TerroirNoir's "Cable Channel of AE!" Reviews. Part 2.

[TerroirNoir3]

Going to post this because it's the season!

Happy Halloween everyone! Love, Araminta.

 

[TerroirNoir3]

Arc 26 from our second author on "TerroirNoir's Cable Channel of AE" Reviews is @cranebump's Fallout 3: Reassembly.

 

This adventure continued on from my work with the Autumn Wards.  It's tricky to explain and even now I'm not 100 percent sure how much of it actually happened and how much was a nightmare or a dream of something else. If you remember we had some issues with bleed over from what the Wards refer to as the Mobius Strip, and then it got hella meta.  Lobart teamed up with an alternate version of his daughter, and we were aided by an alternate version of her mother, and in the end there was mention of someone standing behind all that.  Someone with the code name of Papillon. 

 

Clear as mud. 

 

So we'd captured Lobart and in his files there was mention of Chrysalis, a comms app. The Wards traced all this to a location in Crey's Folly and there we ran into oddity.  Yeah, oddity.  I'll leave it like that.  

 

Mission 1: Zero to One.  My team and I entered the abandoned Freak warehouse...well, we all entered the door but when I set foot on the other side I was alone.  Already off to a good start!  Oh boy.

 

A grim place lit only by the light of braziers.  Not exactly sure what the Freaks used to do here.  Not sure I really want to know either.  That might be mental bleach time.

 

 

But there's a signal coming from somewhere in here.  I just have to find the source.  And there it is.  It's oddly translucent, opaque, like it's not quite here.  Oh hell, more bleed through from the Mobius Strip?  Because that always goes well!

 

 

OH!  Well, maybe I should have expected that to happen.  I didn't, but maybe I should have.

 

 

Then another signal and another!  The final one reveals that it's more of a holo-emitter.  So anything in here while conjured from thin air, could have actually killed me.  I had better not be complacent!

 

Time to leave and have a think.  Still no sign of my team.  Were we all in separate realities in here?  Each of us thinking we were abandoned and alone?

We will see when I get out of this place.  If I can get out of this place!

 

[Mission 1 = Intriguing!  A different start to what I was expecting but I'm all in now!  Bring on the next mission!]

 

Mission 2: Deep Work.  A matrix constructed by another that I entered, that the whole team entered, but were kept apart in.  All confusing.  What next? An introduction to the Sacred Flame. Or a reintroduction perhaps.  Dis tried to harness it but she was flawed in herself so it fell apart.  Everything falls apart I'm told.  And they had to shut it down but this guy I remember (Why is my memory so bad?  is it because of that holo matrix or the so-called Sacred Flame? More Mobius Strip bleed?  No idea) telling me that he was close. So yeah, he couldn't just let it go, could he?

 

How did I get here?  I really need to get some psi protection if possible.  Who from though?  I mean with all the Awakened in Kallisti Wharf these days surely someone in the Freedom Corps must be advising on how to defend yourself against that?  You'd think that, wouldn't you?  Or would you?

 

Where the hell am I anyway?  It looks like Eden.  Oh that's not good at all.  

 

 

Emitters.  I have to disable the emitters.  Holo emitters I'm assuming.  How do I know that?  Got me there.  I just know.  I wish I'd brought Araminta with me.  I think she's in Croatoa right now but I can't be certain.  I think I'm back in my own timeline again too but again I can't be certain.

 

All this not being certain is not conducive to investigation.  Let's find those emitters and disable them and then see what happens.

 

Ah, there we go. Arachnos style model it appears.  Or the shell of it is at least.  Oh, emitters plural.  There's more of them. Hmm.

 

 

My Nemesis?

As in Engineria's nemesis?  Rather than Capital N Nemesis? Do I have one of those?  I don't think I do.  Statesman/Lord Recluse, that sort of thing?  Oh, I'm not the baby super I was once but I'm not on the level of having a nemesis yet.  So, am I still in a holo scene or actually in Eden?  Is this my memory or that of the maker of the holo scene?  Am I overthinking all this?  I might be.  

 

 

There's another emitter over there.

Disguised this time.  Ok, let's keep going on disabling them and see what happens.

 

 

And another.  And another.  And finally this one.

And with that they are all destroyed.

 

 

Then I'm not there any more.  I'm out.  Where?  I dunno.  But that voice I keep hearing tells me I'm getting closer.  As close as they got.

I wonder is there a good therapist I can talk to later.  Or now?  Hero Corps probably has some on staff.  I bet Whipsmart's people have one too.

 

[Mission 2 = More opaque goodness.  A very different style of AE, but intriguing.  On to the next mission, if it really IS a mission!]

 

Mission 3: The Undefeated Mind.  I'm delusional.  Memories that I am damn certain aren't mine flood in.  How do I know?  Because I know how old I am and what gender I identify as, and these are from an older, apparently male person. The age is the key though, plus expertise in things I know I as Engineria never had or learned.  (I wonder if this is what it's like to be psychic?  You imagine that it's all "Sister Psyche saves the world" when you're a kid, but what was it like for that young woman who maybe couldn't shut all the voices and memories out?  How did she retain a sense of herself at all?)

 

A name pops up.  Tracee Deimos.  Nope.  I see a face and information flows in to attach to that image but the remaining bit of me that I recognize as me is also asking the question "Who?" She had a touch of the Sacred Flame but was pushed through a process to accelerate her power.  I don't think she came out of it right.

 

I'm definitely in need of a vacation.  I might let Araminta handle a few of my cases going forward, although I still have some work booked with a Professor Skeffington Lewis, not to mention Buddy Bolton has more work for me and I'm not letting him down.  

 

Lobart was the key here.  (How do I know that?) It seems that a virtual laboratory was needed (the holo scenes?) so that's what was built. What was built was the Chrysalis.  Except things emerge from a chrysalis, don't they? 

 

Hmm,  an overcast, almost bluish light to the sky,  The kind you get on a rural road with no street lighting, and it's a dry summer night with a bright moon.  Except I appear to be in Cap Au Diable.  There's more emitters.  These ones are disguised too.  What happens when I shut them down.  Am I lying somewhere in an AE suite with all this going on? What exactly happened to me after I got back to Earth from dealing with the Dark Comet?  Ok, deal with the problem in front of you as my dad always said.

 

 

Ok, one down.  Let's find the others and see what's hidden by all these things. 

And I am almost instantly attacked by aerial drones and bots that are VERY intent on perforating my armor with lasers!

Not good.  I dive and swoop, pulling health from them with Kinetics and slowing them by stealing their speed.  It barely works!

 

 

Ok, after the last two excursions into what I've been calling the holo scene I got complacent.  This is a wake up call.  Also, I notice that when attacked I'm definitely ME.  It's only when there's a period of calm that the influence of the implanted (I don't know if that's the right word) memories have a chance to work on my psyche. Adrenaline burns them out?  Maybe.

 

I'm still in here though so I'm not sure. More disguised emitters to find though.

I'm definitely not my usual happy-go-lucky Engineria self right now though.  

 

Oh wonderful.  There's someone IN the damn truck shooting at me.  How does that even work? Or are they just sitting inside the emitter field and staring out?  You know, like those hunters that sit for hours in a blind waiting for a target.

 

 

That's that one down.  Plus its defender.  

I take out a third and then somewhere there's a master control console that I need to find.

I take to the air and start scanning and....CRAPPITY! ZOOM! As in AWAY!

Oh, they follow.  Because of course they do!  I'm trailing smoke from my armor and my endurance is bottoming out.  Can't seem to rip any from them at all, and I'm out of Blues.

 

 

Finally I finish off the last of those flying bomb things and destroy the console.

And then I'm out of this place.  

 

But the Chrysalis has cracked.  Ah, how stupid am I?  PAPILLON!!

 

[Mission 3 = This entire arc so far is steeped in mood and tone, and I might be repeating myself there.  I really like it but it's very different.]

 

Mission 4: The Hard Thing About Hard Things.  A mad dream about Unity.  The creator of the chrysalis and Papillon combined to create something new.  Honestly I'm going to need a week off after I figure out what the hell is going on here.  I hope my insurance will cover it!  All you non supers, let me tell you that unless you're Manticore or someone like that, being a super is expensive and I'm not just talking about getting yourself new enhancements.

 

There's that name surfacing again, Tracee Deimos.  Nope, still don't know who they are or were, other than things went BAD for them.  Are they going to go bad for me?  We'll see.

 

Papillon has fused many aspects within itself to become what it is now, and it has reached across the dimensions and will seek to "upgrade" everyone, whether they want it or not. And then?  Don't like the sound of that at all.  Engineria 2.0 fighting in some sort of war world for supremacy?  Nope.  I'm cutting that right out. 

 

Check utility belt.  Buddy and Marcus on call.  If they're even really here.  But if I'm here why can't they be here?  Let's go with that hope for now.

I find myself in an office/lab space.  And ahead of me, finally, is one of my team!  Not seen them since...however long this has taken.  It could be days, it could be minutes. No way to measure time. Experience, yes.  Time passed?  Nope.

 

 

I proceed to free them.  I can't even remember their name!  Oh, there's gonna be a reckoning at the end of all of this!

Get out and get help.  Hopefully we're not in Crey's Folly or somewhere equally awful.

 

 

Further ahead I find another team mate. At least they're alive.  I suppose that's a silver lining.  It's a GOOD silver lining but those clouds are still hanging over us.

 

 

I free them, and then another member in an adjoining room.  Every step is taking me closer to the fiend behind all this, this Papillon person.  If it is a person.  From the mysterious voice over I've been getting I'm not so sure anymore.

 

Oh. Johann Parker.

Not seen him since...Chalikar?  I think we were hunting those back then.  He was a bit squirrelly even then I have to admit.

 

 

Squirrelly or not he's one of us so I wade in and start cutting down his captors.

These guys really do not like me.  And I've not had time to repair my armor so I'm getting hammered here.  However, you are still going down, mon brave!

 

 

 

Parker!  Are you ok?

Wait. Your voice.  It's you!  You're the one I've been hearing this entire time.  How is that possible?  

Also, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

 

 

He collapses without explaining further.  Only one way to end this he said. So, take out Papillon then?  

Ah.  Is THAT Papillon?  I think I'm gonna call in Marcus on this.  No offence to Buddy at all.  

 

 

BOOM!

Well, I hit him at least.  Now we've got him angry. Maybe.  Does he get angry?  Or is it just a calculation where he assesses the danger and removes it?  The "it" in that equation being me.

Let's find out.

 

 

Is that your only wish?  Mine is for a nice hot bath and a glass of wine and a good book.  Betcha I get mine first, buster. Hit him, Marcus!

 

 

Nope, old Marcus here is known for not complying.  Not quite his calling card, but it's pretty high up the list of things he doesn't do.  And he's got you facing away from me so you're getting as much Rads as I can hand out.  Either we take you down or I burn out my gauntlets.  (Gotta do some serious work on these things later!)

 

 

And he goes down.  Not without incident.  I've never seen Marcus reeling before.  Oh, he's vanished when I get taken down, that's part of the deal with the amulet I'm told.  But to still be upright and so injured?  Nope.  Not much better myself.  Ok, counter intuitively, Marcus, we need to find some more of these guys so I can heal us by ripping out their health and transferring it to us.  C'mon.

 

 

And we do that.  Feeling a mite better I open up a console and check it for details.

 

 

In it we find Parker's confession.  And a warning to leave fast because there's a self destruct about to happen!

Go go go, Marcus!  Say, you couldn't like pick me up and fly me out of here?  Like in the old cartoons?  No.  Ok, run!

There's the door!  No, I don't know what the timer is set for but I'm not waiting around to find out!

 

Spoiler

 

And I'm out.  The rest of the team are recovering.

I'm going home.

No debrief given here because MAJOR SPOILERS.  

 

[Mission 4 = Great ending to a thoughtful arc.  Loved it.]

 

Verdict.  @cranebump is an author that ventures into narrative spaces that others don't and I think the AE is better for it.  It's a delicate balancing act yet they pull it off.  My biggest issue is trying to find a mode of recording it here that (a) doesn't spoiler things and (b) shows how Engineria would experience it rather than me as a player at one remove. Definitely recommended.

 

 

Next up from @cranebump  is The Bounce House.

And immediately next up on "TerroirNoir's Cable Channel of AE" Reviews as part of the Interludes, Side Trips, and One-offs, will be  @LordRassilon (@Valeyard on the AE console)'s Heart of Words Part One.

 

AFTERMATH: Engineria recounts her adventure to Araminta.

Armor is being repaired!

 

Edited Thursday at 11:26 PM by TerroirNoir3

[Jiro Ito]

I love this soooooooo much, this was so fun to read.  Makes me want to commit to finishing more arcs.  Thanks for playing!

 

Quote

@TerroirNoir2  It can't be the dog who is behind all this!

 

Hahahaha

[Zhym]

On 10/16/2025 at 3:22 AM, TerroirNoir3 said:

Hmm, I have a dog with me.  It's totally a Scooby case.

[Darmian]

And Gloryhound?  I had to go and check the wiki!  

[cranebump]

On 10/19/2025 at 8:16 PM, TerroirNoir3 said:

Arc 26 from our second author on "TerroirNoir's Cable Channel of AE" Rev

I wonder is there a good therapist I can talk to later.  Or now?  Hero Corps probably has some on staff.  I bet Whipsmart's people have one too.

I'm pretty sure Whipsmart has a battery of therapists.

[TerroirNoir3]

The next arc on "TerroirNoir's Cable Channel of AE" Reviews will be part of the Interludes, Side Trips, and One-offs, and is @LordRassilon (@Valeyard on the AE console)'s Heart of Words Part One.  

 

After some serious decompression and off-loading some of my weirder jobs to Araminta (ask her about her virtual time travel to Praetoria some time!), I finally got around to meeting up with Professor Skeffington Lewis. Well, I grabbed a coffee on the way out after picking up my armor from Icon.  All buffed out!

 

Mission 1: A Race for Answers.  Professor Lewis works for C.A.B.A.L. Oh, another one of those.  You know, I always thought there surely must be more than just the ones we see in City Hall. And here we are.  He and his team scour the planet for arcane artifacts and relics, making sure that they are kept out of the hands of...the unworthy?  Hmm.  Okay then.  Who decides the worthiness?  You do.  Hokay.  I bet you butt heads with the Midnight Squad on your travels, not to mention the...what are those British ones called again? Dawn Patrol?  Possibly.  Ok, Professor, what's the deal here?

 

Psychics are falling into comas?  Anything to do with the amount of Awakened trooping around Kallisti Wharf these days?  No? And the more powerful ones, Numina, Penny Yin, are so far untouched.  So people my level (according to my security status with City Hall I mean!  I'm no psychic!)

 

The comatose are registering no synaptic activity at all, as if they were truly emptied of consciousness.  Ok, that's weird. And you've...with an 8 Ball?...narrowed it down to a building in Boomtown.  Ah man.  Boomtown.  Well, at least it's not Crey's Folly or the sewers.  I have learned to really hate getting my feet wet when working.

So I get the address.  Not that that does much good.  I'll have to take a detour to City Hall to get the old maps of Baumton to get an idea of the area.  As I head out the door he mentions I should look for a potted plant.

 

And to think I thought I handed off the weird cases to Araminta!

 

Well, here I am.  Boomtown.  No sign of Council War Walkers or Babbage so far, so that's a plus.  In I go.  Door isn't locked either.

 

 

I stealth my way through the building, up some stairs and along a hallway until...ok, Clockwork.  Not unusual considering I'm in Boomtown and I did just mention Babbage.  And Lewis talked about Valkyrie fighting the Clockwork King near here.

Wait, those voices.  Turn up the gain on my headset.  Crey.  I can hear Crey Tank armor.  And they're talking about the Countess and share prices?  

 

 

Dammit!  I was so busy trying to hear what those Crey were saying I totally missed seeing the Clockwork patrol that I just walked into!

Rads on and take that, you wind-up toy!

 

 

Of course it all goes even further south when those two Crey tanks I was trying to eavesdrop on come around the corner and decide that, you know, I'm not welcome.  Oh, I was feeling unwelcome BEFORE you two got here so don't think you're original in that!

 

 

I do manage to drop the pair of them though. SOOO glad I had my armor repaired.  It's like new!  Now, where the hell were they going before they ran into me?  Time to have a little scout around.  Nope.  Nope.  Just lots of Clockwork intent on frying me.  No thanks and down you go in bits, amigos.

 

Wait, that looks interesting.  What pray tell is down there?

I decide to investigate, ridding the world of more Clockwork as I go.  I think I've disassembled every single one I've met in this building so far.  Which is fine, it's not like they're alive anyway.

 

 

You know, I've been expecting a bigger Clockwork thing for a while now.  I remember that from one of those courses Positron did for newbie heroes when I started out.  Although he did spend a hot minute complaining that Synapse was supposed to be doing that one and he was just filling in.

 

 

I have news for you, my clanky pal, you are going to be disappointed.  Well, maybe your master is as I'm not sure emotion is a thing for you.  Psychics and the Clockwork King?  Yeah, that rings a bell.  Object did you say?  It's not a potted plant, is it?

 

 

OW!

This guy is one tough tin can!  Hey buster!  I literally just had this armor fixed so lay off on that, wouldja?

Nope.  Grind up the Rads then!  And BOOM!  Oh, and lemme just rip some speed and power from you with Kinetics. Kthnxby!

 

 

JEEZ LOUISE!  Will you drop already!  He is wearing me down!  I'm holding out against him but he's relentless.  Still I hammer him with Rads and his health starts to slalom downhill rapidly.  Thankfully for me because I'm clean out of Green Insps.  

 

 

Oh thank the stars!

Whew!  Okies.  Now, where is that object he was talking about?  Time to do a little spelunking.

 

 

I find a pile of rubble nearby where the big guy had been standing before I interrupted him so rudely.

And what have we here?  Some sort of rune stone.  I reckon this is the source of the psychic disturbance here.  Time to head back to Professor Lewis and check in with him.

 

The professor doesn't recognize the glyphs on the stone but he says he'll do some divination magic on it.  In the meantime he has somewhere else for me to investigate. 

 

[Mission 1: Great start! Wacky contact (Read the bio!) with a mysterious yet entirely plausible organization for Paragon.  Psychic and Clockwork.  Good stuff!  On to the next mission!]

 

Mission 2: Old Enemies.  [More ASAP]

 

[cranebump]

On 10/19/2025 at 8:16 PM, TerroirNoir3 said:

My biggest issue is trying to find a mode of recording it here that (a) doesn't spoiler things and (b) shows how Engineria would experience it rather than me as a player at one remove

You could definitely tell that was your angle on it. Having run this again myself (twice) in the last couple weeks, I'd say it's accurate as to how the superhero would react to everything. Of course, my main concern is whether...

Spoiler

...it was clear that the entire arc was a flashback, and that you were "playing through the memory" while listening to Parker's confession (the digital file he gives you at the end). My thought is that it is likely not entirely clear and that maybe the opening text should be preceded by something like Begin playback... (should it?).

 

Then again, as long as we figure out it's Johann, we're good, I suppose? Knowing me, I probably have no space to add anything to the opening, especially in an arc as, erm, "literate" as this one.:-)

 

Appreciate the play and feedback, as always (as well as the Yeats allusion).:-)

Edited yesterday at 04:26 PM by cranebump

[TerroirNoir3]

53 minutes ago, cranebump said:

You could definitely tell that was your angle on it. Having run this again myself (twice) in the last couple weeks, I'd say it's accurate as to how the superhero would react to everything. Of course, my main concern is whether...

  Reveal hidden contents

...it was clear that the entire arc was a flashback, and that you were "playing through the memory" while listening to Parker's confession (the digital file he gives you at the end). My thought is that it is likely not entirely clear and that maybe the opening text should be preceded by something like Begin playback... (should it?).

 

Then again, as long as we figure out it's Johann, we're good, I suppose? Knowing me, I probably have no space to add anything to the opening, especially in an arc as, erm, "literate" as this one.:-)

 

Appreciate the play and feedback, as always (as well as the Yeats allusion).:-)

Ah.  No it wasn't 100% clear to me.  That is probably on me though.  I read it more like Engineria and her team had entered the building and then been staggering through the missions with her memory fogged to hell, not sure how she got there and hearing the voice through her headset.  It's why I never mentioned the contact at all.  I think it worked though!

 

And I had to reread my post to find the Yeats thing!  I see it now.  Sadly that was not intentional 😞