Keep reading

You hope Tina can handle herself. If you don't figure out how to shut down the array, you'll all be dead or worse.

The text you are reading is incredible, written in Farasset's own hand it is part early draft of a book, part scientific notebook.

You flip through dozens of pages of mathematical calculations far beyond your ability to understand. You soon reach a detailed plan of the array.

You whistle. It is massive. It looks like some kind of giant evil flower. Large central veins off a circle extending out into tiny filaments. It occupies the area below the entire basement. The design is like nothing you've ever seen, probably nothing like anyone has ever seen. Several of the alloys used are described in detail, but you haven't heard of them. The tiniest veins in the flower are made of gold. Lastly the center portion is a steel coated mass of sodium and lithium metals.

You keep reading hoping to find a way to shut it off. You reach a part where Farasset details his plans. There is a ritual involved. He had been nearly ready to enact it and merge himself with Satan. Several members of his cult knew the ritual, including a Betsy who wanted to become Satan's concubine.

You reach another part, written in increasingly messy penmanship. Despite the gravitational fields of the planets being properly lined up he failed to perform the ritual. He realized there was an error in his math. Several pages of equations follow, mostly crossed out. A barely legible diary like entry follows.

I have made an error. The reality engine will not allow primary creations to stray from the array, indeed their power will decrease exponentially from their point of origin. Thus, I would gain only the power of secondary creation. Secondary creations are not confined to the array, indeed even without the array they quickly become part of the fabric of a new reality. If I wish to truly become the dark god I must solve this riddle. I only hope the headaches that plague me subside...

The headaches! You remember Farasset died of a brain tumor maybe only days after that entry. There is nothing about a way to shut it down. Indeed, once started it is powered by gravity. You go back to the design of the central piece. You remember a friend telling you about dynamite fishing with sodium metal. The core at the very center is only one eighth inch thick steel. Perhaps just breaking through and dumping water on it will destroy it.

It isn't a good plan, but you don't have another. You look at where the center is. It is right in the center of the Brides of Dracula exhibit.

"Shit!" You swear. Tina had the cross.

You need to act quickly, but without the right tools this might be a suicide mission.