The bodies here are different than the soldiers you saw before.  The soldiers were eliminated quickly.  Efficiently.  These scientists...what body parts that are still attached to their bodies are either scorched or facing directions they shouldn't.

Except for one in the back of the room. Her arm is stretched out with a wad of paper clutched in her left fist.  A bottle of silver nitrate lies next to her right hand. You see the imprint of a small book outlined by her labcoat tucked into the waistband on the small of her back.

The note reads

Take me to the cold, Show my face to the light, The answer will grow bold, You'll know what direction's right

DC 20 Knowledge roll
This message was last edited by the player at 20:48, Tue 26 Feb 2019.

17:10, Today: Cosmic Ray rolled 22 using 1d20+17.  Know. Physical Science

You ponder a moment before you realize the clue to the riddle was right in front of you.  Silver Nitrate is reactive in sunlight.  Could she have known where they were going next? Why was she the only scientist thats wasnt seemingly tortured before she was slain?

Is there silver nitrate in the laboratory?

You recall a silver nitrate bottle that had been emptied on the floor next to the scientist's hand.

Perhaps there is a message on the paper that can only be revealed with sunlight.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:29, Thu 28 Feb 2019.

I will blow a small hole through the roof with a Cosmic Blast to allow the morning sun in. Then I will hold the paper under the exposed light and attempt to read it.

You find a spot near the corner of the room for as much structural bracing as possible and let out a powerful concentrated blast upwards.  You easily pierce the layers of ice and stone above your head.

A small beam of light now shines into the lab.

A series of numbers appears on the paper.  Coordinates.

52.35, 175.92

You haven't seen a map anywhere, which is unusual for a place like this.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:10, Thu 28 Feb 2019.

I file those coordinates away. They will surely be my next location.

I do one last sweep of the lab. I'm looking for any files or reports that might illuminate what they were doing here. Or scientific "ingredients" that might give me a clue as to what the larger puzzle is.

There were many vials and beakers all over the lab.  All standard fair for any chemist.  The vials contained blood samples.  From whom, you dont know...

But as you prepare to leave the room, you remember the small book outlined on the riddler's body.  You glide back to her and check under coat.  As politely as you can be to a dead woman.

Diary of Sacha Stockhova

You thumb through reading a few excerpts as you go.  Most is generic things a woman would write until 2 months ago.

I've just been transferred from my prestigious hospital to this horrid cold place in Russia.  The US government sent me here to assist in a joint covert study of these people called "Advanced".  I don't know why they picked me.  I think there is some scholar in New England that knows more than me.  It's probably because my parents left russia to bring me to the US when I was young.

1 month ago

The experiments they've been doing only grow worse and worse.  I feel so bad for Iban.  He's so sweet.  He says he misses his twin, Sergei.  They say he can absorb energy and channel it somehow.  Augmented by some device they shipped off to some techies somewhere.  I find it hard to believe Iban could do anything like that but I'm only here to compare blood samples...

1 week

I heard the officers discussing Iban. I found out where they sent his device.  They say he may know something about some League of Advanced? Not my Iban.  They'll torture him even worse now!  I have to get him out of here.  He told me a way to contact Sergei.  Maybe Sergei will find a way to sneak us and the other patients out.



This base was here to do some kind of experimentation on Advanced.  Iban must have been captured and brought here before they discovered his possible connection to the League of Advanced.  You dont know who they are or where they might be.  Maybe Oak could pull some strings later for more information about them.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:54, Thu 28 Feb 2019.

Perplexing. The further I follow this down, the more I suspect I am moving towards some sort of donnybrook with the brothers Bolchevenko and their League.

I add the coorinates and the journal into the pocket with the burned files. In my other pocket I store what is left of the silver nitrate. Perhaps this will not be my last secret message in the endeavor.

I then turn insubstantial and glide over to the testing area.

There is a chair in the center of the testing area.  Dried blood and other things coat the floor under it.  The tools and equipment in this room range from medieval torture looking devices up to advanced machines to monitor brain waves, magnetic strength, electrical power levels, and other devices that look custom made to serve whatever nefarious purpose their designer intended.  There is a note on a table next to the chair.

when testing subject 13, attempt to use small drops of silver nitrate and nitric acid to create small explosions on skin.  Careful though.  Too much will cause an explosion that will cave the base in...

You see past the tools and devices into a room in the back.  The door was kicked open.  There was a bed centered in the back of the room.  The bed has been blown in half and the only thing remaining of its occupant is an ash shadow imprinted on the wall. You doubt there is anything worth inspecting in that room anymore.

To your right, is a small work desk covered in dishevelled papers.  They appear to be nothing more than inventory stock for the base.  But most importantly, there is a large gridded map on the wall above the desk.

I take out the coordinates I found in the Laboratory and compare them to the grid map. Where do they end up?

They lead to an island west of Alaska called Buldir Island.  It's a very small land mass near the end of Alaska's island "tail".

Then getting to Buldir is my next objective. But I don't want to go in blind and I'm in need of intel, so I will float up through the complex checking one last time to see if I left any stone unturned. If I did not, I return to my home base at Fort Clark.

With no additional clues revealing themselves, you rush off to have a discussion with Oak.

You shave a little time off your return flight home, which makes you happy for some weird reason.

You hover outside Oak's office window.  You almost enter while insubstantial but you remember a chastisement about privacy and manners Oak once gave you.

*knock knock*

Oak jumps in surprise, whipping around with a pistol he pulled out of nowhere.  He immediately recognizes you.  He falls back into his chair and begins massaging his leg.  Chuckling to himself, you are beckoned in...

I float in through the wall. I the. Give him the charred paper work and the journal, but I keep the tube of silver nitrate. I will also give him the full update, giving special attention to Iban and Sergei Bolchevenko and the League of the Advanced.

"I need to get moving towards Buldir with haste. Is there anything information about the leagueni can bring in with me?"

Oak - "I'll flip through this stuff and run it up the chain. This journal could prove interesting to some of the squints I know.  I don't know anything specific about this "league of abnormals" but I'll see if any of my contacts know anything.  Sounds like we lost some good people there.  Maybe you'll find some measure of justice in Buldir.  Is there anything else?"

"Yes I need to borrow your globe."

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Using the globe, I chart an approximate direction I could phase through the center of the Earth and come out near Buldir. This will certainly not be exact, but it will get me closer, faster.

Once I'm back through the crust, I will head straight towards Buldir.

You turn insubstantial again as Oak begins flipping through your notes, prepare your trajectory, and take off.

Flying downward through the building, you dip into the ground.  You focus mainly on maintaining a proper course through the earth's crust.  As you near your destination you angle up slightly.  Better to approach by air or sea than accidentally pop up in the middle of the base.  You exit the solid ground into the bottom of the ocean, passing a pod of whales as you rise.

You break the surface of the water with just your head to judge just where you are.

About half a mile north of your sea location, you see a tower of smoke on a small island.  You can only assume this....is Buldir...

I will "sprint" towards the plume of smoke. Sprinting multiplies my top speed by 4.

You hurtle towards the plume.  As you near, the picture grows clearer.  At the shore sits a modified Japanese watercraft.  Mechanically and structurally augmented for cross-oceanic travel.

The base before you appears to have been built into the side of the mountain.  The opening into the side of the mountain stands about 300ft tall and at least twice as high.  Two guard towers sat near the center of the entryway with concrete walls running from the edge of each tower to the edge of the icy walls.  The smoke your saw is coming from what remains of the left guard tower.  A blast of some kind brought down the ceiling of the cavern above it and now blocks the left 1/3 of the openings entrance.

There appears to be one guard moving around in the tower.  Your distance is too great to identify friendly or hostile status.


+3 to all stealth rolls outside of the cavern while insubstantial due to sun glare from the snow and water

I will not allow another massacre like the one I just left.

I come in fast and hard. Superhero landing next to the figure I saw in the wreckage of the tower. Friend or foe?

You crash through the glass, thudding next to the man.  It's obvious he is not a friendly.  He is so surprised by your sudden appearance he stands in shock.

You hear a couple shouts from outside.


Roll Initiative - Opponent is surprised

13:37, Today: Cosmic Ray rolled 7 using 1d20+4.  Initiative.

Surprise round

13:54, Today: Cosmic Ray rolled 12 using 1d20+8.  To hit guard with Cosmic Strike.