Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
Napalm (having switched off her fire) arrives at the steps to the Tibetan lamasery at Toghral Ombo...
The lamasery is a big plaster-covered stone building. On the path up to the gate there are cairns with prayer-flags. Prayer-bells can be heard playing along with deep-pitched droning chants.
She knocks. The gate swings silently open, revealing a shaven-headed saffron-robed oriental (Tibetan) monk. Napalm says "Hello," in Russian. "Greetings" he replies, also in perfect Russian, then greets her as Ana Stefanova Armanova, her full real name.
"I've come for your help," she says.
"We know. Enter." Napalm wanders into the temple, following the monk. He leads her through corridors and courtyards. Looking about Napalm can see long corridors, longer than the temple ought to be able to accommodate in that direction judging by what she saw from outside, and courtyards where there should be none. It is also warmer than might be expected (not that Napalm really notices).
The monk eventually shows her to a pair of huge golden doors with two saffron-robed shaven-headed monks guarding it, one on each side. The guards ignore them. The doors swing open by no visible mechanism and the monk tells Napalm to enter; he stays outside.
Inside it is dark. Things slowly brighten, revealing that she is in a huge prayer hall, with suffuse light coming from nowhere, many banners and prayer flags, and a huge and complex mandala painted in the centre of the floor. Above the centre of the mandala floats a shaven-headed teenaged youth.
He also calls her by her real name (Ana Stefanovna Armanova), and tells her that she wants to have the dead person removed from her mind, which is true. Napalm finds the fact that these strangers seem to know everything about her quite encouraging. "Step closer," he orders. She does. He introduces himself as the Tulku.
They haggle about what the Tulku gets for the service Napalm wants them to do. Before long they agree on a price: her immortal soul in their service, after she dies, for all eternity. However, Napalm is only happy to agree to this deal if the tasks they give her do not go against her values, that is, her goal to protect the helpless. Napalm is quite happy with this deal.
When the deal is done, Napalm notices black mist seeping out of her. It flows to the side where is coalesces into Sirdar, first a faint outline, then more and more solid (though always at least slightly transparent). Sirdar who seems frightened. "It is done," says the Tulku. He smiles at Sirdar in a not terribly nice manner.
Napalm and the Tulku exchange pleasantries, and Napalm goes back out through the door. It's dark outside now, but as she walk she finds herself back in Grottville (New Gelendzhik), on the street outside the hotel.
For the rest of us, it has been about fourteen hours since she left when Napalm wanders back into the Hotel Manhattan.
She tells the others that she's sold her soul to the Tibetans. A debate about what this means, and whether it was a good idea ensues. Nut can sense that the bad magic she sensed in Napalm has entirely gone, and that Napalm is now entirely non-magical.
That over, the plan is discussed: we trial Mirov's gloop when the next time/spatial exchange happens. Nut volunteers to take part.
The "impending incursion detector" alarm goes off about three hours before dawn. There is much rushing to the New Gelendzhik airfield in a Zil limousine, we all pile onto a big transport plane (also loaded with T86 tanks and troops), take off and are on our way.
Once we're going the General tells us that this incursion point is near the city of Omoyakon.
After a bit more than an hour, Nut's magic sense tells her of a big surge up ahead. A bright flash of light (nuke-like) is seen up ahead, but whatever it is it has no EMP-like effects. A hemisphere of jungle-dense vegetation of many species has appeared where the light just was. Mother Bear can feel another of the disturbances she has sensed begin from it.
Mirov vomits up a bucket of luminous green goo - the chemical "camouflage" - for Nut to wear for the trial. He is both bucket an goo. It smells pleasant and herbal this time (unlike the last lot). Nut applies it to herself.
Nut leaps from the plane, becoming intangible and one with the night sky. She swoops down to the vast alien plant with creatures running around it and re-materialises nearby. There is a horrible stench of rotting vegetation. Something like a van-sized avocado running on tentacular legs approaches. Nut easily dodges as it grabs for her and jumps onto its back. It swings and charges again. She notices that the camouflage gloop is fizzing (reacting with the alien gas/spore-cloud?).
Napalm, General Winter, Mirov all exit the plane by various means - flight, falling to an ice slide and flight again.
Nut attacks the avocado with her ankh. It's squishy under the tough outer shell. It's not clear whether Mirov's goo is working or not. Her attack has crippled the avocado, and it is attacked and torn apart by two other avocados.
Napalm arrives and starts cooking the plants. Nut leaves intangibly to the night sky. Mirov turns himself into gloop, dives into the middle of the mother plant in the shape of shears and starts pruning aggressively.
Akula and Mother Bear mount the first para-drop pallet which will air drops troops and tanks to the site. They drop from the plane.
A giant Venus-flytrap grabs Mirov as he flies. He cuts it off, fights off stick-insect like things and flies a bit higher. He tries out some poisons. Napalm continues stoking the fire.
General Winter freezes some colossal tumbleweeds. One shatters, the other slows right down, as he intended and General Winter tries to talk to it. "Stop or I'll kill you," he tells it, diplomatically. It reaches for him, slowly, and never exhibits any sign of comprehension. General Winter runs out of things to say, and, to get out of the embarrassing pause in the conversation, kills it. It shatters.
Mother Bear lands with the first para-pallet, transforms into bear form and starts searching around for the mysterious people/creature intruders who have been detected trying to get into the previous incursion locations.
General Winter starts to slowly freeze the mass of vegetation (and Mirov)
Tanks and soldiers land and deploy.
Nut re-materialises in the forest and begins to look for an intelligent plant with her telepathic power.
Mirov has found that acids and alkalis work on the plants; poisons don't - basically physical effects work while chemical effects to not. He retreats from the cold zone.
The troops begin to bombard the vegetation with artillery. Nut retreats from it further into the jungle. She is continuously dodging attacks from the plants, leaping among the treetops to keep sight of the sky in case she needs to make a hasty exit. She lights a torch from a branch.
From outside the forest Mirov shoots peas to shatter the frozen bits.
Near the centre, Nut senses a blind-spot where she can detect none of the low-level mental activity present everywhere else in the mass of vegetation. She tells Napalm, and heads for it.
In the centre of the blind spot, which is also the centre of the incursion, there is a parasitic tree, unlike the others, with sockets up the side (as if something has been attached to it), black, fire-blasted, like a stack of pineapple-tops. It isn't moving. Nut rips a frond off it, and notices she can't sense mind activity outside the blind spot now that she is in it. The other plants are still trying to kill her, though, if anything more than ever. She sets fire to the lowest segment of the black tree she can reach with her flaming torch, and dissipates back into the night sky.
Napalm has set up the absorb fire/burn forest feedback loop, and a firestorm starts developing.
Akula leaves the troop he is with and sloops towards the forest in humanoid water form. He feels tendrils growing up from the forest floor start to suck water from him. He decides he doesn't want to be absorbed by the forest and pulls away from it. This hurts a bit as the water which has been sucked in is still attached to him. He tries again, this time being highly radioactive. The forest still drains him though doesn't seem too healthy once it has. Then he tries being paralysingly radioactive, this seems to work but h
Mother Bear has been sneaking about the area in search of the intruders who have been appearing in the area around the incursions. After a while she detects five scents - four humans and one other. One of the humans smells unwashed, one smells old, one smells clean and one smells of death, the non-human smell is of a plant. But she can find only four sets of tracks to match the five scents. She contacts the others by radio and tells them, "my mission has borne fruit, strange fruit." She describes what she has found. She cannot describe where she is, but tries to take bearings. She is some distance from fire storm, over the crest of a hill.
The group (except Napalm who continues to burn the forest) starts to move towards the area that mother Bear is in. She carries on in pursuit of the scents. They seem to be leading in towards the incursion, but still in the natural birch forest of this area.
Nut locates Mother Bear first from the sky. She appears next to Mother Bear and then blends into the dark. The others meet up with Mother Bear. They all follow the tracks off. After a short time they see a group of five ahead, lit against the firestorm. Nut disappears into a cloak of darkness. Mother Bear stops. Akula turns into a puddle and disappears under the snow-covered undergrowth. Mirov moves of all the way around the group and General Winter moves off in yet another different direction, so that the group ahead is completely surrounded.
As she comes closer (leaving no tracks as she hovers) Nut senses bad magic ahead, but she cannot sense any surface thoughts. She makes darkness descend on the target group. Mirov tries to loop around the feet of the group, but makes rather a noise. Akula shloops up to the group as water. General Winter starts to freeze the area.
Now the target group can be seen to be:
The five are talking quietly in Russian. "Why is it getting dark?" asks one.
Nut leaps into the attack. Mirov grabs for their feet. General Winter freezes the group plus Nut, Akula and Mirov into a large block of ice. The darkness disappears. Akula starts to heat up to get himself out, Mirov starts to alter shape and wiggles out of the ice block.
As he does so, Mirov notices that there are shoots and plants growing up into the ice and cracking it. this helps Mirov get out of the block. General Winter notices that the block appears to be cracking so starts to summon his powers to refreeze the cube. Akula and Nut get out of the ice. The ice cracks in the middle as the shoots form a solid circular wall around the five targets. Mirov turns into a large caterpillar and starts to eat through the plants in the cube.
Mother Bear watches in disbelief as General Winter shout "But we only want to talk," to the targets. He hears cackling laughter.
Mirov has nibbled his way through the trees, and inside the ice cube meets the white dressed teenager. The other four are lying unconscious on the ground. Mirov talks to the man, and suggests that we all get together for a chat. They agree, but General Winter tells him he cannot actually remove the ice, so the white dressed man says that he will get them out. The plants lift him and the four unconscious people out of the ice. He introduces himself as "The Rose", and says that neither he nor his friends are anything to do with the 'incident', they are just investigating it.
Nut introduces the group, but the Rose says he knows them - they are the Moscow Superheroes, plus one. Mother Bear asks why they are investigating, but he refuses to answer. Mother Bear says we are investigating because it is a threat to Russia.
General Winter notices (he being the most travelled of the group) that The Rose has an Yakutsk accent. He introduces the others as Old Wolf (the Eskimo-type), Dalstroy (the old man), Baburkan (the other man) and Zivienskya (the woman).
He says he keeps himself to himself. Nut can tell that the Rose radiates nature magic, quite similar to that in Mother Bear and General Winter, in fact. The others have all different types of magic - Old Wolf shamanistic/survival magic; Dalstroy summoning magic; Zivienskya cursing, charming and influencing magic; Baburkan death magic. Mirov and General Winter recognise the symbol on the woman's air force uniform as that of the DEMON organisation. DEMON are an evil black magic criminal organisation. Mother Bear tells the Rose that he will need to talk to the military, because of the current situation. The Rose says he can understand this but doesn't actually agree.
A large rustling noise is heard behind the group, and as they turn to look a cloud of choking dust/pollen surrounds the group. Mother Bear turns into a bear. Nut grabs Dalstroy, and feels herself melting away into ... something. Akula and Mirov are blinded a little. Mirov grows wings and uses them to flap away the cloud. The Rose's group and Nut have disappeared.
Nut is disoriented but feels herself re-solidify, along with Dalstroy who she still has hold of. She becomes one with the night sky, intangible and carrying Dalstroy with her. Plants start to lash out at her as she does so, but she is one with the night sky. She estimates that they have shifted some three hundred kilometres. She heads back into the sky towards the firestorm, which is clearly visible.
Napalm continues to burn, and the firestorm burns out of control as there is no cold from General Winter to restrain this one. General Winter decides to stop the fire and starts to dampen it. He and Napalm fight for control, but Napalm feels the fire being dampened and cannot stop it, so absorbs the entire firestorm into herself. She glows white hot and goes looking for the others.
Nut appears near to the group and breaks the arm of the Dalstroy for trying to escape (even if he was unconscious at the time). She tells the others that they appeared some distance away.
Napalm finds the group. Mirov is left to look after Dalstroy. Napalm finds she cannot turn of her fire as it is so powerful at the moment so she flies in the direction Nut points her in much faster than is usual. Nut transports the others with her into the sky.
The group all become one with constellations in the sky - The Great Bear (Mother Bear, of course), Orion (General Winter) and Aquarius (Akula).
Napalm reaches the clearing Nut described. She sees tracks leading away and follows them.
The rest of the group reform into the area from the sky.
Napalm shoots on ahead and the others follow the tracks. A second clearing is spotted by Napalm. She sees that there is a structures of tightly knotted-together trees in the centre, and launches a full-strength attack on the area. All the force from the firestorm hits the area in a vast detonation. Nut takes Mother Bear and Akula back up into the sky, while General Winter quickly forms an ice shelter about himself. Fire washes over it and the rest of the area.
Napalm falls unconscious briefly, and when she awakes absorbs the remaining fire. But she still feels tired.
Nut brings the others down from the sky. Mother Bear can sense something odd in the area now. She digs in the area and digs up part of the trees. No bones or other remains are found.
The feeling Mother Bear is getting is the same as at the town and at the previous incident sites. Mother Bear concludes she has the power to detect environmental damage.
It is decided to go back to the military to get information on the names we have, and to interrogate the one we have captured. Nut takes us back to the prisoner by way of the night sky.
Dalstroy is still unconscious, and is being kept that way with Mirov's drugs. We discuss methods of waking him to question him without allowing him to use his powers. He is searched while we consider our options.
As this is done General Winter remembers that Dalstroy was an administration under the NKVD responsible for taking prisoners destined for the Gulag and diverting them to build the mining town of Magadan, and doing actual mining work.
The incursion has been destroyed, so transport planes start coming in. We are flown back to New Gelendzhik along with Dalstroy. The prisoner is prepared for interrogation.
Some investigations are carried out by the military with the results that: