Present:
- Anastasia "Stasi" Tepes. Zhodani Soldier from Querion – Shane
- MARMALADING Emerse Gee. Daryen Scientist from Torment – Darryl
- "Riley" Patrick O'Reilly. Sword-Worlder Pilot from Winston - Richard
- Anton Tositova. Solomani Gunner from Entrope - Ian
- Sang "Spanner" Hoang. Sword-Worlder Mechanic from Winston – Jeff
- MARMALADING Hoff Ende. Sword-Worlder Scientist from Winston - Kevin
- Belle Ende. Sword-Worlder Medic from Winston - Steven
- Itzy Ende. Sword-Worlder Soldier from Winston - Chris
- Gnostic Hands. Solomani Scientist from Entrope – Jamie
- NPC: Scurry. Drone Gunner from Winston
by Ian
[ Note that there is no day and night. It is light all the time. References to 'morning', 'day, 'night' or 'evening' are purely based on party resting and active periods. Saves me putting quotes around every mention! ]
Recap
Party starts in the tunnels of the Servitor of the Ancients.
We decide reluctantly to head to Spire City. It’s a four-day trip and two of those can be in the hills before we need to cross the plains and risk being spotted. But before that, Ben in insistent he collects his six "whores" and Fido so that they can go back too...
Back to Ben's Cave
It has been a long day so far and the party decide to rest up. They move to within 50 meters of the tunnel entrance and Anton sneaks forward and looks outside. He looks all around and while there is no sign of the enormous snake in the valley, he looks up and sure enough - there is a giant snake sitting on the valley wall above the cave entrance.
The monster seems to be alert with its forked tongue licking the air. Anton notices that the skin of the snake is different, in that it seems to be partially 'fungus like' and rough.
"Darn, we will have to wait a bit." The party have 2.5 days worth of food and this can be thinned via rationing. Anton suggests we could go out, guns blazing, and get rid of the snake. Seems no one else was interested in this plan. Anton returns to the tunnel entrance and observes.
[Food and drink acclimatization. Stasi, Itsy and Riley 20 (done). Gnostic 17, Belle 14, Riley 20, Anton 17, Spanner 10 ]
Spanner ends up violently ill and can't eat for the rest of the day.
Luckily, roughly 6 hours later, the snake heads off around the valley. It ends up resting about 400 meters away and its time for the party to head out.
With Anton trying to coach the party (Ben and Fido seem fine), and a successful party luck roll, the party cross the valley floor and exit across the far ridge.
As the party are meandering back to Ben's cave, Ben freezes and hisses for EVERYONE to stop, lay on the ground and be silent: "There are whumpers coming".
"What the hell is a 'whumper?'," someone asks.
"I'll tell you later," he snaps. "Lie down, shut up and don't move or make a sound for now".
 |
| Whumpers |
A small pack of creatures navigated the rocky and fungus layered ground. They were creatures the size of Labradors. They didn't have wings, but they moved on the ground half crawling, half dragging.
As they neared, you could see that they had no eyes. Their skin covered 'wings' thumped on the ground, creating a 'whump' sound.
The pack of whumpers crawl over the prone party. Everyone tries to stay quiet, but Spanner lets out a light whimper as one of the creatures climbs over her. The creature stops instantly. Spanner gets a sharp pain in her left side as something pierces her torso.
She desperately stays still and quiet, and the creature seems to give up and move on. She takes 1 HP damage from the spike.
After the monsters are far enough away, Ben fills in the party and says that the whumpers insert a spike on either side of you and then zap a 50KV shock through you which can kill.
After travelling safely for the rest of the day, the party find a decent enough camp. They set watches and rest as best they can.
At some point in the night, Belle wakes with a start and screams out. A small creature with sharp teeth was biting in. Gnostic wakes with something squirming in his PJs. He rips the hideous creature out and throws to one side. He rips out his gun and fires a round at the small snake thing and it gets blown apart.
Meanwhile Riley, who was on watch, rushes to Belle and wrenches the snake thing off her. He holds each end of the snake in his hands and pulls the creature apart.
Ben rouses "Oh, those a good eating. You don't want to get bitten because they are poisonous. Get rid of the head and the rest is delicious.".
Belle checks and while there is a bite, she does not seem to be poisoned.
There were a couple of lightning storms through the night and this disturbed the party.
For breakfast the party cook the snakes on the fire and have a bite to eat.
[ Gnostic 20 (done), Belle 15, Anton 18, Spanner 10 (failed)]
They head off to Ben's cave and arrive around lunchtime. The party decide to rest up properly and perform a round of Psycho-Analysis.
Gnostic has an average ability, but Belle is highly skilled. Various psych points are increased, however poor Belle at the hands of Gnostic lost a point [Fumble]. Darn.
After a decent amount of resting and gathering supplies the party decide to cross the plains directly to Spire City and not follow the surrounding hills to save time. Ben assures all that there will be decent enough rocky spots to camp.
While the party gather their gear, someone notices that Emerse had a strange bulge in his groin area. Stranger than normal anyway. Belle bravely volunteered to examine him and discovered that his appendage had mutated into some kind of mushroom. This mushroom was oozing a strong smelling liquid that was strangely familiar to some. The smell was petrochemical in nature and seemed to be very similar to Jet A1 (basically kerosene). They gather this liquid as it could be handy!
On seeing the revolting change to his doodle, the party had to suppress their revulsion [make a (penalty) Psych roll. Everyone makes the roll with much luck consumed in the process].
We return the mushroom to the dark of Emerse's trousers.
As before, Emerse's Geiger counter was showing very high levels of radiation outdoors. Something the party need to be wary of while remaining on planet Rose.
After finally arriving at Ben's cave base camp, the entire cave is emptied with the hope of never coming back. Ben, his six Zhodani girls, and Fido (has Vargr friend, now a wolf) along with everything they can carry. The entire party, everyone and everything depart.
The Zhodani girls feed off the party and they in turn, heal via the mattress juice. Ben volunteers that his saliva is curative too. A tonguey kiss can also heal if anyone wants it. Most gag and pass on the offer.
Crossing the Plains
The party with Ben's local knowledge realize they can travel a full day and find a decent camp site. After that, they decide to travel for half the day, then look for a suitable camp. Using this strategy, it should be about 3 days to cross.
[Belle 8 (20 rolled and reset count), Anton 20 (done), Spanner 13]
The evening was uneventful and only the electrical storms disturbed the group.
The next day travel was straight forward. At lunchtime, the party start looking for a campsite but no suitable site appears. They keep going and eventually a rocky spot appears and the party collapse and set up camp.
[ Belle 8 (failed), Spanner 14 ]
Second night same as the first and passes without issue.
The next day the party should reach Spire City. Around half day away from the city, the party find a good campsite and stop there.
[Belle 9, Spanner 16]
The conundrum is not knowing what awaits at the city for a highly obvious party, just walking into town? Should they send a stealth party to check things out?
[The problem with the stealth party was that Anton is the only character present that has any form of stealth ability. Unfortunately he spent a lot of luck saving the loss of psych points (2 luck remaining only). On entering the city, this lack of luck will mean a guaranteed failure at finding a suitable safe haven.]
City Scout
In the end, the party decide and a small, somewhat stealthy, party to check things: Anton, Ben, Fido, Belle (lots of luck)
They carefully enter the outskirts of the city. Hiding as best they can, they locate an empty building. Well, building is a stretch. Spire City is 300,000 years old and was abandoned by its previous builders about that long ago. The buildings are designed as a some kind of metal shell (mu metal, in fact) with internals that were probably wood and fungus based. Over the eons the wood and fungus have totally disappeared, leaving only the strong metal shell. Many of the buildings had flocks of the vulture birds swirling around the tops. They seemed to be feeding off something that is growing on the metal?
In the building was comfortable and safe. No mushrooms. When a storm broke, there was no effect inside the safe metal shield.
Watching the streets, there were many slishers (Illithid type of monster). Some moved quickly and darted in and out, seemingly hiding or avoiding something. Others travelled in packs in organized purpose.
Anton and the party leave town and travel back to the camp. It is decided to split the full party into two different groups and deliver each separately. Without any bother, the entire party eventually get into the safe house and set up their temporary safe home.
At one point, far in the distance, the Slishers all evacuate the streets rapidly. Gone in a panic. One of the revolting gigantic Spiders the party saw on arriving planet Rose, was navigating the streets and buildings near the centre of the city. A hideous, terrifying sight.
[Belle 11, Spanner 18]
Spire City
 |
| red stars are the temp safe houses |
According to the servitor back in the cave, there should be two portals nearby. The central spire [the one with the black wall] and the 'H' building. Both are about 1km away from the party's current safe house.
The next phase consists of Anton using Sneak to explore the central city and see what the party are dealing with.
There are several empty buildings on the outer areas, however as nearing the centre of the city, along with a significant increase in slisher numbers.
Activity, the buildings start housing slisher(?) machinery. The machinery takes all sorts of forms but mostly metal, wood, fungus and bits of living things (like the avian spinosa in the Ancients' tunnels' power supplies on Winston, the moon Formaline and planet Dollar).
"We need to get closer to the middle", the party decide. While this is true, the size and noisiness of the group make this quite a challenge. They decide that the H building is the first target.
One slisher observation is made that might make something work. While the slishers are always out and about from 400m to the centre of town - there ARE times when 'always' is not correct. For periods of 5 to 20 minutes there can be no slishers on the streets at all.
Anton heads out once again and identifies empty buildings just a block or two up the street. These buildings act as 'stepping stones' to get the entourage nearer to the H building. They sit and wait for the streets to clear, wait for 30 seconds - then GO. This works well and party luck is on their side (thank you, Belle). Everyone eventually ends up only 100m from the H building.
[Belle 13, Spanner 20 (done)]
The H Building
Anton investigates the H building and there is a basic door in the side. Its not trapped or locked and Anton steps in and checks the room. In the centre of the room there is a large vertical metal ring some 20m high.
The disk was connected to various slisher machines and panels. Everything was dark. Anton returns with the good news that the portal seems easy to get to.
The time came for the entire group to move into the H building. Unfortunately this one time a slisher stepped around a corner and spotted the group making their way to the H building. The creature emits a voiceless scream.
The party hurry into the H building and block the door with heavy objects.
While Riley checks the machinery and panels, Spanner climbs the spiral staircase to the upper mezzanine. There is a large red-handled lever up there.
The lever is pulled and everything, including the portal, lights up.
 |
| Portal |
"Which portal should we open???" screamed Riley.
"Cauthon Institute!!!!" everyone agrees.
Riley finds a panel with 128 switches - which are actually levers made of rigid mushrooms. Riley has eidetic memory, so he quickly deciphers the HEX coordinates provided by the servitor into 128 'bits' (4fc15c18-e814-4bd3-a256-87a1118cbc8e). He toggles the switches and the panel's rings activate and slowly grind and rotate.
A shimmering force-field appears within the portal circumference. Through the field the party could see the front entrance of the Cauthon Institute as they remembered it (in Seven town in the 728-907 system). There are a couple of the Imperium guards standing there on duty - in fact, one was the soldier that mocked Riley when he thought the guy was a robot. The guards look up into the air and seemingly toward the room the party are in. But they look confused and point, as if they cannot quite see what is there.
The party can see them quite clearly and can hear them murmuring, guns drawn, trying to discuss the
appearance.
"Thank goodness" Gnostic calls out, relieved.
As the door to the building gets hammered from the slishers on the outside, Gnostic steps into the gate and tries to go through.
But, like the portal back by the red pond (where the group first arrived), Gnostic feels a push back, like rubber, and can't go through. It resists all attempts to go through.
The party pick up random objects and nothing will pass. Like with the portal by the red pond, most objects sound like they bounce off glass, whereas Gnostic felt a soft push-back, like rubber or sponge.
They eventually try throwing through some of their cooked meat leftovers. The blob of meat flies straight through the portal and nearly hits the guards on the other side.
The guards immediately let lose with a hail of bullets at the portal. Everyone ducks, and the bullets fly into the room and bounce around the H building.
A series of tests are applied, including changing the coordinates to other destinations (Winston Ende Estate and Entropy X-boat HQ). The same effect every time.
- Inanimate objects meet solid resistance.
- Living organic matter meets soft resistance, like rubber or sponge.
- Dead organic matter sails through without any issue.
Returning the coordinates to the Cauthon Institute, Riley and the brains trust work out a way to include a crude note within the vulture meat leftovers, letters carved and burned into the meat. The note tells the guards who they are, and that we can hear them, and DON'T come through, and if they could provide more gear?
The guards scurry off and quickly return with two machine guns, more ammo and 20 grenades. The armaments all come through the portal.
By this time, the outside door bursts inward and the party have to scramble. The portal power is turned off. Luckily there is a door on the far side of the H building that the slishers totally ignore. The group leave via that ignored door as they see a large crowd of slishers entering the door on the other side into the portal room.
The party scramble into their safe house nearby. Deflated. So close but yet so far away....
"The party have 2.5 days worth of food and this can be thinned via rationing." And cannibalism.
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