Quick Hit Story Seeds #9

Image Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140418.html

As you camp for the evening in the Beyond the full moon rises overhead, cast in a strange reddish hue.  Without warning a beam of green light emanates from it toward earth.  You think that the termination point of the beam might be nearby ...

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Image Source: http://andreasrocha.deviantart.com/art/The-Keep-433163035

High in the Black Riage a monastery exists where the monks utilize numenera implants that allow them to control the flows of time itself.  It is said that their knowledge of the past is unparalleled.  Rumor says that they will grant a single request within their power to any who can reach their citadel.

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Image Source: http://andreasrocha.deviantart.com/art/Red-River-382060762

In search of water your party had followed the cut of the land and been rewarded with the sound of a rushing stream.  However, when you finally reached the source of the sound you find the water runs red, colored by some unknown substance from further upstream.  Casting your gaze in that direction you see the ruins of some ancient structure ...

Quick Hit Story Seeds #8

Image Source: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130505.html

The Iron Wind approaches! 

Your group has been recruited by a local clave of Aeon Priests.  They have observed a slow moving storm of the Iron Wind on the far horizon.  Steadily it has approached their town/village of over a thousand people.  Unlike other storms this one seems to making a straight line for the town rather than moving about randomly and erratically.  Can you help them save their town?

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Image Source:http://jjcanvas.deviantart.com/art/The-Frost-Valley-258532848

Your progress along the canyon floor was slow.  You had yet to see any opportunity to climb out of the long cut either.  After what seemed like weeks, but was only days you rounded a switchback and found a great archway, carved out of the gutrock, spanning the canyon.  Beyond it were pillars, each hundreds of feet high, that appeared to be contemporary to the arch, and beyond that a hint of something more ...

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Image Source: http://nele-diel.deviantart.com/art/Assassin-433195107

As you go about your business, and assassin, dispatched by the brigand/lord/etc. that you last crossed paths with, leaps from shadow and attacks.  If you defeat it you can loot its armor for a cypher that will allow you to blend into darkness for 1 hour (asset to stealth tasks).

Story Seed - Computational Asymptote

Image Source: http://bib993.deviantart.com/art/Beamed-Octahedron-3D-printed-fractal-342848788

Carl waited while the vault scanned his hand print. Steph nervously guarded his back, an AR15 held tight to her shoulder, her weight shifting from foot to foot.  The muffled sounds of explosions and worse rumbled through the hall. He checked his watch, "Fifteen minutes since the incursion.  We might still have time."

"Did you see that thing? I don't know what's in this vault but unless its a nuke I don't see how it could help." The strain was only just now showing in Steph's voice. Carl made a note that if he survived this he'd queue up some extra psych tests for her.  She was holding together remarkably well, and might make a good cleaner.

If they survived this.

The vault opened and they moved inside.  There wasn't much to see.  A white room, a pedestal, and small object that looked like a mathematician's fever dream under a box of glass.  An infinitely detailed fractal rendered in three dimensions. The latticework pattern repeated ever smaller until the detail was lost to the eye. 

"Beautiful isn't it? Not many have the clearance to even know this thing exists, fewer still to see it. Considering it is probably the single most powerful object on Earth I can't blame the Board for keeping this under lock and key." Carl advanced into the vault, moving toward the pedestal, and the small keypad embedded in it.

"What is it?  It looks kinda like a ..." Steph shook her head, unable to come up with words to describe it.

"Yeah, its hard to describe," Carl replied punching a code into the small keypad. "I hear that the 3D printing revolution means that some of the cyphers culled directly from the strange itself can take on some really wild forms, especially the ones that don't have a function that corresponds here on Earth." The light flipped from red to green and the inch thick panel of glass slide to the side.  

Reaching in to take the object he shrugged, continuing, "I don't think anybody really understands this stuff.  This thing especially. I just know that the eggheads say this little guy is a ... How did they put it? A computational asymptote formed by an infinitely recursive logic loop." 

"Oh yeah, totally, I can see that." Steph rolled her eyes, "Did the eggheads give you a translation into English?" Outside something bellowed; a sound like the world ending, which was appropriate because it probably was.

"Yeah, but you'll feel a lot sillier saying it." Carl saw her arch an eyebrow at him questioningly.  "They said it could potentially re-write reality in a localized area.  When I asked what the hell that meant I got that look that you get from very smart very patient people talking to very dull people. Then they told me it granted wishes." Steph whistled.

"Yeah. I really hope they were right. I hope it works because, you know, that," he gestured toward the door.  "Only one chance. Time to make a wish."

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Carl blinked.

He looked at his watch. 

It was 2:34. 

He had seven whole minutes to stop the end of the world. 

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Summary - The world is ending and an unfathomably dangerous item is the only hope to stop it.

What would you do with an Entropic Seed? Would you save the world as it was being torn down around you? Could you?  What if you have no other option? If breaking the rules is the only way to win?