Unknown Armies Playtest - The Lone and Level Sands

Elihu Vedder

1799. Following an outbreak of bubonic plague at Jaffa and a failed siege of Acre, French forces retreated from the Holy Land, endlessly harassed by Mamluks as they marched through the desert on their way back to Egypt.

Four frogs woke up in the shade of a huge pair of legs, all that remained of an ancient statue swallowed by the desert. 

• Dr D'Hubert, Savant
• Eugen, Grognard from Tolosa
• Jacques, Grognard from Bordeaux
• Louis, Grognard from Paris

They were alive and in pain from the pustules on their lymph nodes. They felt dry and desiccated and they were surrounded by blue-tinted corpses. The Armee D'Orient was nowhere in sight, tracks long erased by blowing sand. The Doctor realized that they all had the bubonic plague and had just survived an opium overdose. The Little Corporal had tried to euthanize them.

The four survivors lay there for a spell, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of their situation. The wandering sun deprived them of the shade from the statue's legs, and direct sunlight was sufficiently unpleasant to rouse them from their torpor. They stood and surveyed the scene. A congregation of Ibises passed overhead, swooping to land somewhere beyond a ridgeline in the distance. Dehydrated and weak from drugs and disease, the Frenchmen almost didn't make it to the rise. They didn't believe what they saw on the other side, at first.

 

The Ibises landed in an Oasis, a water filled depression shielded from the blowing sands by a series of rock formations. The shore was alive with date and orange trees, grasses and reeds, wild garlic and onions. Gerbils and gazelles and small desert cats emerged from the foliage to drink. Wary of wild beasts and ambushes by desert dwellers, the frogs crept down from the ridgeline and surveyed the scene from the undergrowth. Weapons shimmered in the clear water of the pond. Enormous prehistoric daggers with leaf blades, Egyptian kopesh, straight swords from Greece and Parthia and Rome, curved Ottoman kilij. A huge crocodile lurked on the muddy shore, pretending to be a log but betrayed by the gold, rubies and amethyst jewelry studding her hide.

Wary of the croc, the survivors skirted around the water's edge and picked a spot to drink. The water was real and pure and filled with so many fish and freshwater crustaceans that the frogs had to brush them aside when they practically leaped into their cupped hands. Nervous about being unarmed, Eugen waded into the pond to grab one of the swords. He picked up a scimitar and the jeweled crocodile immediately pushed off from her wallow and swam toward him. He made it most of the way to shore before it bit him on the leg, but avoided being caught in the jaws and torn to pieces. A woman shouted a warning from the undergrowth in Arabic which only D'Hubert could understand, telling the Frenchmen to come inland. She was European and she carried a baby in a sling. The rest of the group heeded her warning while Eugen battled the crocodile. He tried to pin its jaws shut but ended up sliding across the top of the beast as it lunged at him. It whipped around for another attack and he lashed out with the sword, skewering the monster between the teeth and driving the blade into the jaw. The croc chuffed in pain and lunged back into the water, taking the sword with it.

Jacques, Louis and the Doctor goggled at the woman and her baby. They recognized her as Shouanette (though they didn't actually know her name), a Georgian concubine from the harem of the Mamluk Bey they raided a year ago. As they recalled, she acted like a harmless odalisque and then attacked with her dagger alongside the eunuchs and one of her sister-slaves, stabbing D'Hubert and nearly killing him. But that's not what caught their eye. Her baby had the head of a Hawk. Louis and Jacques were profoundly disturbed. D'Hubert had seen stranger things in his career as an occultist, and asked Shouanette who the baby was. She told him he was the son of the Foremost of the Westerners.

Eugen stumbled out of the water, swearing about filthy water snakes, and clouted his stupefied comrades into action. The frogs stumbled uphill after Shouanette to a covered porch carved into the rock face.

Daria Egorova

A green-skinned man lounged in the columned portico of the tomb cut into the rock face, enjoying coffee, fruit and an egret grilled with onions and garlic. He wore the white atef of Kingship with ostrich feathers and nothing else, penis exposed. The Frenchmen recognized him as Faisal the Librarian, one of the eunuchs from the harem. D'Hubert recognized the organ beneath his legs: the fabled cock of Osiris, which he had tried and failed to secure in the tomb under the Bey's castle.

The once-eunuch smiled benignly and gestured with a hand to Shouanette, who put the hawk-headed baby down with her two-year old son Daoud and got to work preparing a meal for the hungry Frenchmen. He had eaten the breast and wings of the Egret but the working class frogs were happy to chow down on the legs, gizzard, heart, intestines, feet...  The Doctor was unaccustomed to peasant fare but hungry enough to join his comrades. The sun shone through the shade of the vegetation, illuminating two wall paintings on the porch depicting a green skinned man:

• The green man used his right hand to touch a sick man, who rose up healthy. 
• The green man used his left hand to touch a man holding a weapon, who fell down dead.

Realizing that the green man was some kind of miracle worker, the Frenchmen asked him to cure their plague. Osiris smiled again and pointed to his penis. The miracle organ had clearly changed the inclination of its wearer, who they all remembered as being quite talkative and incapable of doing anything placidly, even smiling. It wasn't hard to figure out what he wanted: oral sex in exchange for magickal healing.

Jacques was the first to oblige. He'd done worse in his time as a petty crook on the mean streets of Gay Paree. Eugen followed his example, enjoying the experience even less but managing to swallow his gorge. Dr D'Hubert was familiar enough with alchemic rituals surrounding male emissions not to be instantly outraged by the request, but something gave him pause. He vaguely recalled from the secondhand Egyptian legends transmitted by the Greeks that the ancients harbored strange beliefs about semen, chiefly regarding the power it granted its creator over anyone who consumed it. Thus cautioned, he managed to surreptitiously avoid swallowing. Osiris touched the three of them with his right hand and their buboes spontaneously burst, leaking pure water rather than lymph. They were cured.

Jacques refused outright. He wasn't sucking off an ancient Egyptian God. He wasn't sucking off any Gods. They fought a whole Revolution over this, dammit! Shouanette was similarly displeased, making a great show of fussing over her two sons. She had just emerged from a living situation where she was required to share a man with a bunch of other concubines, and was not happy being thrust into the same arrangement a second time. Or maybe she was just jealous that her "husband" appeared to enjoy men more than her. Either way, she appreciated Jacques all the more for refusing to participate in the farce. When the Bordelais peered into the tomb entrance at the back of the porch, the Georgian slave passed him a lit oil lamp to light his way.

Spitting and coughing and rinsing their mouths out, the other Frenchmen noticed Jacques descending the sloped passage into the tomb. They made to follow him but Osiris raised his hand, and a funny feeling came over Eugen and Louis. Louis pushed through it and followed Jacques, alongside D'Hubert who apparently wasn't subject to the effect. Eugen couldn't do it, the sense of forboding in his stomach was too great.

The sloped passage led to a cartouche-shaped chamber strewn with corpses, clad in armor from the Crusades. Franks and Saracens, joined in death, armor crushed as though by a great vice, pierced as though by a lance. At the opposite end of the chamber was a large sarcophagus, lid pushed open to expose a mummy festooned with jewelry that glittered in the weak light of the lamp. Beneath the tilted sarcophagus lid was an enormous emperor scorpion, larger than a man, hiding under it as though it were a rock. The massive chelicerate's carapace was scarred by weapons and an enormous bronze nail protruded from its back. D'Hubert recognized the character embossed in the nail's broad head as the name of God in Arabic.

Jacques was still dying of plague, but not yet incapacitated. It was possible he could survive, and if so he would prefer escaping with lots of treasure to serving under Napoleon for even one more second. D'Hubert had a scientific interest in the grave goods inside the coffin, and Louis loved to steal things. The gang agreed to make a mad dash for the treasure, snagging it and getting out before the giant arthropod could come after them. At most it would sting one person.

Louis grabbed the jeweled scarab effigy from the sarcophagus, placed where the mummy's head should have been. Jacques grabbed the corpse's gold amulets. D'Hubert was grabbed by the scorpion. Jacques unssuccessfully tried to pull him free of the tearing claws and the bug stung the Doctor, paralyzing him with a huge dose of venom. Louis almost ran with the treasure, but his conscience demanded he stay and fight. With no prospect of rescuing the grappled Doctor from the bug's embrace, he summoned his reserves of strength and yanked the bronze nail out of its shell.

Abd al-Hasan Al-Isfahani

The nail clattered to the floor. Dr. D'Hubert fell to the floor as the scorpion released him and transformed into a snake made of fire. It spoke in a booming voice, crossing language barriers to communicate meaning directly into the grognards' skulls. 

"HAIL TO THE, O MIGHTIEST OF THE FRANKS. PEACE BE, BETWEEN ME AND THEE."

Louis fled before the fire snake could incinerate him. Jacques stuck around to hear what it had to say. The Djinn Hubal thanked the Frenchmen for removing the Holy Nail from his hide, hammered there by the accursed followers of the Prophet in an age past to stop him from transforming. As thanks, he would grant them a single wish. With nobody around to contest him, his own body filled with plague, Dr D'Hubert's body filled with scorpion venom and the other soldiers' bodies filled with Osiris cum, Jacques asked Hubal to cure them of all their afflictions. The Genie clapped hands that sizzled like whips of fire, and it was done. Then he shot out of the tomb and spiraled into the air, disappearing into a pillar of flame.

Outside, Osiris placed a hand on Eugen's shoulder and led him down to the shore of the pond. He called the enormous crocodile up from the lakebed. The beast croaked and opened her mouth. Osiris pulled the sword free and placed his hand on the wound, healing the injury with a touch. He handed the blade to Eugen. He pointed to the Tolosenc, then to the ridgeline. Eugen took the sword and climbed up the slope for a look.

In the distance, almost obscured by heat haze and dust, six mounted Mamluks approached the statue legs where the Frenchmen woke up. One of the riders dismounted and approached the corpses heaped at the carven feet, but was warned back by his fellows. He mounted up again and the scouts began to search for tracks. Then a pillar of fire emitted from the tomb entrance and flew up into the air, rendering the search pointless by showing the Mamluks exactly where the frogs had gone.

Carle Vernet

Eugen returned to the tomb and warned his comrades about the approaching soldiers. D'Hubert and Jacques were cured of their afflictions and loaded down with gold amulets, while Louis carried the mummy's jeweled scarab head inside his leather helmet. Together they hatched a plan to ambush the Mamluks. Thinking they were still under his control, Osiris allowed them to take swords from the pond without being attacked by the crocodile. Shouanette took her two suns and hid in the plants growing atop the porch, while the French concealed themselves in the undergrowth. Osiris lounged on the porch as bait for the trap.

The six Mamluk scouts were wary of an ambush as they descended into the oasis, skirting the edge and staying clear of the foliage where a mounted fighter might be at a disadvantage in a hand-to-hand fight with a dismounted attacker. They dismounted and approached the porch on foot, taking great care not to venture too far from the beasts and risk potential theft by hidden Frogs. The leader, a burly Serb, shouted a challenge to Osiris. When the Silent One didn't respond he angrily approached, asking where the Frenchmen were hiding. He lifted his kilij to clout the God with the pommel and Osiris touched him on the arm, instantly killing him.

The Frenchmen sprang from cover and attacked the Mamluks. One immediately fled, filled with superstitious fear at the Egyptian God's death touch ability. The Mamluks were armed with pistols and curved swords, and the confused melee that erupted saw the French trying to get control of the guns while hacking away at the scouts while avoiding return blows. Jacques and Louis both slipped down the muddy embankement and into the shallow water. One Mamluk went down amid the whirling blades, another decapitated D'Hubert but was shot in the back with his comrade's pistol as he tried to flee. The jeweled crocodile rushed out of the water, bowling Louis and Jacques over as they climbed the embankment. It latched onto one of the surviving Mamluks and wrenched his leg 180 degrees with a death roll, dragging him into the water to be devoured. The last surviving slave-soldier retreated onto the porch, brandishing his sword at Osiris. Jacques brandished one of the dead Mamluks' pistols and told him to leave. The last man standing paused only to loot the corpse of his leader before mounting up and departing.

Francisco Goya

 
With the treasure secured, their afflictions cured and enough horses to carry everyone, the Frenchmen agreed it was time to leave. Osiris apparently disagreed. He made a gesture at the group. Nothing happened and he looked at them, confused, before approaching with his hand outstretched. Up above, Shouanette made a hand-gesture at the group, a chopping motion directed at her groin. It was clear what they had to do.

The three swordsmen approached Osiris from all sides. They lashed out with their blades as he reached out with his killing left hand. He touched Louis on the arm moments before the Parisian's blade fell and emasculated him. Louis fell dead. The green color drained out of Osiris. The personality of the librarian Faisal reasserted itself. The Eunuch opened his mouth and was cut down before he could speak, Jacques taking no chances and Eugen incensed at the death of his friend.

The magick artifact fell in the sand, still pulsing with divine energy. If the Doctor had lived he would have been ecstatic to finally add it to his collection of occult artifacts. Eugen carefully avoided touching it, wrapping it in cloth and tossing it to the crocodile. She caught it in the air like a dog and snapped it up. The enormous reptile bellowed in surprise and rushed for the riverbank, where she immediately began laying eggs. Eugen considered taking one of the eggs and hatching the magick crocodile back in France, but decided against it.

Eugen and Jacques buried their friends on the shore of the oasis. Their plan was simple: escape back to France with the treasure using the horses left by the Mamluks. They asked Shouanette, via hand signs and gestures since they didn't share a language, if she wanted to accompany them. The Georgian gathered the essentials for travel and bundled up her two sons. The hawk-headed boy shrieked and shrieked until she gave up trying to calm him and vomited food directly into his mouth.