This is a session recap for my current Kult: Divinity Lost roleplaying campaign. Jessy Button is played by my wife, who also does the art, and I am the game master.
This post contains rape.
| Previous | Next |
Tan drives to a nearby hotel and gets Jessy and himself a room with a view overlooking downtown Toronto from a distance. The snow makes it nothing more than a dim outline, bright spots in the sky marking the CN tower. Tan brings from his car a black sports bag, which contains candles and odd trinkets. He begins setting these things out while Jessy has a shower and cleans herself up. When she comes out from the bathroom, the hotel room is illuminated by candles burning on every surface. A half-circle surrounding a circular steel medallion on the side table, a triangle of six tall candles on the desk, and on the shelf above the desk a sizable statuette.
The figure, in black stone, depicts a man seated on a throne, large hands grasping the arm rests. In place of a head, two large ram skulls look out to either side of him. The being has a large, erect cock sculpted.
Tan is seated by the desk when Jessy comes out of the bathroom, now only in a robe provided by the hotel. He explains with a smile that he follows an old religion, more ancient than islam or judaism, which he learned of while travelling throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was taught the way of the Twin God in old temples and ruins from sages who know all the old stories. He was taught how to always value himself above all else, how to command himself in order to command the world. Tan tells Jessy that his beliefs are real, as real than anything else he knows, and that he wants to share it with her.
The question comes up whether Artyom, whatever he was, is part of Tan’s religion. He explains that he cannot know for certain, but it certainly feels that way to him, that all of it is connected. He explains that Artyom, a ‘razide’, is a slave created by some god, and comes from a hell more physical than Jessy could possibly understand. Yes, Tan was trying to make that creature serve him, and he explains to Jessy that someone like Artyom could be an invaluable contact for a person in Tan’s position. Artyom is dangerous, though. Interesting, yes, but deadly.
| Jessy wants to know more, and Tan speaks to her about his belief in achieving transcendent knowledge through sex. He offers Jessy a chance at knowledge like that Tan has, she need only submit to him. Jessy knows that this means absolute and total submission. As Tan pleasures her, preparing her for this, Jessy comes to understand that her choice is between letting this happen and Tan possibly rejecting her completely1. He is sharing something deeply important with her, something frightening. |
1
Read a Person
Result: 15+ |
Jessy isn’t ready for it, she knows that it’s too much for her. She’s by no means experienced when it comes to sex, and what Tan asks of her is completely different from what they did earlier in the day. Still, afraid to lose Tan, she lies and tells him that she trusts him in this. That she wants it.
| Transcendence eludes her2. Tan takes Jessy roughly, at times violently. She is held down against the bed, Tan’s hands pushing her head into the pillow to muffle her screams and tears. Still, despite leaving her numb and bruised, Tan realizes that she will not reach the insights he wants to guide her towards. The only thing Jessy can feel is a weight around her head, as if a heavy crown rests uncomfortably on her brow. |
2
Liar
Hold spent |
Tan listens intently to Jessy’s crying, her apologies, before telling her that they will leave it for the moment. Tan will offer her the same at a later time, he still wants to share his experiences with Jessy, but this is the only way. The candles have all burned to their bases when Tan finally blows them out. One advil later, the two fall asleep next to each other, Tan’s hand resting on Jessy’s stomach.
In the middle of the night, Jessy wakes up from a light knocking on the hotel room door. Tan is asleep. Outside, the city is as dark as the sky. Jessy peeks out of the peephole in the door, and sees nothing but the unlit corridor. The door continues to rattle from the light knocking until she finally cracks it open, expecting the worst. At the end of the corridor, barely visible in the darkness, a woman beckons to her. Jessy follows, dressed only in her panties, bare feet sinking into the carpeted floor. There is something metal underneath the carpet, hard steel digging into her feet, and the moment she realizes where she recognizes that painful sensation from, she falls and the world falls with her.
She does not wake up. Jessy lands face first onto a hard floor and wobbles to her feet, struggling to take in her new surroundings. A concrete room, some bunker or storage, with doors in every direction. Construction lights are strung in the ceiling to illuminate the old crates, cardboard boxes and sleeping bags strewn about. The entire place smells of stale garbage, sweat and mold, a stench that hits her all at once. Jessy barely has time to take in the haphazard heap of moldy, stained mattresses in the middle of the room before the woman seated atop them as if on a throne steps down to the floor and towards her.
The woman is taller than Jessy, young and with a face of impossible beauty. Her black hair flows past both shoulders and waist, and her simple gray dress is contrasted by the glittering jewelry covering her arms and neck. Her eyes show no love for Jessy, or for anything else. She demands to know where Jessy is, yells at her, threatens her. She doesn’t answer to Jessy’s questions with more than a scoff or an insult, continuing her barrage of questions and demands.
She wants the ring, needs it. It doesn’t belong to Jessy, and since Jessy isn’t in her apartment tonight, it seems the woman’s patience has run dry entirely. Jessy refuses, of course, and demands to know what she wants with her and with the ring. The woman gives no explanation, calling Jessy a thief and a whore and again demanding the ring. She makes it clear that if Jessy doesn’t cooperate, her nightmares will continue, and they will only get worse. When Jessy still refuses, the woman lets out a scream of pure rage. All the doors in the room slam open and shatter, a burning hot red light filling the room and swallowing Jessy. She falls out of the bed with a scream and a thud, waking Tan. Tired, he asks Jessy about her dreams and tells her to go back to sleep. She doesn’t sleep much more.
The next morning, Tan has to leave early. They check out and Jessy gets a ride home. It’s not until she gets up to her floor that she realizes that she must have dropped her keys somewhere. Fortunately, in some ways, her door is already open. The apartment is a mess, but not completely destroyed. A lamp knocked over, some glass shattered in the kitchen, and her laptop must have been stepped on because the screen is all fucked. Her bed has several deep punctures straight through it, about an inch in diameter. Still, nothing is missing.
| Jessy comes to accept last night’s dreams. That woman she met is real, completely real and with influence in the waking world. She sent whoever, or whatever, it was that rummaged through Jessy’s apartment looking for her. If Jessy wants to figure out what that woman actually is, who she is and how she’s doing this to her, then Jessy has to find someone who understands dreams3. An interpreter, a psychologist, someone. |
3
Investigate
Result: 10-14 |
Jessy takes the goat mask Tan gave her from her closet and inspects it closely. No new insights come to her, but she knows, perhaps fears, that they will.
| Previous | Next |
Beyond Elysium 
2 thoughts on “Session 5: Transcendence Denied”