The Miraculous Festival of Pitea (Part 1)

"Format: general call to assistance: Routed To: HOTEL. Subject: Any and all Time Travelers with whatever resources you can muster. If Sakura April is worried it must be bad."

— Cross-temporal distress call received by the HOTEL

Background

In February of 2019, after receiving a distress call from Intern III who was investigating extremely suspicious activity along with Sakura April Shinguuji, a large posse of time travelers responded and transported themselves to the source---Sweden, 1666 AD. The Intern and Sakura April were investigating the results of controlled release of the strange and hyper-evolved embryos secretly kept inside the HOTEL, and after a few hours of seeing the very impressive capabilities of this mysterious new life-form, whose potential for growth made amoral android decide that planetary annihilation was necessary, the two of them suddenly detected contact from the Vortex-sensitive probes that Sakura April had used to tag these unusual beings during their tense confrontation in 14th-century Egypt. Realizing that they had found the place that the unknown time traveler had retreated to, Intern immediately and urgently called for backup. This took the form of a large number of time-actives from the HOTEL who answered the call, including [[The Magistra], Lazard, Intern II, Thrash 1, Thrash 2, Thrash 3, Thrash 4, Thrash 5, Thrash 6, Thrash 7, Thrash 8, and eventually Thrash 9. Gathering in force, they set out to investigate this place and time, which was very clearly showing advanced signs of influence both external and formidable.

Exploration

The heroic Time Lords looked around and determined the date and time of their sojourn. Leaving one of their number behind just in case things went wrong, they began exploring Pitea, which was a beautiful town next to a forest and flowing river which, if anything, was TOO happy, picturesque, and advanced. Buildings were built in the local styles, if a bit more solidly. A church, forge, well, cemetery, and many small homes dotted the area, some of which were adorned with incredibly beautiful stained glasswork. The heroes noted that there were fires bonfires burning in the town, and noted the tremendous amounts of peat stored haphazardly in piles throughout almost all the town, with the sole exception of the church. Checking around the town, they found that the people seemed to be free of ill-health, dental problems, any and all pest animals, and upon inspecting the dates on the tombstones in the graveyard, they found that the residents of Pitea enjoyed, on average, very long lives with extremely low child mortality rates. They ALSO discovered that the settlement of Pitea was also filled with many red-haired women who had the same movement, appearance, mannerisms, and voices not only to the strange warrior encountered in Cairo trying to sell slaves to Mansa Musa of Mali, but also overwhelmingly similar to the appearance of the strange embryos secretly bred by Sakura April in the bowels of the HOTEL. They ranged in age from young girl to adult, and seemed to be superior in skill and strength to the townsfolk, who obeyed them without hesitation.

Defenses

These females with bright red hair seemed to also benefit from the loyalty of a large number of animals throughout the town. The dogs refused meat and pursued the investigators relentlessly, rats seem to flock to those who found the town suspicious, and an owl was discovered by Sakura April Shinguuji which exhibited evasive maneuvers against gunfire, had scanners that seemed able to detect her, and when cut upon revealed it was some kind of automaton which broadcast a signal and summoned a powerful defensive response within Pitea. In fact, all the technology that the time-actives used seemed to provoke suspicion and searches from the town, though magic seemed very effective and did not seem to elicit alarm. The town clearly held at least some combatants, with an archery range nearby where arrows were being fired, and the group also overheard clatter of polearm practice, where two men at once were sparring with one of the female red-heads, who was gifted enough to clearly be their superior.

Findings

It seems that whatever or whoever was exerting an influence over this town, it was advanced and extensive, and the residents seemed to be preparing for a festival that happened only "once in a generation," one woman stating that it was 22 years since the last one. Scans of the well revealed numerous, carefully handled and hidden containers, as well as traces of phosphorus, and phosphorus pentoxide, it's combustion byproduct. At LEAST one of the mysterious red-haired women knew things from the future, talking about how, when they heard about “potatoes,” they should embrace and start planting lots of them. Even the children of the village seemed to follow a young red-haired girl as a leader, who were in the forest gathering lingonberries for a feast. Whatever this feast was, it seemed extensive, with huge spits being put over the fire, cattle being slaughtered, and a massive table being brought to the center of town. There also seemed to be many horses in the town, though for some reason they all seemed to be indoors. The river ran through the town, and one unusual building seemed to be situated upon an island in the middle of the river, accessible only by a single bridge. In fact, in some ways the townspeople seemed very cautious, especially considering they had piled up bundles of highly-flammable peat throughout their town and still had numerous lit bonfires. This fact made the group, especially the Intern, quite tense, especially once it became clear that they were present during the same year and month that Pitea was recorded as burning almost completely to the ground. Perhaps most unusual of all was the fact that to the east of the town, a tremendous stretch of forest near the bog had been clear cut, and all nearby hills had been leveled off with shovels, which Intern 3 quickly interpreted as being some kind of huge landing pad, since no attempt was made to harvest the resources. The trees lay upon the ground browning and rotting. In fact, very little work seemed to be underway at all. There was a single ship at the docks, but only one person was seen aboard, and this person was not seen again after a massive number of rats ran up the lines onto the ship and toward his berth after the town was under a state of alarm.

Alarm

With the dogs on their trail, evidence of timeline anomalies piling up, and forced to go to ground to hide from the townsfolk, Intern 3 directed Sakura April to fire a single bullet to see what the inhabitants did, hoping that they would quickly enter and check on the most important places. Sakura complied, and the result was voices in the town shouting “Black! Turning Black,” people running and dogs barking, and the soldiers from the practice range going into town. The red-haired women ordered the citizens into their homes, and quickly moved into action. Two of them went into a small fenced-in house near the well. Several more went into a well-built buildings with numerous pillories out front, as well as the building situated upon the island in the middle of the river. Horses snorted, but nobody moved. The red-headed child led the other children away after summoning one of the strange dogs. The residents and trespassers surveyed the area for each other. A lone, cloaked armored, red-haired female went out alone to stoke the fires, and as Intern II recognized what she had seen before in Cairo, this person pulled out a bow and simultaneously killed all three cattle in the field she entered. Rats swarmed onto the moored ship.

Conclusion

At this point, with significant evidence that the animals were being controlled, The Intern III ordered Sakura April to stealthily leave the town and kill one of the animals to see what was going on. The answer did not disappoint. The owl was an automaton and quickly sent an alert of creatures from other timelines and that an artificial lifeform had been detected in the moment before the murderous android destroyed it. This prompted a cross-temporal cry for reinforcements, a power-armored warband to emerge from Pitea, accompanied by a torch-wielding mob, which screamed a battle cry in outrage against… the Cybermen. This shocked the gathered company, but as more and more armed and armored fighters began showing up via time travel and teleportation, Intern decided she did NOT wish to be a part of what was going to happen when the locals found anybody that they decided didn’t belong. She resolved to come back with fewer technologies that could raise alarms, and rely upon far more magic to crack the mystery of whatever was going on. They withdrew without issue as the heavily-armed residents of Pitea scoured the area…. And they eventually found what they were looking for. Hazel Ninegate, who was watching the events unfold, had retroactively sent some of her damaged Cybermen into the past to ensure that the fanatical hostility would be vented.

The heavily armed red-headed women who led Pitea located the Cybermen and engaged them with the intensity of fanatical enemies. Not a single Cyberman escaped Sweden. They were exterminated in an absolute massacre, with cybermites, cybermats, and all components being mercilessly annihilated, unlike the HOTEL investigators who pulled back, and would have one last chance to return at some point, and finally lay to rest what was really going on.