This is a session recap for a 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 sexual violence and torture.
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By the time Jessy and Tan return to the condo Carolina and Daisy are waiting, having a quiet conversation in the massive first floor lounge. Jessy spots a hint of worry in Daisy’s eyes. Is she getting nervous? Tan instructs Jessy and Daisy to go to separate rooms and remain there until he and Carolina have the rite fully prepared for them. Jessy lounges in her bedroom, comfortable and honestly eager for the ceremonial warfare she’s been promised. She doesn’t fear her opponent, some dumb teenager who couldn’t possibly understand what she’s gotten herself into. She spends her time going back over the research notes, puzzling together how the ceremony will change without James and amusing herself with personal details from Daisy’s home life. When Tan finally enters and tells her that they are to begin, Jessy easily slips out of her lounging clothes as instructed and fastens the goat mask of black stone to her face. She is effectively blinded and the leather strap digs in unpleasantly close to her still healing wound. The pain eggs her on, and Tan guides her through the apartment and up the stairs. On the second floor, Daisy is given the same treatment by Carolina. It is a quiet atmosphere, just simple instructions to alert the blind combatants of what comes next. In the third floor ceremony room, Jessy steps into the center where linen sheets have been laid out to cover the floor. They expect some bloodshed.
The girls are told that they stand in front of one other, and to reach out and make sure of this. Jessy’s hand first goes to Daisy’s mask before finding a shoulder, while Daisy fumbles against Jessy’s chest and down to her waist. They each take two steps back, and wait for the word. Somewhere beside them, Carolina begins to sing a wordless hymn, a somber hum while Tan speaks. He begins with praise to the Twins, assuring that this ceremony of blood and love is in their honor, and that the participants’ conflict will now bloom and live in full. Dehu and Mil are introduced to the issue at hand with Daisy’s desire to bring the same fate to Jessy as was brought on James. Tan speaks at some length of James, reminding everyone in the room and beyond it of his love for the flock and his sharp mind, diligent work ethic, and full-hearted worship. Sweet words which ring hollow to Jessy. Not hours earlier Tan had asked her to kill the same man. Daisy’s grievance with her, from bringing that man down to his knees and breaking his mind and soul, is pointless now that James is dead. Jessy shifts her weight from one foot to the other, ready to show Daisy just how bad an idea it was for her to agree to this. As the sermon finishes, both Tan and Carolina come forward to give Daisy and Jessy one embrace each. A knife is placed in Jessy’s hand, and presumably also Daisy’s. Judging by the weight, it’s a rather large weapon. May Dehu and Mil guide their blades, though the will to come out victorious lies in each of them. With Daisy right in front of her, somewhere she can’t see, Jessy steels herself and focuses on the only thing that matters – defeating her opponent.
| With a calm voice, Tan tells the girls that they may move and Jessy immediately and silently steps to the right. Daisy, screaming her lungs out and attacking with wild abandon, stabs into the spot where Jessy stood. She can only assume that the younger girl has no idea what she’s doing, and now that she can hear Daisy’s location, letting the knife taste flesh should be easy1. Yet when Jessy goes on the offensive, her slash at what she thought might be Daisy’s arm meets only cold, hard stone. In her blindness, she strikes Daisy’s mask and the shock of the impact ripples through her fingers and hands. She loses the grip she had on the knife, dropping it somewhere on the floor. Her sense of direction vanishes in the clash, and the only reason Jessy avoids a knife to her gut2 is Daisy’s loud screams as she again tries to charge. Keeping her mind in the moment, Jessy side steps again and listens as Daisy stumbles away from her. She spends only a second sweeping her feet along the floor for her knife, but fails to find it and so goes for the other knife – Daisy’s. She runs at full speed towards Daisy’s panicked breathing, but with no sight she misjudges and their naked bodies crash together painfully. Daisy rolls to one side, Jessy to the other. The struggle for supremacy is short3 and Daisy is soon pinned down with Jessy’s legs keeping her arms down. She gets one cut in on Jessy’s thigh, but after that she is reduced to kicking and vain twisting beneath Jessy. She screams to let her go, to get off, that she’s going to kill Jessy, but Daisy’s tune shifts the moment her knife is pried out of her grip and pressed to her throat, held between the goat faced mask and her own precious life. |
1
Engage In Combat Failure 2 Avoid Harm Full Success 3 Act Under Pressure Full Success |
| Jessy can’t see Daisy, but her crying and whimpering tells her everything she needs to know. It’s a win. The knife presses in a little harder, Daisy’s whispers turning to inarticulate squeals of fear. Wouldn’t it be a shame if she died a virgin? Jessy mocks her, laughs at her, and tells Daisy to lay still or the knife ends up inside her4. She sobs helplessly and begs please no, please stop, barely coherent as Jessy makes a deliberately shallow cut in Daisy’s neck. She lifts the knife and does the same down the center of her victim’s chest. Daisy squirms from the pain, twists and turns and tries to get away from the knife, which only makes the cut deeper. There comes from Jessy a swift punch straight on the mask to make Daisy lay still, dazing her. The blade reaches Daisy’s stomach, and Jessy shudders with excitement as the sharp tool pushes into soft flesh. No bone underneath to protect, this is where it feels best to cut. Still unable and too frightened to fight back, Daisy must simply lay there and listen to Carolina’s unceasing singing as Jessy presses the knife harder and harder against her skin. A dozen small cuts, Jessy runs a finger across them to make sure they’re there, before the steel sinks deeper into Daisy’s body. Jessy laughs, but the explosion of pain forces Daisy into desperate action, fighting for her very life. In an instant she wrestles free of Jessy’s hold5 and locks her hands around Jessy’s neck in a death grip. She cries out for Jessy to die, that she has to die already, but despite Daisy’s attempts she is slammed back onto the floor and the knife goes down between her legs. The combatants’ goat masks scrape together as Jessy leans in close and hisses, for that is all she can do, that she could mutilate Daisy. The cold metal is right at her pussy, Jessy doesn’t need to see to know that. |
4
Influence Other
5 Act Under Pressure Partial Success |
Daisy refuses. She continues to scream, demanding death, fingers digging into Jessy’s throat so hard that nails break skin and her windpipe feels close to collapse. No air, but Jessy still knows herself to have the upper hand. Give the girl a moment to believe she might win. Daisy’s fingers, hands, arms go limp when Jessy finally makes good on her promise and cuts into her. The pain simply becomes too much, and Daisy begins to convulse on the floor and making sad, bubbling noises. Jessy listens to it, smiling widely behind her mask after a deep breath in. She could keep going, break Daisy the same way she did James, but the summoning ritual still requires her presence. It is challenging enough to plan around James not being there, killing or incapacitating Daisy might put the whole summoning in jeopardy. Of course, Daisy doesn’t know that. Jessy keeps the knife in place, having bit into Daisy and threatening more. Beg. Incoherent babble turns to pleading, please don’t kill her. Daisy’s voice is weak and muffled, so Jessy demands more. Louder. Daisy promises she’ll respect Jessy, she won’t say anything again, she’s sorry for everything, just don’t kill her. With another laugh, Jessy stands up and steps right onto the helpless Daisy. That’ll do. She tosses the knife to the side and takes her mask off, inspecting the final result with her own eyes in the dim ceremony hall. Bloody sheets, a pool of blood on Daisy’s stomach and between her legs, and Tan in his ceremonial robe watching without judgment. Carolina stands beside him, her singing stops when Jessy announces that she’s done and the two overseers move to check on the hysterically crying and shaking girl on the floor.
Tan utters another prayer to the Twins, thanking them for blessing Jessy and Daisy’s conflict with righteous action. With Jessy content and Daisy having sworn obedience, Tan asks her to recognize herself as the loser. She can just barely voice agreement. Now that Jessy is done, Tan offers for her to leave and allow Carolina to tend to Daisy’s wounds, but Jessy insists that she’ll take care of Daisy herself. The suggestion makes Tan smile, proud of what he sees as Jessy’s devotion to the flock, and so he and Carolina leave the girls alone. Jessy quickly moves up and down the stairs to fetch a robe, her phone, and the aid kit from Tan’s bedroom. With a sponge and small basin of water she starts cleaning Daisy off, but the blood still runs fresh at an alarming rate. Having never sutured a wound before, she quickly googles a guide. She can probably figure it out, Jessy assures Daisy who in no way is comforted by that. The suturing is fun, to Jessy at least. She takes her sweet time, watching the needle go into, through, and out of Daisy’s stomach with a big grin while Daisy wails and cries. She will not get any pain killers. The wound between her legs is still bleeding profusely, a gash right across the one already there. Instead of suturing it, Jessy only tapes and wraps the wound to leave an ugly scar. With the goat masks off Jessy can watch Daisy’s suffering expression with delight. What did she think was going to happen? How did she want this to end? Daisy can only mumble confused, half-conscious responses. She apologizes to Jessy, but for what and why she can’t say. After having Daisy assure her that there’s no problem anymore, that she’ll be respectful, Jessy helps her down to a lounging couch on the second floor to chat with Tan. Daisy wants to go home, which neither of them think is a good idea. As long as Jessy thinks that she’ll heal up in time for the ceremony, he is perfectly happy with this outcome.
Having already fetched all she needs from a hardware store earlier in the week, Jessy arrives at the Brampton townhouse Carl provided her to prepare for the evening. Simon is coming at five, so by then she must have the unfurnished guest room upstairs covered in tarps. She leaves her toolbox in the room too, a bright orange case containing a hammer, screwdriver, exacto blade, and some other fun toys. She’s not sure if she will use all of it, but it’s important not to deny herself options. She waits for Simon downstairs in a simple pink dress, bought specifically for the occasion, and over that a leather jacket to shield from the cold. Even indoors, the chill gets to her. A car rolls up to the side of the street right on time, and Simon steps out in a comfortable yet stylish ensemble, grey and black, carrying two paper bags with him. The car drives off, and Simon walks up to the door and gives it a knock. Pleasantries are exchanged and Jessy invites him in. He asks where Artyom is, and she explains that she’ll need Simon’s help to invite their mutual friend. From a still unopened box, Jessy produces two wine glasses and fills them for Simon and her. Over wine and food, they share stories. How did they meet Artyom? What have they learned through their experiences? Jessy still considers herself a newcomer to this world Simon seems so engrossed in. He speaks with people on the other side, they give him guidance and in return he offers up anything they want of him. When he reaches that euphoric state, though he’s not religious, Simon claims that he can experience God. Something always drags him back into reality, but he no longer belongs here. The blessed life he yearns for never lasts long enough.
She leads Simon into the guest room, the single lamp in the corner providing only a dim light. Simon takes his sweater off and lays on the floor at Jessy’s command, eager to allow her a second go at his scarred body. Jessy picks through her tools, feeling the weight of the hammer and the sharp teeth of the small saw in her toolkit. First, though, she really should do what Artyom asked of her. The same ritual as she performed on James, that was the plan. The exacto knife clicks into place as she extends it, and Jessy turns to Simon. He is ready, and so the cutting begins. He grabs at the tarp beneath him, steels his torso against the blade and holds back shuddered screams, but of course he wouldn’t try to pull away. Both he and Jessy enjoy the blade carving into him, straight lines and circles in a beautiful and precise pattern.
| Right as she begins, the completed symbol fills her mind and she need only follow the distant sound of agonized wailing from her ring to know where to cut, and when. Blood seeps out across Simon’s dark skin and pools around him when a loud banging on the door causes Jessy to jump to her feet in shock. No, not the door to the guest room, the front door. She hears Carl’s voice6, shouting for her. He knows she’s home, the lights are on, and they need to talk. Jessy cannot believe she’d be interrupted like this. She swears and throws her knife to the floor in frustration, telling Simon to lay still and be quiet while she deals with this. Simon’s blood is on her hands, which she wipes off on the inside of her jacket as best she can. She slams the guest room door behind her and heads downstairs, livid. Carl stands in the hallway, putting away the keys to the home which he bought for Jessy. At first, he demands to know why she hasn’t been responding to him and why she’s been acting so strange, but then he sees the blood. |
6
Liar Hold spent |
| Jessy is angry, and she will not hide it. Carl needs to leave. She is working on a film project with friends, some amazing and creative people she’s met recently, and he seriously can’t interrupt them right now. The blood is just part of that, same as what he saw on Instagram before she deleted everything. It’s not enough of an explanation, the much older man just looks more concerned for her. Jessy eventually concedes to go into the kitchen and talk there7, because there’s no way she gets him to leave except by force if she doesn’t. Her excuses of film projects and new friends don’t sit well with him. To Carl, cutting yourself on camera and screaming about demons isn’t a film project, it’s insanity. He’s seeing through Jessy’s lies, one by one he lists them and asks for explanations. For the first time in a long while, Jessy finds herself unable to simply dispel all of her own deceits. Everything from her university to staying with friends and needing financial help, her love and appreciation of Carl, it was all just convenience for her and he is unraveling it. If what they have is going to work, he needs to be able to trust her. Right now he doesn’t, but makes it obvious he wants to. Carl suggests that Jessy leave with him, go somewhere private and talk things out. She needs to stop lying, and whatever crazy film project she’s working on will have to wait. |
7
Read A Person
|
What’s left but to fight him? Jessy drops her facade of innocence and spits out at Carl that if he’s going to be this controlling and manipulative, she doesn’t want his help or his money. She can get it from anyone else. The situation explodes, and Carl accuses her again of being a cruel liar. He’s done so much for her, because she said she needed it. He has risked his marriage, spent an unfathomable amount of money on her, tried in every way he could to help her, and for what? Does Jessy care about any of it? If she can get her money from anywhere else, then why keep this up? She says she loves him, but he doesn’t believe that. Jessy throws all of Carl’s arguments right at him. She doesn’t see love in his actions, whatever affection he’s shown her has been without direction or meaning. What is she to him? What does he actually want from this relationship? The fighting and yelling reaches a breaking point, and Carl finally, at long last, gives up hope. He tells Jessy to get the hell out of his home, and it is his. She says no, of course, until he threatens to call the police to get her to leave.
| He yells at her, slams the table, she just needs to get the hell out, right now. When Jessy still refuses, trying one last time to have Carl see things her way, he picks up his phone to make the call. He’s serious. Carl does not want to see her anymore. Jessy doesn’t have to think for more than a second to know how to shut him down. He could call the police, but she could call his wife. Tell her everything Carl’s been spending his time and money on. Hell, she could even call Carl’s daughter. Jessy would love to explain to Madeleine what type of girl her dad likes. How he compliments Jessy on her similarities to Maddie, how he gets Jessy to wear her clothes8. Carl stares at Jessy in sullen anger as her words sink in. Jessy is evil. Pure evil, and he won’t have anything to do with her. Carl leaves, saying very little except for that. She watches him closely, making sure to lock the door behind another man she’s left broken. Agitated by all this senseless drama, Jessy hurries back upstairs and grabs the blade again. Deep cuts to alleviate her frustrations send Simon into euphoric squealing, and the carving of the sigil continues9. |
8
Influence Other Full Success 9 See Through The Illusion Full Success |
The ring burns hotter, a familiar feeling now, and Jessy chases the distant moan of pain when she digs deeper into Simon’s body. The sigil must be perfect, and it must be deep. The blood brings her closer, eats the light around them and darkens the room. The dark green tarp crumples up, like paper in a fire, twisting into burnt fractals before evaporating entirely. As the tarpaulin burns away, it reveals underneath a floor of polished stone, splattered with soot and blood. Jessy’s gaze remains on her willing victim whose wide-open, bloodshot eyes witness the room filling with heavy smoke. At first it feels as though the room has shrunk, but it is only the shadows creeping in and concealing the walls. The sigil is done, and Jessy briefly admires its beauty before putting her blade aside and looking around her. The large fires burning in bronze braziers provide more smoke than light and make it hard to breathe. At the edge of her vision, the flickering flames reveal rows upon rows of seats in front of her, rising upwards. She and Simon are on a stage, a theater dedicated to her bloody deed. The crowd is sparse, but it is there, concealed by darkness. Someone in the back is hunched over, blood and bile pouring out of their ruined mouth in a steady stream down the aisle. A beautiful woman dressed in a regal gray gown has her still, icy eyes on Jessy, vivisected chest proudly displaying her ribcage and the steaming organs underneath. Three men stand as one, bound together with their arms and legs clearly broken to fit the shape they have been forced into. Everywhere she looks, Jessy sees only mutilation. Simon is screaming and huffing and struggling against the sacred pain, but those who have joined them seem unaffected by their own plight, more interested in his. Have they come for him or her?
| She calls out for Artyom, and moments later he rises onto the stage with a staggered, twisted gait. In this place there is no human facade to conceal him, no suit to hide the metallic plates and affixes holding together his flayed body. The mask of white, dirty plastic remains affixed to his face with thick, rusted clamps, but this is all the razide could be said to wear. Dark streams of blood run down the stakes which have replaced his amputated legs and clattering metal protrusions, leaving small pools at each hobbled step as he approaches Jessy, towers over her. In Artyom’s wake, four naked humans with their bodies near as mutilated as his come crawling. They lap up the blood Artyom leaves behind, fighting amongst themselves to have a taste from the murky puddles. Now that Jessy has shown her work to Artyom’s friends, they have matters to discuss. The blood-drinking servants turn their attention to Simon, lifting him up and carrying him off. Jessy and Artyom watch, then exit backstage. The crowd on the stone bleachers leave with Simon and his attendants. Now alone with the horrid creature who asked her there, Jessy feels a sudden revulsion against even looking up at Artyom, or remaining in his presence10. She finds herself afraid, horrified, by the razide beside her. In the recesses of her mind, Angela is fighting for them to get away from the situation, to run as fast as possible and get away from this inhuman beast. Jessy’s grandmother fears Artyom, and the primal horror she feels at the sight of him threatens to overtake Jessy11. Whether by her iron will, or simply because her sanity is by this point so frayed as to not understand real fear, Jessy pushes back against Angela’s possession and forces her back into her mind’s dark corners. She still hears Angela’s screams of protest, but the clicking and scraping of Artyom’s pointed stakes against the concrete hallway floor bring her back into the moment and away from her thoughts of flight. |
10
Haunted Hold spent 11 Keep It Together Full Success |
Behind the stage, hallways stretch out in labyrinthine fashion, the ceiling so impossibly tall that the sputtering torches on the walls can’t dispel the darkness above. In the distance, loud hymns are sung accompanied by tortured screams, but where Artyom and Jessy walk the air is still but for the greasy, black smoke slowly swirling around them. A heavy door of steel, its handle adorned with sharp spikes, is dragged open with a loud screech against the floor. Jessy is guided inside, to a chamber which undoubtedly serves only Artyom’s purposes. The walls are lined with hefty hooks, large and sharp enough to hold a human. Judging by the dried blood both on and below them, they have been used well for that purpose. The central fixture of the room is a wide stone slab, as caked with filth and rot as every other surface in the room. On the far wall hangs a spool of barbed wire. The torches provide their meager light in this place too, blackening the walls with their soot and slowly choking out Jessy’s breathing. Once inside, the door is slammed shut behind them and all is silent. No more songs from the souls of the damned, no more echoing shrieks or pleads for mercy. Blood drips from the razide’s hulking, ruined body, but even the red droplets fall onto the concrete floor without making a sound. When Artyom finally speaks in his thick accent, voice muffled behind the mask, it is all Jessy’s mind can take in. Not even the sound of her own thoughts reach her in this place.
Artyom has reason to bring Jessy here. He has a task for her, and she clearly does not have the option to decline. Stuck in a small cell with the hulking monstrosity, whose power is so immense that Angela fears that he could kill Jessy with a mere thought, acceptance and obedience is mandatory. Artyom has a close friend, a man Jessy knows as Abbas Ali, who borrowed something very valuable to the jewelry designer Jeremiah Redwood many years ago. Now that Jeremiah is reaching the end of his life and is no longer using this thing, left undescribed, Abbas would like his property back. It is for Jessy to find her way into the offices of Granger Fine Jewelry and demand the return of Abbas’ property from the old man himself. Or, Artyom adds, she may simply allow the ring she wears to guide her. Once close, it will guide her without error towards Abbas’ prized treasure. Jessy knows she can do this, she had planned to pay Granger Fine Jewelry a visit either way. She accepts her duty, and with that Artyom cuts from the spool behind him a length of rusted barbed wire. The iron nails driven through his hands scrape at Jessy’s cheeks and throat as he wraps the wire round her neck, a tight necklace piercing the skin. Spikes of pain shoot through her body at the slightest of movement. She is now his. Artyom owns her, controls her, commands her. She can nor will have any allegiances but to him. Her gain, in becoming his slave and servant, is knowledge of the artifact she carries. Artyom knows the ring’s power, understands it well, and he will teach her all of its secrets in time. Before any of that, however, Abbas must be given back what is his.
Their conversation continues, Jessy reluctant to sit on the central altar for fear of what might stick to her. Instead she stands as still as she can to avoid the wire’s painful barbs digging further into her neck. Artyom asks a question plainly: Is Jessy aware that Tan is close to death? She does not, but is told that all signs point to it. The goat fucker is planning something, and Artyom would like to know what. Now Jessy understands, the botched ritual in Afghanistan and the decapitated mancipia coming to mind. She reveals Tan’s plan to Artyom, gathering the flock and performing a grand summoning to bind the creature of purest passion to their will. Of course, because her own role in the ritual has been influenced by other forces, she also reveals to Artyom that she has been instructed to disrupt the ritual using several golden coins. A man named Sol is behind the plot, and when she speaks the name Artyom’s body stops swaying from side to side, freezes in place as if time itself has stopped. Repeat the name. When Jessy does, the entire chamber begins to shake and shudder. For a moment, the flames on the torches flash with blinding colors, and Jessy is brought to her knees by an impossible pain burning in her body. Knives rake her internal organs, pierce her liver and shred her body to pieces, leaving only a thin membrane of skin to hold together a slurry of blood and guts inside of her. She collapses onto the floor, screaming in agony as the vision comes to her clear as day: behind his mask, Artyom is smiling. The pain she’s feeling, the destruction of her body, it is all but a reflection of the monster’s glee at hearing the name Sol.
She barely recovers from the sensation, standing back up on shaky legs. What does Artyom want with Sol? Jessy explains to him exactly what Sol wants her to do during the summoning, hiding the golden coins at the ritual’s focal points before it begins. Apparently recognizing the method already, Artyom concludes that Jessy is to swallow the last coin before speaking the mancipia’s name. She must not do this. Artyom is certain that once the ritual is complete and the entity they seek brought forward, Sol will doubtlessly be near. The moment Jessy sees him, she must attack him, no matter the cost. Take a knife to his back, shoot him in the head, do anything it takes to spill his blood. With the golden coin in one hand and the other on Sol, she must use the ring to once again take herself and her victim to Artyom. There is no time for an intricate sigil, she must make do with what little time she has before Sol can respond to the assault. What is all this for, who is he? What is he? Once he is brought before Artyom, she will see why Sol is so valuable to him. Artyom must have him. The necklace of sharp iron tightens around Jessy’s neck as the conversation nears its end, her questions choked out and Artyom’s pale mask fading from her sight. As shadows and smoke fill her vision and blood pours in a steady stream down her chest and into her throat, Jessy gradually loses consciousness and falls onto the soft, feathery floor while clawing at the constraint. She lands on the bed of the townhouse Carl bought her, dried blood caked on her clothes and skin. She jumps to her feet in a panic, eager to breathe again, but even though she cannot see the rusted wire around her neck, Jessy knows it is still there.
Beyond Elysium 