THE TRIGREGOS GAMBIT

Sedon's Head originated not so much with a bang as a splash, -- the Great Flood. Also known as the Genesea, it did not swamp the now Inner Earth, Hidden Headworld, Big Shelter. Were it not for the Moloch Himself, the Demon King Sedon, raising the Cathonic Zone out of his own essence it would have. Even so, it's a fragile thing, this Cathonia or, more simply, the Dome. Has sprang more than a few leaks in its nearly six thousand years of existence.

For the most part though, it's served its dual purpose. Has kept the Head, and all those myriad many and multifarious upon it, separated from the Outer Earth. Has kept the devils beneath it and their forever foes, the equally extraterrestrial Celestials, beyond it. Kept the Genesea's flood waters, in the form of the North Pacific Ocean, away as well!

Lately, as in the last thirty-five years (the bulk of the action in Gambit taking place in late 1980), it hasn't been quite so impervious however. Has sprang more than a few leak-links to the outside. The primary reason for that? Nothing less than the invention and increasingly indiscriminate use of Atomic Power on the Outer Earth!

Dr. Aristotle Zeross should be a happy man. He's thirty-seven; in better shape than ever; has a lovely, shall we say statuesque wife; and three charming daughters. He would be too, happy that is, except Harry's haunted.

Twenty years earlier, 1960 on the Outer Earth, his first wife, Belificent nee D'Angelo, was kidnapped on their wedding night. A few days later she was murdered in cold blood, -- by a devil, pure as driven Hellfire no less; one Strife by both name and inclination.

Actually Strife's worse than any devil because, by Sedonic Decree, it's no more acceptable for Sedon Spawn to murder someone than it is for them to, say, swim in a lake full of Molten Brainrock. (Which she also did.)

This is primarily for reasons religious. Master Devas, as the Sedon Spawn are more generally known, survive largely due to the unquestioning veneration of their lesser, entirely mortal, adherents. Put simply, killing someone, anyone, deprives devils of a potential convert.

Should any one of his descendents go against their grandfather's dictates, the Demon King would cathonitize, atomize, the miscreant instantly; fuse them with Cathonia; make them stars in the Night's Sky above his Head.

An infectious spirit more than anything else, Strife has avoided that fate for going on two millennia by now. Did it by fleeing beyond the Dome, the Sedon Sphere, to the outside world; losing her daemonic body, if not her essential evilness, in the process. Should she be foolish enough to return to the Inner Earth cathonitization would indeed be her fate.

But it is not Strife that haunts Harry. Not Strife that similarly obsesses his wife, Melina nee Sarpedon, her fraternal brother-in-law, Saladin Devason, and their fellow Utopians, -- the mainly Trinondev descendants of yet another group of early-on, pre-Genesea-arriving, extraterrestrials, the very Utopians appearing in Moon as it happens. No, it is Strife's entire race: devazurkind; the Gods and Goddesses, the Demons and Monsters of Ancient, Whole Earth Mythologies.

Only three weapons have any history of effectiveness against Master Devas. These are the Trigregos Talismans: a Brainrock blade, a Gypsium looking glass, and a crown/tiara made up of glowing-red apparent rubies or bloodstones. Respectively, to use their most common appelations, these are the Susasword, the Amateramirror, and the Crimson Corona.

For over two thousand years wielded by the far-famed Attis, best known as the Universal Soldier, they have been lost since Thrygragon in the Year of the Dome 4376. Truth told, lost is not quite the right word. Somehow or other, they have been separated from each other since Mithras' murder slightly over 1600 years ago. Not for much longer though, Harry's convinced.

He even thought he knew where the Crimson Corona could be located, -- in Crimefighter Central, the subterranean headquarters of a long gone band of supranormals known as the King's Own Crimefighters. Yes, Harry is a supra, the last of them he believes; is none other than Ringleader. As a twelve year old, it was he who left the ten members of War's future Damnation Brigade to their fates, and the Magnificent Psycho, a quarter century earlier.

Built beneath Grouse Mountain, above Vancouver British Columbia, in the late Forties, the hideaway still existed. Was still undiscovered when he went out there looking for the bloodstone tiara a few years earlier.

There was no sign of it then, -- how was he to know Wilderwitch had masked it with a glamour? -- but he eventually learned of the potential whereabouts of the mirror. And, as Harry had also learned, one Sacred Object would necessarily lead to the other two.

All the more so if one was Gypsium-gifted. Which, even though constant use of it occasionally made him sick, Ringleader definitely was. Was also, along with his pseudo-Etocretan Cousins, Romaine Kinesis and the twelve-years dead Kadmon Heliopolis, one of the Gypsium Triumvirate!

Meanwhile, another would-be deva-slayer, one Kronokronos Mikoto by name, has a lead on the Susasword, the weapon Unholy Abaddon used to dispose of Harmonia, the Unity of Balance, his litter sister in Lazareme, just before the start of the First War Between the Living and the Dead. It's in the Crystal Mountains. In fact, so too might be the remains of this Harmonia.

Of course, this being PHANTACEA, there are many another player involved throughout all of Gambit. The most notable of these is Nergal Vetala, the somehow reborn, rejuvenated at any rate, Vampire Queen of the Haddit Zombies. She's a soldier too, -- not Attis, not the Universal Soldier, but one who's been places Attis never could venture. Likely never even knew were accessible. And weren't. Not to him.

Who is he? We may never know, not for sure, but a few things can be said about him. He's a regular Hellion, armed to the teeth, nearly mindless, completely devoted to Vetala and, a dozen years earlier, was likely the one most responsible for the Male Entity's first death.

Oh yes, he may also be Harry's nephew and Rom's brother!

From Thrygragon through All-Death Day to the first couple of weeks of December 1980, Tantalar 5980, follow the seemingly never-endingly violent history of the Three Sacred Objects, and those unfortunate enough to possess them, (nearly) every month in 'The Trigregos Gambit', perhaps the bloodiest presentation of PHANTACEA on the Web.

(Oh, and did I mention there's a certain ever-smiling fiend ever-lurking in the background? Didn't! Must have forgot.)

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