We rejoin our away team as they step blinking out form the mysterious portal housed within the treestump. The pale moonlight of the swamp is enough to make their faces scrunch, wincing in discomfort after the barely illuminated home of the Nacene (or at least that’s what it claims to be), they have come to know as the Oracle. The Swamp is mostly unchanged, except for the addition of a familiar face. Oka Katsu sits at the edge of the campfire, her eyes lost in the dancing flames, it’s dark orange light illuminating a ragged uniform.

Orlan confirms with the rebel group’s leader Ta’ela, that they are to provide assistance to the away team. She informs them that they have secured a way into the city via the sewers, but warns that they are not uninhabited.

She offers what resources they have, which amounts to mostly spears and shields, leading to Shaw to ask if they have anything more modern. Ta’ela offers them two disruptors with a single shot left, which Shaw is quick to grab, but the team negotiates that perhaps Daes is better suited to carry them. With reluctance, Shaw hands them over, and Daes fits them to her belt.

The team take a quick look through the nearby crates and finds some materials they believe may make some smoke grenades, but after some unsuccessful tinkering attempts, find the materials are actually useless.

“I believe this is one of yours,” Hybissa announces, motioning to the dazed Katsu who sits by the fire.

Katsu seems aware, but as if waking from a dream into another, she seems wholly confused by the situation. She attempts to interrogate the environment and the reality of it based on her most recent memory of being attacked in the mess hall, which she rightly perceived was a dream or nightmare. She discusses the recent events with the away team, and they all become acutely aware that the world around them feels like a picture book version of a fairytale world. The team resolve to enter the sewers and make their way into the citadel, if only to escape this dream world.

As the team begins to enter the culvert opening of the sewers, Ta’ela informs them that none of the previous exploratory parties have returned and they should be on guard. The walls and floors are slick with a film of damp, drawn into the dark stonework from the sickly green channel of running water that steadily flows down the metre wide channel at their feet. A paltry orange glow is cast through the tunnels by sputtering torches crucified to the walled with large ugly nails, and as the away teams eyes adjust to the dim interior they see that despite the scent, the sewer seems relatively clear.

“We’re lucky the recent rains washed the place out,” Ta’ela announces in a whisper, before catching herself in the strangeness of the statement.

The away team opts to split up, beginning to reconnoitre the nearby passageways and area. Without their comm badges, the team are at risk of becoming isolated, so they decide to take things carefully.Orlan and Daes move forward in the corridor to find signs of some inhabitation. Empty bed rolls and satchels are left haphazardly around the small side culverts along the main channel, and evidence of old fires and camps litter the ground. Orlan attempts to surveil the remnants from a distance, but Daes heads straight in and begins to tip out the bags and bedrolls. There doesn’t appear to be anything of worth, though Daes discovers a hand-scrawled note amongst the piles of rubbish. As she lifts the corner of the letter from beneath a pile, she accidentally draws with it a bony hand and forearm, clutching the paper desperately. Most disconcerting are the aged gnaw marks along the length of the bone, and unfortunately, despite her best attempts, Daes cannot identify what might have made them. She pries the letter from the bony hand, which collapses to dust at the effort to reveal a hastily scrawled note, the ink of desperate penmanship bleeding off the edge of the page.

“Whether you pass through the flattened gate with sword or fire or magic. Only hands of steel and scale will open the door to the keep. Trust not in those you once loved and when the time comes leap.”

Shaw heads into a nearby room on the left that contains little, except a large metal grated trap door, beneath which a similar waterway rushes out of sight. The current is much faster than the lazy waterway in the main corridor, and with his interest piqued, he lifts the small access grate for a better look. Using a nearby piece of broken mortar, he attempts to use it as a depth gauge, poking into the stream in an attempt to find its bottom. Despite the probe being a little over a foot in length, his fingers are almost touching the water’s surface before he decides to stop trying. The room is otherwise uninteresting; a number of broken pieces of wall crumble to the ground, but there is no sign of inhabitation. He decides to move on.

Katsu heads into a door to the right, further down from the main corridor, which leads to a series of smaller tunnels. The sound of the running water disappears as she closes the small wooden door behind her and is met by complete silence. She quickly checks a small room to the right, finding a large wooden chest alone in a room, the moonlight filtering in from above through a thick iron grate. With caution, she approaches it, careful to watch for traps or signs of danger. As her hand goes out to touch the chest, its lid flips back to reveal a snarling pair of teeth set into a fleshy interior and a long mucus mucus-covered tongue that lashes around desperately. She manages to pull away just in time, but it continues to writhe angrily as she rushes backwards out the door. Taking a deep breath, her back against the quickly closed door she decides to push onwards in the other direction.

Whilst Daes moves forward, Orlan takes a moment to glance into a large square room, built around a rushing drain, where the dark brackish water disappears into an endlessly dark portal. The room stinks of rotten things, and as he takes a quick scan around the perimeter, he sees broken sacks of grain and fruit littered around the makeshift tables. Most everything here is rotten, and Orlan opts to head back out into the corridor rather than risk upsetting anything.

Daes finds herself at a branching crossroads, the sewer splitting right and left as Orlan re-emerges from the whirlpool room just behind her. She closes her eyes to concentrate on any other signs of activity nearby and ss she touches her hands to the wall, a low thrum of energy vibrates through her fingers. A constant and regular pulsing of energy coming from the right fork, she signals Orlan, and the pair decides to move forward.

Her nerves still on edge from her earlier encounter with the toothy chest, Katsu pushes the door ahead open gingerly to reveal a small room focused around a large stone hand, palm turned upward to the mould-covered roof of the sewer. It’s stone from blends almost seamlessly into the floor with no sign of tooling. Across the palm, piles of golden coins and trinkets lend it the air of a religious altar. She tries to survey the podium from a distance for signs of writing or icons around, and notices a line of script that weaves around the bottom of the hand’s wrist and twists through the stone towards the fingertips. Whilst she cannot read the meaning, she recognises the square pictographs to be ancient Bajoran text. She also notices a small, slender grey object seated amongst the piles of gold. The tip of a type-1 phaser noses out from amongst the offerings, it’s smooth grey surface teasing her attention. The vision of the toothy chest still in her mind, she opts to leave it and continue down her almost silent corridor.

Orlan splits off from Daes, opting to go left at the forks and down a small side tunnel and through a pair of wide doors. As they fall open, they reveal a strange room lined with stone sarcophagi, atop each one a humanoid form covered in an opaque white shroud. At the room’s far end, a higher memorial stands on a series of dark stone steps, carved with indecipherable carvings and capped with another motionless, shrouded humanoid. As Orlan takes a step into the room despite his trepidation, one of the bodies to his right rises up to a sitting position, forcing the sheet to fall away and revealing the face of Charlie Shaw, Pioneer‘s chief engineer. He stares blankly from his seated position, his vacant eyes locking onto Orlan, who takes a few quiet steps back out of the room and shuts the door, unwilling to investigate any further.

Daes continues down the right-hand turn towards the growing thrumming sound to find a nearby culvert with water pouring down the steps. Beyond, several metres away, a glowing, energetic construct hums and glows with sickly green energy, long threads of gossamer-thin energy weaving and dancing through the air. She tracks the slowly spinning tornado of energy to its base, where it emerges from a bulbous metal dome topped with a roughly cut emerald. Something beneath pulses and groans in rhythm, but she cannot see any details. As Daes rakes through her memories for any similar object, a dark thought falls from the shelves of her extensive tactical experience, a mission report from several decades ago aboard the Federation flagship. Thalaron radiation, deadly and cruel; once the weapon of Shinzon’s Romulan Empire. She takes a few steps up the dry side of the stairs for a better look before stopping when she catches two whispered voices echoing off the stone. Just at the edge of her vision are two Remans, deep in conversation, their dark mottled skin cast into sallow shadows by the tall pillar of green light. Daes slowly moves back down the corridor, unwilling to progress further alone.

Katsu continues down the corridor, turning into a room filled with strange devices and machines. Few are familiar but as she takes a closer look, there are signs of blood across much of the room’s surfaces. Deciding to push forward, she makes her way down the corridor to find a man kneeling before a tall statue that catches what little light there is in its intricate gemlike surface.

“You should join me,” he announces towards Katsu. “Come, kneel.”

Initially, Katsu resists, but something begins to compel her towards the statue, her feet taking light steps down the short staircase despite her brain’s instructions to remain fixed. She narrows her focus, drawing on any experience she has with telepathy and mind control, but this feels different, less direct. Despite her intentions, she finds herself pulled closer to the statu,e drawn in by the instruction she wholly does not want to obey.

“Yes, kneel with me,” the robe-clad man instructs with a vacant smile. “Join me to praise the pah-wraiths.”

In a last moment of rebellion before her neck feels compelled to bow, Katsu glances up towards the statue, now clearly illuminated by some internal light source. A figure, arms raised to the sky, wreathed in transparent gemstone flames. She finally bows her head, unable to resist the command any longer.

Whilst Orlan departs from the sarcophagi room, Shaw slips round the corner and they miss each other by moments. Unable to inform him of the room’s contents, Shaw decides to step into the tomb room to see the same five sarcophagi, two on either side, with a large memorial at the room’s end. The form of Charlie Fox continues to stare blankly, following Shaw’s steps further into the room as he dares to investigate further than Orlan. As he takes a step further than his colleague a second figure rises to watch him, this one takes the shape of Torta, Pioneer’s intelligence specialist. Another step, and a third figure rises, the cherubicly calm visage of Ensign Lane from the ship’s science department. As Shaw reaches the room’s centre, his toes almost touching the first step to the final impressive sarcophagus, the fourth of the lower bodies rises to a seated position. It is Kaz. Shaw’s stomach drops at the sight of the man looking back at him vacantly, the memory of their last meeting feeling burning in his belly where the dream vision of the doctor had stabbed him. He swallows his fear and takes a quick look at the body at the top of the podium, peering through the thin fabric to see Mr. D lying in repose, clutching a long broadsword. For a moment, he considers taking the blade from the man’s body, but the four pairs of watchful eyes give him pause for thought, and he opts instead to retreat back out of the room.

As the man standing next to Katsu finishes his liturgy, he lifts her back to a standing position and begins guiding her over to a nearby doorway. She fights again to push through the miasma filling her thoughts, but to no avail.As they reach the large wooden portal, its surface twisting with dark iron decoration, he squeezes her shoulder lightly.

“She will be pleased.” He smiles blankly as he pushes the door aside. “Katsu, you are incredibly lucky. The mother will see you now.”

Katsu takes a blind step into the room, despite every thought in her brain screaming to her feet not to. She turns a corner, and her stomach turns. Katsu’s entire being begs to turn back as her eyes land on a tall skeletal figure that wades through the chamber’s stilted water towards her on long, spindly legs, emaciated skin clinging to elongated bones. Atop its head, two tall arching horns scrape against the chamber’s roof as dark black oil drips from the mother’s long talon-like fingers.

It comes to a stop less than a breath away from Katsu’s still form and with a rictus grin that spreads across it’s soul-shaking visage whispers in a sweet melodic voice.

“Tell me, Katsu Oka, have you and your friends come to kill me?”