The following was post-session investigation and analysis handled on our chat server. I’ve transcribed it here with light edits.
Octavia and Erick have no trouble cleaning and dressing everyone’s wounds. There are no secondary infections, and everyone heals with the expected speed (though most of the team crashes and sleeps for the better part of twelve hours once they’re back in Kamiensk, and eat ravenously upon awakening).
Of particular note, despite having taken a serious hit, Comrade also is up and moving normally after a similarly long and uncharacteristically deep nap. His only apparent lasting effect is a patch of white fur over his new scar. He is, however, begging food from everyone except Miko, who he continues to avoid.
With living patients taken care of, Octavia and Erick turn their attention to Rasputin’s decapitated body and severed head.
Whatever healing process Octavia thought she was seeing stopped when she took a hacksaw to the Kazakh. There is some inflammation and initial scar tissue formation around some of the minor injuries to suggest that she wasn’t imagining it.
The fibrous subcutaneous layer (which Erick also observed on Shotkin) is present everywhere. It’s between 2mm and a 0.5mm thick, with the thinnest places being face, joints, genitals, and extremities and the thickest being across the torso. It’s remarkably cut-resistant – Octavia dulls several scalpel blades on it and has to hand them off to Cowboy for resharpening (and the hacksaw blade is just done). Betsy’s 5.56mm rounds penetrated it in several places, and the overall reduction in internal trauma is similar to that seen with soft body armor. In game terms, Rasputin had Armor 1 everywhere – on top of the protection from the vest he was wearing.
Rasputin’s skull also displays some signs of bone growth – it’s about 1mm thicker than it should be. It’s not even, and there are the beginning of spurs and nodules. Inside the skull, there’s also anomalously increased growth and blood flow in the parts of the brain that process auditory and olfactory input.
Inside the chest cavity, once the examiners finally get in there with the assistance of some non-medical tools, it looks like Rasputin was nearly killed at least once or twice before. Scar tracks through his lungs and liver are consistent with rifle-caliber penetrating hits. In both cases, the wound tracks show anomalous healing… and other growth. There are dense, glossy black, tumor-like structures speckled throughout the wound areas. They’re in an advanced state of decomposition compared to the tissue around them. Disturbingly, where they’re densest, there’s also evidence of new organ growth. The damaged lung appears to have a half-developed third lung alongside it, attached to the corresponding bronchial tube. There’s a similar structure next to the damaged-and-healed liver that looks like a fetal liver.
The team doesn’t have a microscope for close examination of blood or tissue samples. However, it’s easy to improvise a centrifuge: tie a small container to the end of a string and have one of the local kids spin it for five minutes. When a control sample from one of the team gets this treatment, the nanites (briefly) precipitate out of solution (and Octavia confirms that Comrade is now carrying them). However, there’s no such precipitate from Rasputin, nor from the sample Erick took from Shotkin.
Rasputin also has one of those ugly circular wounds, very much like the one Shotkin had but not quite as inflamed. It’s in the same spot: left of centerline, just below the collarbone. Upon surgical examination, there’s a weak patch in the fibrous subdermal layer there, and the wound track goes to the aorta. If this was done with something mechanical, it was not medical-grade. The wound was too ragged and irregular for that. Upon closer examination, there’s healed scarring (and pinhead-sized nodules of those tumor-like things) on the surface of the aorta itself. The team is at the limit of what they can resolve with unaided eyesight, but they think the subcutaneous fibers also show evidence of repeated regrowth at the wound site.
Ellis takes point on analyzing the intel items collected from the museum. He pulls in Pettimore, Cat, Miko, and Bell, and eventually the whole team once they’re done with other tasks.
The Russian translation of the Koran is heavily annotated in a mix of Russian and Kazakh. It’s all the same handwriting, though there’s noticeable deterioration over time in both penmanship and coherence. The older annotations appear to be the writer’s own religious studies – a man trying to reconnect with his ancestors’ faith without benefit of formal tutelage. The newer notes are more like aggressive edits. There’s refutation of some passages, expansion of others, and an overall departure from the original theology (once Erick is done with the medical work, he’ll be able to confirm this from an academic perspective, as will Father Miroslav.
The general tone of the newer writing is consistent with the marauders’ observed behavior. There’s broad rejection of traditions of scholarship, hospitality, and any sense of exploration or discovery. Prohibited behaviors are broadly expanded to include any expression of other faiths – and any technology powered by anything more complex than simple machines or human or animal labor. There are some weird reinterpretations of passages on social customs, twisting them into something that’s almost a caste system written as a madman’s justification for despotism.
The notebook is more of the same – where it’s even intelligible. It’s written in Kazakh with some Russian loan words and a few shreds of Arabic, and no one present speaks Arabic or any Turkic language. Bell and Father Miroslav are able to piece together a few fragments. However, it is illustrated in places, and dates are easy to decipher. It appears to be a record of Shotkin’s interactions with an angelic being named al-Khidr, beginning in April 2000. This messenger revealed God’s displeasure at mankind for the destruction of Creation and charged Shotkin with being the hand of the divine in the local region. God’s new command, according to al-Khidr, was to return humanity to its intended pastoral state by eliminating all traces of the fallen world’s technology. As solidiers of God, Shotkin and his followers received special dispensation to use the weapons and tools of the old world in their efforts to bring about the new.
There are several versions of the star chart from the catchbasin ceiling. From what Cat and Betsy can recall from their celestial navigation training, each iteration grows more refined and accurate. The one deviation is the prominence of Altair – it’s in the right place relative to the rest of the sky, but it’s the pattern’s focal point, and far larger than its relative magnitude would normally show it.
Shotkin also wrote extensively about a process he underwent with al-Khidr, and it gives Erick and Father Miroslav some pause. They know of no direct equivalent in Islamic faith, and the warlord used an unfamiliar term. There’s some debate over whether “communion” is the closest equivalent, but after Bell unpacks some of the text around it, Father Miroslav suggests that “shriving” or “pennance” may be closer. It’s the closest Shotkin comes to pure religious expression in his writing. He’s short on practical details but long on flowery descriptions of the ritual’s exquisite pain and the release of sins and worldly cares. After each such encounter, Shotkin doesn’t write for a few days, and when he does, he often mentions that his “communion” requires extensive recovery – but he can feel himself growing stronger each time.
The dagger recovered from Shotkin is a bronze blade with an openwork hilt. It’s clearly ancient, and the hilt likely surrounded a wood core that’s long since rotted away. Despite its age, it’s still quite sharp. It was well-made once, but it’s seen extensive use and is not as robust as a modern steel blade (Reliability caps at 4). Aside from the layered bloodstains that fleck its surface, it has no detectable properties that are out of character for what it is. Pettimore and Father Miroslav agree it was most likely looted from the museum.
The rescued prisoner, Sebastian Mazur, takes about 36 hours to come back to full lucidity. Physically, he’s chronically malnourished and had started to develop sores on his ankles where he was chained up. He has a number of bruises from the beating he took when he was captured, and he’s not displaying any accelerated healing.
His last clear memory is the flight and capture whose end the recon team witnessed. He and a few of his friends were clearing debris from a field for cultivation when they found a leather rucksack containing a few books. The experience he describes is similar to what the team has seen when the brain fog lifts – they found themselves standing there, suddenly having remembered the concept of book. Once they recovered, they immediately started planning their escape. A patrol of Shotkin’s forces spotted them and they split up. He doesn’t know what happened to the others. He and the two with him were captured and severely beaten, then brought to the warlord.
Things get a little hazy for Sebastian after that. He witnessed something, but even the combined powers of Ellis and Father Miroslav can’t convince him to look directly at those memories. From the fragments he can remember and communicate, he was witness to at least one ritual in the starmap chamber, attended by Shotkin, Rasputin, and Shotkin’s personal war-band. Shotkin invoked al-Khidr as a divine messenger, guardian, and patron. Witek, one of Sebastian’s captured friends, was an offering to al-Khidr. Sebastian says al-Khidr “took” Witek, but can’t or won’t elaborate on how Witek was “taken” and becomes near-violent if pushed on al-Khidr’s appearance or identity.
Between that and his rescue, Sebastian and Renata (the girl who Shotkin sacrificed in front of the team) were kept chained in the alcove off the maintenance tunnel. They received maintenance rations of food and water. Shotkin occasionally spoke to them, but Sebastien characterizes it as a madman’s sermons from an unholy book and couldn’t make any sense of it. The fragments he relates align with the team’s decryption/translation of Shotkin’s writing. Sebastien believes he and Renata were under constant surveillance during their captivity – “they were always watching us,” he says.
Sebastian is mildly agoraphobic in the daytime. At night, he refuses to go outdoors for fear of seeing stars. “They won’t stop watching me,” he repeats over and over.