The Titanic Mystery

We were recently contacted by a pirate from K’aresh, who promised to tell us about a world containing an untouched Titanic vault, in exchange for some goods. We of course suspected this offer from the very start. Not only there’s a question of why didn’t he open and plunder it himself, but also if it really is as good as he claimed. In the end, I was sent off to meet him on Darfell with a crate of potions that only Azeroth produces. To my surprise, it wasn’t an ethereal but an emaciated humanoid in your typical pirate gear, with some kind of raccoon/monkey hybrid on his shoulder (I’m told it’s called a chattur). Apparently one of the few fleshy survivors of the cataclysm that ruined K’aresh, this “corporeal” claimed he’s only giving us the address because getting to the loot is too expensive for him. I decided it would be worth to at least check out, paid our due and left with the necessary information.

Yesterday, we moved out with the mission to visit the world he gave us directions to. After checking that the world is habitable by Eye of Terokk scouting, we boarded the Shuttle. With me were Aeresham, Balerok and Zovaar. This bears a mention – we moved the rift to the Island, where it’s now housed in the security/Greenheart quarters, in a large room that could serve as the hangar for our Shuttle. I piloted the Shuttle through the newly relocated rift and out into the world. We temporarily dubbed it “yellow stone world”, because of the views immediately around our rift exit. As far as eye can see, it’s a yellow, rocky desert with large mesas cropping the landscape. It reminded me slightly of the Thousand Needles before the Cataclysm, if they were even more lifeless. However, the most striking part was a titanic door in the side of one of the mesas.

The door was titanic in size only, as the style didn’t remind me of anything I knew, especially of anything of Titanic origin. Notably, one of the two gigantic doors were bashed in and partially broken, as if something or someone really powerful struck it. We landed not far from that door and quickly made our way inside. The gigantic corridor behind that door appeared to have been carved in the rock that makes out the mesas, which is probably some kind of sulphuric sandstone. More importantly, the corridor was carved with numerous reliefs, mostly depicting everyday life of the constructors of this monument. Said life didn’t appear to be what I would imagine Titans lived like. One relief presented a procession bearing gifts to a king-like figure, and another showed two humanoids courting. All of the figures appeared to be of a near-human, hairless race.

Near the end of the corridor we found reliefs that started bearing more significance. One in particular depicted four of the hairless humanoids standing around a bed where another humanoid lied. The “sleeper” was different than them in body proportions, as well as having what appeared to be hair and patterns on its skin. The four hairless humanoids were doing something to the Sleeper, apparently prodding it with some kind of instruments that could either represent spells or perhaps some kind of operation. It was then that we noticed the door at the deep end of the corridor. It was carved with a similar style, but the scene was wildly different. The Sleeper from the previous relief was standing tall and raising its hand in greeting, while the town around him was consumed by flames and the hairless humanoids were running in fear in the background. Unfortunately, the door was also closed with no apparent means of opening it.

We took a good look at the door and examined it for possible ways of unlocking it, when Zovaar cast a Light spell on a disk on the sky of the relief. To our surprise, it lit up in response and something clicked. We realized we were standing before a puzzle, created possibly for ritual purposes. Zovaar also told us he’s sensing magically-enhanced metals in the door, suggesting it was more than a simple, cultural monument. Nevertheless, we continued with unlocking this door. Balerok threw an incendiary bomb into the flames of the relief, lighting up another section of it. Then, I threw a fistful of sand onto the relief of the ground, apparently littered with bones, and we stood before the door, thinking of what could be the final piece. There was no water on the relief, nor would air make sense. The prominent figure of the Sleeper greeting us suggested we should somehow respond. After some debate, we had Zovaar touch its hand with his, which finally unlocked the last piece. The door slid open, revealing a chamber beyond.

The next chamber was nothing like the previous one. It was mostly made of metal, lacked ornamentation, and was full of highly advanced technological equipment in various states of disrepair. The most prominent elements were metal slabs that could have served as beds, potentially for patients, and lockers everywhere around the room. Coupled with a combined instrument hanging from the ceiling above one of the beds, it suggested we were in some kind of medical facility. While I picked up a laser tool, Balerok sifted through the lockers and uncovered a set of extremely sharp and durable blades and other surgical instruments, as well as a collection of strange discs. The discs were small, with a hole in the middle and only three of them were mostly intact. Upon Zovaar’s analysis, he discovered a massive amount of enchantments stored within their small space, something he claimed was for information storage.

The rest of the room contained more of the same, but we found on its other end another door. This door was metallic and closed shut with again no lock or hinge. There was only a small metallic panel nearby, and it had a small, straight slit in it. We theorized this was the door’s lock and we needed to input something in the slit to open the door. At first, we ran one of the disks through the slit, to no avail. Then, I attempted to use the laser tool. Unfortunately, the intense beam only fried the device, which however unlocked the door anyway. We proceeded inside only to find two more beds, this time with occupants kept in some kind of stasis by a device around them.

The two humanoids resembled the Sleeper from the reliefs. Apparently, one was male and one female and the male’s unit was damaged, its cover glass broken. The damage didn’t avoid the male sleeper either, as his innards were torn apart by the glass. The female appeared to be intact, but still completely lifeless. Here we could confirm they had black, wiry hair and milky white skin with strange but natural-looking patterns. Curiously, the insides of the male didn’t appear to be made of flesh and blood, but a white, glue-like substance and shining polymers. That suggested those creatures were synthetic, but they appeared to have fully functional, biological bodies, with organs that would be redundant on a construct. As these proved quite a puzzle and would provide a lot of knowledge if synthetic, we decided to take them with us to Azeroth for study.

As we were returning with our loot, we heard a loud roar coming from outside. We rushed to the exit, with the carved door closing behind us, only to see an enormous yeti-like lizard outside, roaring at our Shuttle and puzzled by its presence. We speculated one of these creatures must be responsible for the state of the outside door and we preferred we didn’t share its fate. Balerok threw incendiary bombs to distract the creature, while most of us made a run for the Shuttle. This is when we proved the yellow rock must have sulphur in it, as sand itself was set aflame with Balerok’s mixtures. As the creatures was running from the quickly expanding fire, we all entered the Shuttle and flew off. Curiously, as we were making our way to the rift, we could see from above some humanoids throwing spears at the monster.

We have many theories on what might have happened here. One theory posits that the inhabitants of this world built this facility as a shelter from an impending Titanic Re-originaton. Or possibly, the Titans built it to preserve the creatures they deemed fit while they executed the command, which suggests they favored the “androids” we found over the other humanoids. Either way, the two we found appear to be survivors of some bygone era, as the natives we briefly saw didn’t appear to be technologically advanced. However, we’ve seen them too briefly to even know which of the races they belonged to. My personal theory is that the whole structure is entirely native in origin, and was built to preserve some remnant of their civilization from some kind of cataclysm. Perhaps the two are synthetic creatures meant to survive where they could not, and the “medical bay” was used to construct them. Whichever is the case, time and study of our finds will tell.