A Tale of Two Brothers, Part 2
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"Marley is dead, to begin with." You think that's a particularly weird and unpromising way to begin clarifying the story, but the man continues, "Marley is--was, I guess I should say--my brother. Marley Samuels. I'm Ebeneezer. He and I have been working on frusion research for a while. Sometime yesterday there was an accident in our lab--well, Marley's basement. I was out getting lunch, and when I came back his entire house was missing. Just a big hole in the ground where it had been before. Or I thought it was at first, but once I dug out the EEK meter"--he points to the goggles you're still holding--"I realized that the house had been converted to frusion energy."
He continues, "I know that doesn't make much sense on the surface, but our research involved trying to convert states of matter at the quantum level. There must have been some sort of chain reaction. We weren't generating that much power, but apparently it was enough to convert the entire house and some of the surroundings into a frusion state. It's a function of mass, mostly, and distance. So Marley's gone, the house is gone, but it didn't get anything else too big. I don't think it got any more people. And the inanimate stuff it got will just sit there, harmless, shifted partially into another dimension of sorts. But it got a lot of animals. Especially small ones, like insects, rats, birds. Probably a few cats and dogs."
"That's what I've been after, with the flamethrower. The frusion creatures are still alive, still looking for food. At this point they're looking for a particular flavor of energy. They can find bits of it around, mostly the converted inanimate stuff in the neighborhood. They also get a little from certain metals, or from small electromagnetic sources, like batteries. Since they're halfway shifted onto another plane they're mostly impervious to normal effects, but really high energy stuff seems to eventually disrupt them. A little fire, a little electricity, I haven't tried anything else, but you've probably got access to a few other options."
"Oh, and in case you haven't noticed, you're absolutely loaded with frusion energy. I'd be careful, actually. They'll be drawn to you. If you keep your levels low, you may just get one or two at a time, but if you're really powered up you're going to get a feeding frenzy. Of course, your best method of luring any of them to you will require having some energy, and they'll leave if you ever run out, so you'll need to strike a balance." (A quick discussion of what you feel and what he sees in the goggles suggests anything at 100 power points or higher has a good chance of triggering a feeding frenzy.)
"I'm headed back to my place now, to stock up on supplies and work on a way to try to get rid of these creatures. If you want to help, stop by and I'll see if I can rig up another set of goggles for you. Without them you'll be fighting blind and helpless." The man gives you his address, puts his goggles back on, and starts walking down the road, squirting bursts of fire here and there at things only he can see.
Location(s)
References
- The name of the adventure refers to the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
- The borthers' names, Ebeneezer and Marley, reference Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley, characters in A Christmas Carol, another novella by Dickens.