, electricity, crackled around its upper storeys.
As we made for it, using the ruined buildings as cover, we found a trapdoor into a lower level. We proceeded down a narrow tunnel in single file, until we met two dwarves that pulled rifles on us. We had alerted them to our presence when we opened the trapdoor. We talked, and determined that this ruined city was once the city of the dwarves, who now inhabited only an underground shelter, where we were taken as guests. They had been living here since the mountain “broke”, devastating the city in the process. The “evil force” (Algeroth) that had been imprisoned then partly escaped and began trying to free the rest of it. According to Thorgrim, the dwarf with whom we conversed, the “elite servants” occupy the central building which milady had spotted earlier. The dwarves gave us hospitality and healing, as we planned what to do next. We knew we had to go to the central building, the question was: how?
Thorgrim accompanied us some of the way, to provide a distraction designed to allow us to proceed undetected by enemy patrols and the like. The distraction in question was bringing down a building.
Further into the city, the ruination was less complete than at the edges. Upon seeing three unusual pictures of hooded figures holding gardening implements, milord Theo investigated and set off a trap. A scythe burst from the picture and swung at him. The three figures stepped out of their pictures, but we fled from them and outdistanced them. When deciding to flee rather than fight and risk drawing further unwelcome attention to our endeavour, I had the most curious feeling. I knew in my mind that the most sensible course of action was to run from these things, but I could feel part of me, my very soul it seemed, cry out that no, I should fight and destroy these things that dared stand in my way. This required me to steel my will against myself, to fight down the feeling even as it rose up inside me.
The strike from the scythe had burned some strange runes onto milord Theo, which he told us gave him “a horrible feeling.” These marks faded after a time.
As we penetrated deeper into the city, we spotted a patrol of three large tanks with dæmons growing in them. These were the ‘infested’ that the dwarves had told us of.
The next day we saw many more of these, a well as more of the flying machines like the one that we had fought before. They are apparently called ‘choppers.’
We came at last unto the area of the central building, and hid in an adjacent building, observing it for signs of comings and goings, in an attempt to determine how best to infiltrate it.
Some of the skeletons arrived, as well as cloaked, man-sized figures. At one point a man in black armour with disturbing engravings walked out the front door. Milord Carlos concluded he was a Deathknight. He climbed inside an infested chopper and flew away.
As milady Endless Brine and I scouted the rear of the building, the others saw a dæmon, who they thought to be of the third (i.e. most powerful) circle, being led inside the building in chains.
Meanwhile, I had thought of a plan. My plan was for milord Carlos, great craftsman that he is, to create a grappling hook that we could get across to an upper window round the back, which appeared to be of empty offices, and then break our way in without being observed. It took us two days to scavenge the material milord Carlos required, and for him to construct a marvellously suitable chain and magnetic hook, considering the resources we had at hand. To make sure it was strong enough to take us, milord Theo sanctified it with his sorcery, lending it the strength of the earth.
It was milady Endless Brine that ran out into the open space at the rear of the building to connect the magnetic hook to the building and create a chain bridge, which we all ran along and then I knocked in the window, thus getting us inside. Milord Carlos brought in the cable, hiding the signs of our passage as much as was possible.
Beyond the deserted office rooms we were at a central stairwell, at the bottom of which was a two-storey statue of Algeroth. This building was like a machinaical manse, and the statue was a focal point.
We climbed the stairs for about 30 floors, hiding in the deserted office whenever there was any chance that another person (usually a skeleton or a Nightbreed), climbing or descending the stairs, might see us. We had not been in any danger of this until a new type of machinaical enemy, possibly another type of Nightbreed, entered the picture. It was a physically perfect, androgynous figure, half metal, half flesh, descending the stairs, gliding above the ground, accompanied by a skeleton flunkey. Passing our hiding place, it paused, and stared into the very room we were concealed inside. But it did not raise an alarm or otherwise react to our presence. We continued only once we were sure it was gone far below.
Around the 40th floor we came upon occupied levels. We observed many of the skeletons, at work drawing up technical designs. We saw one being thrown out a window, presumably to its demise, by a superior, black, model, apparently for exhibiting incompetence.

The floors were now harder to cross unnoticed. Progress was slow and far from easy. Then the androgynous figure ascended once again. Clearly very much a superior to the skeletons, it ordered the rooms on the floors above us cleared, and the skeletons descended.
Milady Endless Brine, separated from the rest us, thought that the figure saw her as she checked to see if the coast was clear. But there was, again, no alarm raised; no reaction. Having been seen, she stayed away from the rest of us, who followed on behind, keeping our distance, until we found we were back to crossing empty floors again.
At one floor we were trapped, while hiding, by cloaked figures with flamethrowers that began torching our floor. Before they could force us to reveal ourselves or be burned alive, we chose to act decisively. I summoned Price of Freedom and grabbed a small office table, sliced out a window and jumped out into open space. As the power from my leap failed, I braced myself against the table and jumped back at the building, heading for a higher floor. I sliced the window ahead of me.
The others followed me out the windows, all of us making it at least one level up. Needless to say, the alarm was raised.
I cut my way in through the window and felt flame shoot past where I had been seconds before. Eight black skeletons faced me, and began chanting their sorcery. The rest fled. I said to them: “Good evening ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Zhiyu-Ji Djinn,” as I cut down those in my way with Price of Freedom. Meanwhile, milord Carlos ran in after me, passing me as I disposed of the skeletons. Once they were taken care of, I followed him through the room to the stairwell, where he was leaping up level after level. Until his path was blocked by the androgynous figure.

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