There are only 4 days to go before the big wargaming show Salute 53 this Saturday 11th April.
The society will be there with this years show game ‘The Labyrinths of Mars‘, we are at stand GD10 so if you are at the show come and have a game.
To set the scene the games creator Marcus will tell you a tale …
The airboat glided low over the shimmering fringes of the Toonolian Marshes, the whirring propellers thrusting the craft forward, slicing through mist that shimmered with a faint bioluminescence. The turgid waters—a foetid and heady brew of rot and decomposition breathed below. A vast, swampy expanse where the air itself seemed heavy with memories much older than Barsoomian civilization older than Helium.
Ahead rose the blackened silhouette of the stronghold of the mastermind of Mars, Ras Thavas. Or what remained of it.
Sections of the high perimeter walls had collapsed outward, as though struck not by outside force but by violent upheaval from within. Stone lay in jagged heaps among half melted metal structures. While a handful of towers remained standing, even these were badly damaged The ugly scent of the marshes diminished as the air filled with the smells of scorched alloy and bitter chemicals.
Kael Torm stood behind Paxia on the flier’s narrow deck, one gauntleted hand gripping the rail. A mechanical left eye, secured from Ras Thavas himself many years previously by Paxia’s father, clicked faintly. It adjusted focus, scanning the silent ruin. “Lady Paxia,” he murmured, “the walls were not breached. They were shattered by an outward blast.”
Paxia nodded once, guiding the craft forward. “There were many scientific marvels in that place. Things unimagined by most. Just like your own eye Kael. We should be cautious.” Kael said nothing. He trusted her insight more than his own instincts.
They were just around the height of the walls, passing between their jagged remnants, when it happened. A sensation, a subtle shudder, passed through the hull. The airboat did not lurch or buck. Instead, the resonance of the engine slid out of harmony. Paxia felt it in her fingers before she heard it—a shift in weight, a quiet correction not her own.
Kael stiffened. “Something from the past just woke up.”
A thread of pale blue light drifted upward from the ruins below. Or did it actually appear to flow back from the craft, drawn down like an insect to some stimuli. It did not strike like a weapon. It caressed the hull, spreading in delicate geometric patterns—flickering filaments that appeared only for a moment before dissolving, as if ashamed to linger.
The airboat slowed.
The controls deadened beneath Paxia’s hands. Not dead.
Directed.
“Not something built today,” she paused. “Not even by the Mastermind himself.”
Kael nodded grimly. “If Ras Thavas had discovered it, he would have studied it, controlled it and used it, not left it slumbering.”
The descent, understood or not, was deliberate—almost courteous. The craft spiralled downward in a slow arc. Paxia glanced another flier for an instant. “We are not the first to investigate the beacon.” She pointed an abandoned vessel out to Kael as their craft landed in the inner courtyard with such precision that it could have been guided by a careful pilot.
The pale light vanished as if nothing had occurred.
Kael scanned quickly. “No structural damage. No heat deformation, but it drained the power.”
Paxia dismounted, staring at a faint etching now marking the flier’s underside. “Someone told the system to bring us here. And not just us.”
“And that someone?” Kael asked.
“Let us find out.”
She did not say what both now suspected—a relic system of Thern origin and unknown antiquity.
They approached the broken entrance leading beneath the stronghold. The carved archway had bowed inward, its supports cracked but still standing, as though the building refused to surrender its secret integrity.
The interior passages sloped downward almost immediately. Their was little left above ground except rubble. The air cooled. Shadows deepened into long, uneasy shapes cast by flickering power crystals. Paxia and Kael moved carefully, past glass vats burst like monstrous eggshells and restraints torn from their housings.
Paxia crouched beside a burn mark spiralling toward a cracked drain. “Deliberate venting,” she murmured. “Someone freed these things. Whatever they were.”
Kael scanned the dark. “It seems unnaturally quiet.”
They continued downward into a labyrinth crafted from Ras Thavas’ unique combination of science and eccentricity. Corridors twisted in mathematically unsettling patterns, forcing constant reorientation. Paxia touched the wall lightly—an instinct for pattern whispering to her.
“We are being directed,” she said softly.
Kael frowned. “Driven?”
“No. Welcomed.”
They emerged into a vast subterranean gallery.
Here, the ceiling soared high, supported by angled pylons cracked with strain. Broken control tables lay overturned, cables sprawled like lifeless tendrils. A single shimmer of light flickered across the far wall.
And there stood a figure. Four grotesque hulking creatures accompanied it. The brutes stood around her in ritual formation, their faces and bodies a pastiche of regular beings. Each held heavy swords and daggers, silent, and alert. She, the figure, and one of striking power and grace, was examining her reflection in a fractured mirror panel while her hands worked some unknown controls.
“You are punctual,” she said as they approached. Paxia observed the woman and her white skin. “To what end have you wrought this havoc, Thern?”
The woman turned. Recognition flared—followed by something more unsettling.
Curiosity. “You may address me as High Priestess of Issus. I inherited that title from my Father.” Paxia’s brow furrowed. “Phaiador died falling when she jumped from a flier. I heard that story from John Carter himself”.
“A shame he is not here to see this. I had hoped the beacon might bring him. But the daughter of Paxton will suffice.” Kael’s sword was held only at the ready, honour-bound until threatened. Pistol resting at his hip. “My followers found me broken and brought me, barely alive, to Ras Thavas. He healed me. But I am Phaidor, I could not be less. He used synthetic flesh to rescue my body. But it was not…enough. After he met your father, Ras Thavas became interested in travel between worlds, particularly between Barsoom and Jasoom. He was intrigued by those who had travelled like Paxton, Carter and the others.
“Others?” Now Paxia was as intrigued as she was shocked by the revelation of Phaidors existence. It explained so much of the Thern resurgence. But other Jasoomians on Barsoom?
“Few, to be sure, but Thavas tracked them down. I assisted him. I had my own designs. Eventually, he found what I wanted.” Phaiador paused, almost as if she expected Paxia to grasp the meaning immediately. And indeed the enormity of the truth struck Paxia even before the words were pronounced. “This body.” At that, Phaiador leapt. An outstanding leap. An un-martian leap to a platform above. She laughed and jumped again. Half-way across the cavern! To a platform, onto machinery, and on.
“Ras Thavas’ stronghold is in ruin,” Paxia shouted to her. “What happened here?”
Phaiador tilted her head and paused, knowingly. “I am now truly the High Priestess of Issus! She paused again. “The Mastermind of Mars overreached himself. He believed knowledge could be held in chains. His chains. His power. I removed those chains. And I took the power.”
Paxia had almost forgotten about the creatures. It was clear now what they were, although she had only heard the stories. Synthetic men. Kael had not forgotten. One shifted subtly—its smallest motion enough to draw Kael’s attention.
Phaiador smiled.
“And now, Paxia of Helium, I’ll pose you a test…”
The blade was in her hand before Paxia saw her draw it, and she was in the air before Paxia knew what was happening.
The leading creature lunged toward Paxia but she had moved a moment earlier.
Kael however acted the instantly.
His rapier blurred and the creatures, acolytes of the Priestesss, who had been encroaching stealthily backed off as that first fell. “No, she is mine!” cried Phaiador as she landed, graceful and powerful as a banth before Paxia, slashing at her. Paxia drew both swords in a single fluid motion as the chamber erupted into chaos. Instinct honed by training with the Warlord of Mars himself drove her to respond without thought. But, the impact of the blade on hers, when it came, was terrible. Stunned, Paxia staggered back. Phaiador’s strength was immense. “This body was a warrior on Jassoom too. Something known as a Viking. I like the sound of that name. High Priestess Phiador, Viking Queen of Mars!” She bounded forward again, madness in her eyes. Paxia sprang aside, gasping at the speed of Phaiador’s attack. She felt the blade scythe past her cheek.
Kael charged into the midst of the followers wielding his sword in a flashing arc, slicing the nearest creature deeply as he stepped to guard Phaiadors flank.
The remaining bodyguards advanced recklessly, also shifting to shield Phaiador. Now, as fast as she had been the aggressor, she withdrew with a bound toward a descending corridor which appeared even older than the rest of the stronghold.
And now Paxia noticed the creatures stirring in the side passages—shadows with too many limbs, the half‑made and the newly awakened drawn by sound and movement. They did not attack; they followed Phaiadors direction like congregants following a priest. More synthetic monsters. Like gruesome dolls thrown haphazardly together with no account for form, function or proportion.
Phaiador, leaping back among them paused at the threshold of the deeper passages of the labyrinth.
“You were brought here for a purpose, Paxia,” she cried. “Helium and her allies believe in destiny. Let us see how much of that belief survives what is coming.”
Her eyes glinted—not with madness this time but with terrible clarity.
“You will follow. You must. The Labyrinth beckons.”
Then she vanished into the ancient dark as Paxia and Kael ran toward her and the followers. “What of Ras Thavas?” Paxia shouted after her. Phaiadors voice could just be made out, “He awaits you…”
And the corridor sealed itself with a double rumble of some carefully planted explosives, narrowly missing Paxia and Kael, cutting off immediate pursuit.
Kael exhaled slowly. “Something has driven her from sanity. Could it be the synthetic flesh? Is that why those creatures did her bidding?”
Paxia sheathed one sword, keeping the other ready. “The synthetic flesh, the trauma of her injury. Her hatred of the red race… But she wants us alive. She wants us down here. Or down there. Otherwise she would have continued her assault.” She paused, “I could barely hold her off for all my training.”
Kael nodded. “You did well, whatever you think Paxia. That was no ordinary test of your skills and you know it.” “What did she mean, the Labyrinths beckon?”
Paxia stared at the boulders covering the passage Phaiador had taken.
“Because of whatever lies down there,” she whispered, “…she has some foul scheme in mind. That has not been changed by her new body. She is drunk with hatred…and ambition. We must thwart her scheme”
Above them, the marsh mists thickened.
Below them, the old machinery still hummed faintly, as though remembering its original purpose.
The descent had only begun.