That Which Is Not Seen

That Which Is Not Seen
A Bamf PBeM Game

Table of Contents

Character Introductions
The Characters Meet Each Other
The Day Begins
The First Night
The Ship Returns
What happened to the Trio

Since I did not have the time to write out the story from the game posts, I began to post the e-mail traffic from the game. I will convert these to HTML documents as I find time to do so. Otherwise, they will be in Text format. Text files 10-30 were uploaded on November 19th, 1997. Files 31 on are marked with their upload date:

09-Turn Me On, Dead Man (HTML)
10-Decisions and Blades (Text)
11-Off the sandbar, into the drink (Text)

12-A crabby start to the night (Text)
13-The four leaves of darkness (Text)
14-You learn something new every day (Text)
15-With Open Arms... (Text)
16-Rest easy (Text)
17-Help! I'm being repressed! (Text)
18-Getting tired late at night (Text)
19-Time to get ready for our next gig (Text)
20-Have you ever been wassailing? (Text)
21-Camping...Waiting.../In Town (Text)
22-Not out of the woods yet/Baker's thoughts and words (Text)
23-Out of the woods, but where did it get you?/The Parade (Text)
24-Rotting in a ?German? jail?/Wandering (Text)
25-Visitors/A place to stay (Text)
26-A day on the town (Text)
27-Genesis (Text)
28-Face Value (Text)
29-Conversation with Steve (Text)
30-Revelation (Text)
30-John joins the game Added 12/4/97 (Text)
31-A friend in need... Added 12/4/97 (Text)
32-...is a friend indeed Added 12/4/97 (Text)
33-"Eureka" he yelled! Added 2/24/98 (Text)

Character Introductions

"It was about midnight, it was the day after the full moon and the sky was as bright as day. I was just bounding into the full spider drop on the 80 ft. rappel as I stopped to adjust the harness slightly. It had been a good climb to the top. Trying out the new route and lead roping up a 5.9 at night was a major rush. I am so glad Kelli climbs now, she and Scott are both waiting at the bottom. I drop at a rapid pace hitting the ground softly with a smile on my face from the rush of the wind as I rappelled."

"Up again?" Scott asked.

"Need you ask?" Kelli replies as she starts up the ridge again.

I smile and follow her up.

(End of Brady's writing, beginning of GM's)

You get back up to the top of the climb after some time, and after a bit of a rest, you are in position to rappel. You lean out over the side and begin your descent, slowly at first, then with a quick push you drop rapidly, when you hear a strange, loud ratchet-like "click-click-click". You slow your descent, then stop it, examining your equipment as your feet find the wall. Something flashes, and you think you hear Kelli yell out, but the sound is quickly lost. Your feet touch against the smooth side of the cliff when you realize just *how* smooth. Unusually smooth. The cliffside you expected is not the cliffside that appears beneath your feet. The wall is smooth, man-made, rounded, and painted with large (perhaps 8'-10') black diamonds. There is a sudden chill in the air, and you are shrouded in fog. Above you, a light flashes again. You look up and see that it is not flashing, but rather sweeping, spinning from a central point above you. In the distance, you hear waves crashing against the shore. The ground is still about 40' below you at the base of this tower that you are hanging from, and there are no trees nearby. You hear voices calling faintly from below, but do not yet see any people. You contemplate your next action...

Brady's writing resumes:

Well, what I do is take out my flashlight and look around, (especially to see where the rope ends and the ground, and what is holding the rope... if possible) and since the rope doesn't reach the ground, and the wall is too smooth to make a second belay/rappel point on I hook a prusek into my harness and one below it for my foot and head up the rope. (Being seriously tired when reaching the top...)

Jeff's intro letter to me seems to have been lost. He mentioned that he is a stand-up comedian, so...

You showed up for the gig at about 8:45 when the stage manager rushes over to you to see if you can go on right away. It's a medium-sized place, and people are waiting. The opener didn't show up. He rushes you down to the front, jumps up on stage and announces you. You get up on the stage, and turn around to face the audience. The first thing you notice is that the lights are incredibly bright tonight, moreso than normal. You can't even see the audience. Then, after a couple seconds, you hear some terrific white noise coming from the speakers. It's really loud. Suddenly, the spotlights go out, leaving you standing in the dark, but you still hear the speaker noise. You tap on the cordless microphone, but it doesn't seem to be working. The "on" switch is on. The speaker noise wavers, as you notice that the air is now very cold. "Must be standing under the AC vent." As your eyes adjust to the darkness, and you find yourself staring out into the dark, you realize that what you were hearing was not the noise of a speaker turned up too loud, it was the sound of the ocean. The one you are standing in front of. There is a heavy fog making it difficult to see more than a few hundred feet. A wave crashes up onto the beach near you. Realizing that if you don't move, you'll get pretty wet, you turn and trot up the beach a few steps. After getting a safe distance from the surf, you look up and see a lighthouse, almost directly in front of you. There is someone hanging from the side of the lighthouse on a rope.

This was last (non-typical) Wednesday. I wake up at 5:20 AM to the sounds of PAR FM, your Cristian Connection. Five minutes later Alarm2 rings out, forcing me to actually get up and turn it off. After the usual morning routine, plus putting on the ever-hated formal clothing, Mom drives me to the Governor's School (for Science and Technology), barely making it in time to board the bus to VA Tech for the VJAS (Virginia Junior Academy of Science) meeting. My friends and I joke around, play cards, etc. until we arrive. Once there we spend most of the day watching each other present our research papers. I am the next to last person in my section (Physics) to present my paper and speak too quickly, leave things out, and overall do better than I had expected. After a brief "where are we supposed to be" fiasco, we all reboard the bus and head home, mostly resting this time. When the bus gets back at 6:00 PM, I get a ride home, change my clothes, and go for a six mile run, my last chance to prepare for the Regional track meet two days later...

(End of Marshall's writing, beginning of GM's)

After getting on the bus, you feel a bit tired. Nobody seems to be saying much worth listening to, so you close your eyes for a moment. You find yourself dreaming - you change your clothes, start running, run through the neighborhood. You're running along when you look around and see someone driving in a car, waving to you. In a flash, he gets a worried expression on his face and grips the steering wheel in two hands. He stops short, tires screeching. Then, you wake up suddenly, hearing tires screeching across the road. You realize that it wasn't in the dream - the sound came from the bus as it came to a stop. You see a light ahead - maybe a motorcycle - heading straight for the bus window. Your mind seems to be reacting slowly from you just waking up. The motorcycle crashes through the front window of the bus and goes straight down the bus aisle at you. In the back of your mind, you register the fact that the bus window was not damaged as the light passed through. Your muscles freeze up, and you stare at the light as it nears you. You brace for impact, hoping and praying you survive. Your eyes are closed, your teeth are clenched, your hands are gripping the seat. When you feel no impact, you relax and open your eyes. With nothing supporting your weight, you fall backwards into the sand. You find yourself sitting in the sand at the bottom of a lighthouse. In front of you, you see people walking towards you. You hear some kind of clinking sound coming from the other side of the lighthouse. There is a heavy fog across the land, so you find that you can only see a few hundred feet. You hear the sounds of the ocean crashing against the shoreline in the distance. In a few moments, when the adrenaline wears off, you notice that the air is quite cool.

Resume Marshall's writing...

I stand up and look around as I brush the sand off myself. I look over at the people and try to discern whether or not there's anything unusual about them. Finally, deciding there's not much else I can do, walk up to the nearest one and say, "(um) Excuse me, but I'm a little lost. Could you tell me where this is?"

Friday, the 16th of May, 11:00 AM.

I walk out of my Physiology class, fairly pleased with myself. That test went much better than I thought it would. In and out in less than a half hour. I cut across campus, stopping by the Pre-Med advisor's office to make sure my wife and I are still signed up for the Honor Society's dinner next Wednesday. Then I make my way over to the library. I search around for an empty stall to study in. Hum. Looks like a whole lot of students have exams today. Almost all the stalls are filled. But I eventually find one and sit down, pulling out my Genetics book. OK, deletion mapping - sample problems. "You isolate three his- mutants in a strain of E. Coli. You perform a recombination test cross and get the following results..."

(End of Saif's writing, beginning of GM's)

You get into your Genetics book and begin reading. You look over the solution to the first sample problem, then begin working on the second, when you hear a bit of a commotion in the library - people are murmuring, talking and pointing at something. You can't see what they are referring to from your vantage point, so you get up from your seat, book in hand. As you round a corner of a row of books, you look ahead and see a bright white light headed straight for you moving very fast. You hold your book out in front of you like a shield, or a priest presenting his holy symbol, but the light bursts through it and hits you in the chest. You recoil, but feel no impact. You take a couple steps backwards, hoping that the softness you are stepping on isn't someone's body. Then you realize that what you are backing up through is sand. White beach sand. You take an additional step backwards and bump against a wall. You turn around and see that you have backed into a white house. You are still holding your Genetics book. The air is cool and foggy. In the distance, you hear the sound of the ocean crashing against the beach. You see a light sweep across the sky above you. Turning the corner of the house to investigate, you find a lighthouse just ahead. You see someone sitting on the ground at the base of the lighthouse. Someone else is walking across the sand to the right of you.

Dana's was another intro that I had the beginning writing for...

It's been a pretty quiet day in Alameda East Vet Hospital. It's usually like that on Sunday. You are working with the animals in ICU, administering their usual medicine. It's been somewhat cold, so you have your sweatshirt on. As you come to the middle cage on the bottom row, "McHenry" (a big ol' St. Bernard), you look in the cage and see him lying on his side. He doesn't seem to be breathing. Looking more closely, you notice that his tongue is blue! You yell over to your supervisor, who runs over to the cage and opens it up. Another intern is here to help, too. Between you and the other intern, you pull McHenry out of the cage and lay him on one of the floor mats. The supervisor checks his mouth, but doesn't see anything. She goes to get one of the doctors - she could see Dr. Fitzgerald through the window in the door to the room. He comes in and after a quick look, tells you to draw up Atropine, and says something to the other intern that you didn't quite hear. You reach the atropine, and find a syringe. As you turn around, you walk directly into one of the surgery lights (someone seems to have left it in the middle of the room). The light was turned on. It bounces off your skull with a metallic *thunk*. Momentarily dazed, you blink your eyes a couple times and shake your head, wondering who would have turned the light on. Heck, what was it doing in the middle of the room? "Didn't know we kept a portable light out here..." As the stars fade from your vision and a small lump rises on the top of your head, you look around you, with the intention of navigating *around* the surgery light, and stop short, standing at the end of a dock, looking out over dark water lapping up on the beach around you on either side. To your left is a half-sunken boat. To your right is a mooring for another boat, but no boat on this side. Looking around, bottle in one hand and syringe in the other, you see a rock jetty to your right, and beyond it, a sandy beach. The beach cuts in here where the dock is. Continuing your scan of the area, further up on the beach you find a lighthouse, throwing its light into the thick fog that until now, you hadn't noticed. Once the light from the top of the lighthouse passes where you are standing, you notice that you hear voices from the lighthouse. Then, you see someone hanging from a rope on the side of the lighthouse tower. Below him is another person. You seem to think you recognize the person on the tower... It's Brady! You are momentarily thankful that the hospital was a bit cool, since the air around you now is even cooler, but tolerable with your sweatshirt on. But of course, there is still the question of "how did I get here?"

I don't remember exactly how long ago this was, when I was at a friend's house. I get stuck at his house often, because I don't drive (yet) and often he makes excuses to not take me home immediately. He used to ask me out all the time, even though I always said no to him. He knows I'm engaged now, but he still lays guilt trips on me if I don't spend time with him. I sometimes have a hard time saying no to people like that. But this night I was standing outside his house, and he was still indoors. All I was doing was watching the skies. There was a Lunar eclipse that night, on one end of the sky, and on the other end was the Hale-Bopp comet. It's the first comet I've ever actually had the time to see. I just stood out there for at least an hour or so, alone, watching the sky.

(End of Cassandra's writing, beginning of GM's - This took place on March 23, 1997)

With the eclipse on one side of the heavens, and the comet on the other, you enjoy staring at the skies for a long time. Then, as you are "staring off into space" in a literal sense, a moving light in the sky catches your eye. It seems to be growing, though it is not much larger than the stars appear to be. "It must be some sort of meteor", you muse. It also seems to be falling directly at you. You stand up slowly, unsure of the course of this strange light. It grows in your vision and is definitely hurtling straight towards you. Your mind reels... your body freezes... The light falls directly at you. It must have been much closer than you had originally thought. You feel you are in danger, but for some reason, you can't get your legs to move. The white ball is only a few hundred feet from you in the sky, but now, it seems to be slowing. Your fear almost forgotten, your curiosity leaps to the fore. The ball stops about 3 feet in front of you. You tentatively reach out to it when it pulses and flashes once, very brightly. Then, it is gone. You take a half-step towards the place where the light was, and your foot sinks into sand. Looking around, feeling as if you had just awakened from a dream, you realize that there is a lot of fog, and the air is cool. Over your left shoulder, another light catches your eye. Remembering the light that was just in front of you, you spin to look in that direction, and can barely make out the form of a lighthouse in the gloom, its light searching the fog for something it will never find. You hear the ocean nearby, waves crashing on the shore. You are standing on a sandy beach on a foggy night. You see dune grass to the left of the lighthouse, and a small, white house beyond that. The beach seems to stretch on into the fog. You distinctly hear a voice from the lighthouse, a man's voice.

I drive out to Garden of the Gods (a local park, like a state park, but maintained by the city of Colorado Springs), looking over at the view of the rock formations standing out like monuments to a lost religion. Scanning the passenger seat I see the canteen I filled with water, but there's no sunscreen. Hate when I figure the little details.

Arriving at the park, I find a parking spot in the main lot, but toward the outer trails. The inner trails are too crowded and don't have the feel I like to them. I grab the canteen, stick my finger around the plastic loop and cross the street to one of the outer trails. I look at the little sign that says there's a plague warning for the area and not to touch any animals, living or dead along the paths.

I head uphill. If I go this way, I'll make it to a formation called the Siamese Twins that I like. I don't take my watch with me, just head out. The path is a little narrower than I remember, and in a couple places brush is overgrowing the main trail. Seems odd that they wouldn't cut that back if they were concerned about fleas carrying the plague. I stop every little while and take a drink of water. I'm not used to the altitude (6500 feet), or the dryness of the air again, having just returned from North Carolina, so I take the trail a little slower than usual. In another month I'll be able to jog the trail (at my normal slow pace), and I need to build my endurance back up if I want to make the hike up Pike's Peak later this summer.

A couple of times, small creatures scurry around in the underbrush, but aside from taking in the sound, I ignore them. The light green shows that it is still springtime, although the sun is intense at the altitude, making what is actually 75 degrees feel more like 85. By the time I reach the 'Twins, I'm tired, and sit down on a rock in the shade taking in more of the water.

After sitting for a few minutes looking at the rock formations, I look at the canteen. I haven't used it much in the past 6 months, so the water is getting bitter toward the bottom. When I head back, I'll cut across the road to the inner trails. It'll save me about 15 minutes, and it's an easier trail...

(End of Greg's writing, beginning of GM's)

You open your canteen to take a swallow of water, and as you tilt your head back a bit, you hear an odd whistling, rushing-air sound. You open your eyes quickly to see what it was, but find that you were looking directly at the sun. Closing your eyes again, and berating yourself somewhat, you think to yourself, "wasn't the sun in the other direction?" You open your eyes again to look around and get your bearings, and wonder exactly how long you had been staring at the sun -- you can't see a thing! Where did the trees go? Where are those huge reddish rocks? You feel something brush lightly against your leg when a slight breeze picks up. You look down and find that you are standing in white sand, among dune grass. One of the long blades was tickling your leg. "Aren't the sand dunes further south?" you wonder. "The guys at the Trading Post didn't tell me about this." It is dark and the air feels very cool. At first, the coolness is welcome, but it begins to feel cold very quickly. The land around you is covered in fog. You look in the direction you thought you would find the sun, and see a light in the sky. Looking more closely, you recognize a lighthouse. Scanning the area, you see someone walking on the beach, towards the lighthouse. Just left of the lighthouse, and a little closer to you is a small white house. No lights are on inside. In fact, the only light you see is coming from the lighthouse. As it diffuses through the fog, it illuminates the area, giving you more than enough light to get around, now that your eyes have adjusted.

Greg's writing resumes:

"Lighthouse," I say to myself.

I continue to walk along the dunes toward the lighthouse. There's something odd here. As it gets cooler, I put the t-shirt back on, then the green flannel shirt, and finally the grey Western Illinois University sweatshirt, wishing I'd decided to hike with jeans instead of the hiking shorts. Then again, I wasn't often in need of jeans in 80 degree Colorado afternoons.

I suppose I should head down to the lighthouse, and try to find out what's happening. After all, there just aren't many of them in central Colorado. I think about trying to avoid the notice of whomever that is walking toward the lighthouse, but don't want to go toward the fog to try to cover myself.

Screwing the cap tightly onto the canteen, I walk down toward the beach and to the more solid surf-pounded sand, then head up toward the lighthouse, stopping to knock on the door of the little house before knocking on the door of the lighthouse. If there is no answer at the lighthouse, I'll still open the door and climb the stairs to the chamber with the light.

The date is September 26, 1996. My place of employment is having its company outing on a boat on the Mississippi River, and I am sitting alone in the lower section of the cabin staring out the window. Everyone else is either on deck or upstairs playing bingo. I have been struggling for perhaps half an hour trying to plan the next scenario for my D&D campaign (it is to involve the Druidic Cabal), but I'm not getting anywhere.

I look up from my pad and see a flock of white birds -- it is too far away to tell what kind -- take off from the trees into the grey sky. A melody begins to turn in my head, and I lament the lack of a piano or keyboard on board. However, I can still get some lyrics on paper...

(End of John's writing, beginning of GM's)

As you are sitting alone, staring out the window, you see a flock of white birds take off from the trees into the sky. Your eye follows them for a while. Then, out of the corner of your eye, you notice another bird flying towards the window you are looking through. You look over in that direction, and find that what you thought was a bird must be some sort of metallic object, reflecting the sun. You realize that in the greyness of the day, that can't be possible. It must be some kind of a light. It seems to be headed straight for the boat! You hear people upstairs shuffling around, then a woman screams as the light nears. It is still headed straight for the window where you are sitting. You look at it, pen in hand, and it stops a few feet from you. You realize then, that you are leaning back in your chair. You glance down for a moment and right the chair again. When you look up, the light is gone. You find yourself looking out the window at a day much darker than it was just moments before. There is a heavy fog rolling across the ground just outside the window. "Waitaminute..." You stand to take in your surroundings, and find yourself in the bedroom of a one-story house, sitting at a writing desk. On the desk is your pad. Out the window to your left, you can see the base of a large tower. As you near the window, you recognize the tower as a lighthouse. Navigating your way through the house, you find yourself outside, standing on sandy ground. In front of you are sand dunes and to your left, you hear the sound of the ocean crashing against the beach. As you walk around the house to the left, you see the lighthouse behind the house, and there is a man walking on the dunes towards you. Someone else is walking on the beach towards the lighthouse. Looks like a woman.

Resume John's writing...

I take a quick survey of myself to ensure I am in good physical health. I wait until the man reaches me. If I saw anything within the house which I would take to indicate that it belongs to me, I will wait until the man reaches me, then ask who he is and whether I might be able to assist him in any way. Otherwise, I will ask if this house is his. If he does not approach me directly, I will head toward the lighthouse with the intent to explore it. Perhaps I might find some clue to where I am and how I arrived here.

Continue to "The Characters Meet Each Other"