Notes Taken by Samantha and Alastair Beadle.
We assist with the mopping up operation by the military.
The military have napalmed the area to ensure all the remains of the incursion have been destroyed. Napalm absorbs the remaining fire/napalm still burning then rejoins the others.
We discuss whether the other group, the Demon people, have actually broken the law. Discussions about torturing the prisoner, Dalstroy (who is currently sedated), and/or filling him with sodium pentathol take place. We decide not to get involved directly in their interrogation but let the military do it, in one of the portacabins they've thrown up as part of their temporary HQ. Mirov has figured out how to separate himself into more than one entity and be in control of them all. He puts his hand on Dalstroy's arm and sends a tiny worm into him, which moves through him, and secretes sodium pentathol into the bloodstream. He also mounts a detached eye on a shelf in the room. Nut also stays in the room as an observer.
Other than that we allow the military to perform the interrogation.
Outside, Napalm flies around the area, keeping an eye on things. Mirov becomes a tree to observe from on high (while still looking through the eyeball and the worm). Mother Bear sniffs around and patrols. Akula hangs out with the off duty soldiers. General Winter hangs out with the officers.
In the interrogation chamber, the military apply stimulants to Sviaton (Dalstroy's real name). After a few minutes he comes around, groggily.
"We know you are with Demon, if you tell us what you know we will go easy on you," say the interrogators.
"Ha, what are you going to do with me? Send me back to the Gulag?" His mind is deliberately shielded when Nut tries to read his surface thoughts. He provokes Nut a little - he wants to know why he is being held and claims he has done nothing wrong. Other than that he does not respond to the interrogators at all - even though they beat him up a little to try and get him to speak about Demon.
Mirov's worm secretes more drugs into Sviaton's bloodstream, but he seems more resistant to such things than a normal person so at first no effect is seen.
From the information the military found out, the Gulag Sviaton was in is no longer functional - none of them are in fact. Nut gets Sviaton to talk about his previous religious studies, to which he has no objection. She asks about her five offspring among the gods of Egypt born from her illicit relationship with the earth gob Geb:
He claims not to know anything, and he and the interrogators give Nut funny looks (for some reason!).
When the interrogators ask Dalstroy how they - Demon, that is - are creating the forest incursions he claims that they have nothing to do with it, that they are just investigating. Which is also what The Rose said earlier.
It is just coming on to dawn when, in the forest, Mother Bear senses some new scents, approaching - a group of humans with a faint tinge of fire and brimstone in their scents.
In the interrogation lounge Nut senses something magical happening and excuses herself. The bits of Mirov stay put.
Mother Bear sneaks off through the wintry birch woods to investigate. She comes across a group of about a dozen people in matte black hooded robes, sneaking towards the interrogation portacabin. They are masked by the long shadows of the dawn. Mother Bear bellows loudly and rises up before the intruders. They shoot at her with silenced pistols, but do little harm. She charges them, causing them to scatter, but in a disciplined manner. She picks a target and pursues him, clawing at his back and flattening him to the floor.
Nut runs towards the scene, about thirty metres from the portacabin, dodging and leaping through the air in spectacular fashion. She observes Mother Bear attacking one of the intruders, who looks like another Demon agent, then notices the other figures and bounces towards a couple of them. They cannot miss her approaching them, and aim their pistols at her. Nut is a little uncertain what these weapons are but dodges all the same. Even so, she is hit in her left shoulder but manages to remain on her feet. She lands on her attacker and knocks him to the floor.
Akula runs towards the scene, turning into water form. He observes a large tree falling towards the ground. He blasts one intruder with his paralysis beam just before Mirov's expanding tree swats half of them into the ground.
General Winter forms an ice slide and joins the fray.
Several of the Demonwarriors Mirov has swatted slash at his branches with their wavy-bladed daggers, and several of Mirov's branches are cut. Strangely, Mirov feels pain from these curvy blades, which he shouldn't in the circumstances. Mirov wraps up nearby intruders in vines.
Nut kills her intruder, Mirov complains loudly about this.
Akula blasts fleeing intruders at long range - paralysing them on the spot.
Mother Bear chases one of the intruders around and around a tree. She eventually catches up and knocks him to the ground.
Nut senses some more magic happening in the locale. Napalm, hovering overhead, notices a group of plants growing quickly up from the ground around the portacabin. She blasts a hole in the roof to see in. Plants are breaking through the floor all around the prisoner. Napalm power dives onto him, blasting plants as she goes. Plant tendrils wrap themselves around Dalstroy and, despite Napalm's fire, Dalstroy disappears. Mirov loses contact with his little worm, feeling slight pain as his contact with it is broken. The two interrogators are left lying unconscious on the floor, apparently knocked out by pollen attack.
Nut dodges flashily towards a Demonwarrior. His shots miss but she does not. He falls to the floor, clutching his genitals. Nut picks up his "gun stick".
Mother Bear pursues another intruder through the woods, and when she catches up with him she sits on him.
Everything goes quiet...
Mirov returns to the interrogation scene and re-absorbs his eyeball. Mother Bear searches for the trails of the intruders but discovers that they appeared nearby - as if by magic!
Napalm uses her high-tech medikit, acquired from Vilma, the tongueless bodyguard of the mafioski Mr Kurevka in the past, to heal Nut's shoulder wound. Nut senses no magic from the box and is thus sceptical. However the box kills the pain in seconds and heals the damage completely.
We have half a dozen prisoners in Demon uniforms - black hooded robes with an inverted red pentagram on the chest. We steal their uniforms for future use, just in case. Two are conscious but paralysed by Akula's power. One is tied up with Mirov's vines. Mirov questions this one while the others are searched, disarmed and handed over to the military. They each have wavy edged daggers that are magical, silenced pistols, Demon robes (also magical) and jump suits under them. They all have spells cast on them, even the dead ones, but Nut cannot dispel them.
Mirov starts to beat up his prisoner to try and get him to speak, but this does not work. Nut tries to read the surface thoughts of one. She briefly succeeds, but he then quietly dies as a result and she gets no useful information.
A discussion ensues about whether to release the Demon prisoners, on the grounds that we don't need more enemies at the moment and also that we may be able to secretly bug them and follow them.
Napalm wants to go back to Moscow. She finds Siberia and the forest incursions boring and wants to tackle the people creating monsters in Moscow. She even goes as far as suggesting that we send the Demon agents back through the next incursion "as a form of penal colony". This is not favourably received as a suggestion.
The frond Nut took from the last incursion is investigated by Mother Bear and Mirov. It is long and pointy, like that from a pineapple plant. It is matte black, about one metre long and sharp-edged. It smells of electricity (ozone) and plant. There are seed or bud like structures on it, or at least places where such thing might have been. As Mirov prods and pokes it he gets little electric shocks, though nothing powerful. Nut notices no telepathic dead zone around the frond or nearby.
An attempt is made to recharge the plant from the local power supply. Mirov turns himself into copper cabling to do this. The lights dim. The frond chars a very little but nowhere near as much as much be expected. The ozone smell increases and more electrical shocks are discharged, but nowhere near as much as might be expected for the amount of electricity which has been pumped into the frond. After thirty seconds Mirov gives up, with no effect being observed other than the absorption of electricity.
Mother Bear suggests a plan that in the next incursion we try to pump large amounts of electricity into the core in order to force is back from whence it came. It is pointed out that the plants eat anything in their path particularly metallic objects.
The frond is handed over to several scientists who have arrived in the meantime and who are hanging around waiting for us to finish. They go off with it.
We consider what to do. The General asks what we are planning to do. He wants us to go to the site of the next incursion and get transported to the planet plant. Napalm insists she doesn't want to go unless there is a good chance of getting back. The General is not terribly impressed by this, but says he will talk to the other agencies involved in this about getting the information about detecting the events so we can get back from wherever they take us.
Mother Bear asks Nut about her powers and whether they would alter or stop working on another planet (as her powers are dependant on contact with the Earth). Never having been to another planet, Nut isn't sure.
The general comes a back. He says that Mr Svoyan will provide a device which will help with the problem.
Those who need sleep and food, go and get these things. Nut is given a private room in a portacabin to rest in, and turns back to Andrey to do so.
Napalm is becoming twitchy and goes in search of alcohol.
Mirov asks Akula about nuclear devices and considers how to destroy "planet plant" without destroying himself. Unfortunately Akula only knows about nuclear reactors, not atom bombs.
Mirov goes around as Nut carrying her head under her arm.
Napalm finds some off duty soldiers and parties.
Mother Bear hangs about as a bear, to keep her senses on high.
Mirov annoys the military by asking for blueprints about nuclear weapons. They are strangely unhappy about giving out this information.
Napalm enjoys herself and falls over.
Mother Bear heals up her injuries.
Mirov spies on Nut and sees her change back to the old man form. He leaves a hollow skin of Nut on the bed next to him.
Time passes...
Around noon of the same day a small passenger tilt-rotor aircraft arrives and lands vertically. The door opens and Mr Svoyan steps out. Mother Bear, Mirov (as Nut with head not attached) greet him.
Andrey is awakened by loud banging on the door. He finds the Nut skin, examines it and puts it in his bag for later, and changes back into Nut. She then answers the door and is told Mr Svoyan has arrived. She goes to meet him.
Everyone meets up with Mr Svoyan. He asks that we go somewhere private, so Mirov creates (turns into) a house for everyone to go in.
Mr Svoyan says he is going to loan us a device which he doesn't want us to lose, as it is one of a kind. Mirov suggests he might be able to recreate it. Mr Svoyan looks dubious, then opens his suitcase which is mainly filled with solid foam to cushion what it's containing, and pulls out a silvery grey metallic block, about 25cm by 15cm by 5cm. Half of the top is like a blank black screen and the bottom has a touchpad keyboard in Roman script and Arabic numbers. Across the top is a white stripe with a Nazi swastika in a circle on its right hand end!
Mr Svoyan refuses to say where he got it, but describes it as a portable temporal incursion detection device. It does not show as any form of magic or powers to those equipped to detect such things. Mr Svoyan pushes a button and the screen goes very black, then lights up, showing a three dimensional image of the Earth in the centre (showing physical features, but not cities or political boundaries), and the current date and time. In Berlin time. A cross hair on the globe shows the current location of the device.
It will show current position and any temporal disturbance, he says. It can record the incidents too. He says it doesn't matter what planet it is on, as even if the date and place and picture (of the planet) may go wrong it can point in the direction of the incursion. He pushes some buttons shows us the last but one incursion. The crosshair showing the device is in a different location, out in Siberia somewhere. A red dot appears in Siberia, roughly where, as far as people know, the first incursion they saw was. The date and time certainly match. An arrow points from the cross hair to the dot. The dot begins to flash and radiate expanding red spheres about itself. These get bigger and bigger as the incursion comes on, eventually covering a vast area - far beyond the earth - and the map shrinks to accommodate them. Then with a final burst, they disappear, and the incursion is here.
It is decided that supplies should be assembled for a trip to planet plant. For this mission, Napalm will mostly be drinking alcohol.
Napalm quizzes Mr Svoyan about his Nazi connections. He says he does not just collect Nazi memorabilia, and implies that perhaps the Nazis did not lose the Great Patriotic War after all! Not at some point anyway. He warns that history can and has been changed in the past. The device comes from this planet - but not from this planet in this time line/version of history! It was carried back in time by a time traveller who lost it or something in the process of making the Nazi's not win the Great Patriotic War. He tells us not to worry about it.
He does not believe that these plants come from this planets past - they are extra terrestrial or future or both.
Mr Svoyan says he will keep an eye on further incursions whilst we are away. He has little interest in the monster problems in Moscow, as they have not left that region yet.
Mr Svoyan describes the main controls to the device. Mirov then takes the device and sticks it into his neck. Mr Svoyan does happen to have the blue prints for a nuclear weapon with him, on microfiche. He passes these on to Mirov (!!!) with the request that they are destroyed as soon as he has memorised if (Mirov destroys them almost instantly) and that nuclear devices are not used within Russia.
We set about waiting for the next incursion. In fact a red dot appears on the device within Mirov's neck quite quickly. The dot is about 500 km North of our present location. The device indicates the incursion will happen in about three hours. We assemble kit - rations, water, gas masks and alcohol. Investigation shows that the map on the device rotates with it so the arrows always points in the real direction of the incursion.
We board the small passenger tilt rotor aircraft Mr Svoyan arrived in to take us to the predicted position of the incursion. Mr Svoyan pilots it. We fly through the early afternoon sky. It is an uneventful flight taking an hour or so. On the way Mirov generates various small metal parts - including some that say "Danger, Do not remove" and drops them on the floor of the plane in order to confuse the cleaners/maintainers of the aircraft!
After an hour or so we arrive at ground zero. A partially forested area on the edge of the tundra. The nearest airport is 400 km away - so we are placed in the middle of the predicted position, being dropped off without the aircraft actually landing. "Good luck," shouts Mr Svoyan as the door closes. The aircraft rises into the sky and flies away.
Mother Bear and Mirov change into bear form. Nut wraps up in a set of Demonwarrior robes - the others do not care about the cold. Mirov then sets about gungeing us up - this time with a large paint brush that sprays gunge on us continuously. General Winter marks the spot that should be the centre of the incursion with a large ice stalagmite after finding it with the device - the map expands as one gets closer to the source of the incursion. He also makes us all a large igloo to wait in.
After a while transport aircraft and fighters arrive and loiter in the area. Napalm and General Winter set about making a fire break at a kilometre distant from the predicted centre.
A little while later Nut feels magic building up in the vicinity. The red spheres on the device display grow and start to radiate out further and further. The magic builds to uncomfortable (for Nut) levels. At the peak of the magic there is a brilliant flash of white light followed by a sensation of being pulled in all directions at once from the inside and then twisted in multi-dimensional directions. Then we feel nothing for a timeless time - we cannot tell if we are breathing or moving - then the reverse sensations take place. The white light dies away and the sound of a huge explosion dies away all around us. The cold air wafts away and is replaced by heavy, humid and very hot air.
We are in a kilometre wide circle of the landscape we have left, surrounded in turn by several kilometre high walls of trees, with roots and tendrils advancing visibly towards us.
Mother Bear can sense a huge disturbance all around us - starting about 500m off...
The sky is covered in triangles. The sun is visible above us. It can be looked at directly without hurting the eyes. It has huge solar prominences moving out from it and numerous, large sun spots. It has a slightly darker colour than the one we left behind - a bit orange.
Large seed pods drop to the ground around us and sprout almost instantly into what look like matte back grass fronds which grow up and out. We decide that it would be best to get above all this!
The device reports: "Date Unknown. Relative future more than 10 million years. Planet unknown. Mapping...".
Mother Bear changes into human form, and then exclaims that we are still in Russia - she draws her power from Russia - but then she realises that perhaps only the one kilometre radius we are in counts as Russia!
Mirov turns into a hot air balloon and we all board, except for Napalm who is also providing heat for lift. The balloon and Napalm rise into the air. At 500 metres up vegetable based manta ray things swoop through the air and slash at Mirov's balloon. Akula blasts them, paralysing them and tumbling them to the ground. As they fall they are attacked by their own kind. Seeds and butterfly type animals also flutter around us. Mirov flaps them away as much as possible. We finally make it above the canopy.
The canopy spreads off in all directions. Huge, brightly coloured flowers and plants are all around, as are various vegetable flying things. Massive cob webs, with 10m thick cables, some trailing right into the sky, are spread everywhere. A small moon is visible low in the sky - some of the cables appear to go towards it! On the webs moving creatures are seen - giant vegetable spiders of some kind?
The triangles in the sky do not appear to have changed - implying that they are very high indeed. Napalm flies on up to investigate. The air begins to get thin and the triangles have not visibly changed. She can see trees for miles - except in one direction when the trees give way to some other green stuff which seems much lower down. Sea perhaps?
The device beeps - "Mapping Complete". It shows a world the same size as the Earth. It has a single continental mass in the Southern hemisphere (which is where we are, on its northern edge). It has no polar ice caps. There is around 80% to 90% ocean. There is speculation from Mirov and Napalm that this may be Earth in the far future, but so far there is no evidence one way or another.
Mirov speculates that the sun being directly overhead at the point of the incursion is not a coincidence!
We decide to head towards the area where the forest gives way to other green stuff area as a starting point for exploration.