MANE 9
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| Casanova |
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| Colleen |
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| Cookies |
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| Malady |
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| Mirrors |
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| Smoke |
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| Vudulady |
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| Waltzing Buffalo |
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| Ziggy |
Ponies of the Apocalypse
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| Grimme |
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| Hellstrome |
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| Raven |
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| Stone |
Friday, February 19, 2016
Meet the cast: MLP edition
So while looking through my saved files for the campaign documents I need to move forward with the campaign journal, I found the pictures of when I made ponified versions of the cast and the bad guys. I figured why not upload them.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Entry 23a: Spirits of the future's past
While I am on watch I hear a voice in my head speaking that spoke to me saying
"Nevada Smith, Patron Saint of Intrigue. Pleased to meet you, Saint Grey."
"and by the way, nice job at the research center...there is no bluff like a bluff on oneself, eh?"
We conversed a bit, and he tells me about the Templar, a group of warriors fighting the good fight against the who gain power from great spirits of the past (the saints). The Templar only help those considered worthy, which while it seems harsh, I agree with to some degree. It is not worth the life of a useful ally to save someone who will end up dying in a few days anyway, although if I can save someone without significant risk to myself and my allies I certainly will.
It would appear that being in close proximity to the time rift caused a small bit of the future to travel back and be able to interact with us (and in the hunting grounds time works differently), which led to Saint Grey visiting me. I have no doubt the others are having similar experiences to mine. It is also interesting to note that he implied I became a saint myself in the future.
He has also shown me some of the fighting techniques the Templar use in the future and I have begun to train in wielding both of my rifles in melee in addition to being able to fire both at the same time.
"Nevada Smith, Patron Saint of Intrigue. Pleased to meet you, Saint Grey."
"and by the way, nice job at the research center...there is no bluff like a bluff on oneself, eh?"
We conversed a bit, and he tells me about the Templar, a group of warriors fighting the good fight against the who gain power from great spirits of the past (the saints). The Templar only help those considered worthy, which while it seems harsh, I agree with to some degree. It is not worth the life of a useful ally to save someone who will end up dying in a few days anyway, although if I can save someone without significant risk to myself and my allies I certainly will.
It would appear that being in close proximity to the time rift caused a small bit of the future to travel back and be able to interact with us (and in the hunting grounds time works differently), which led to Saint Grey visiting me. I have no doubt the others are having similar experiences to mine. It is also interesting to note that he implied I became a saint myself in the future.
He has also shown me some of the fighting techniques the Templar use in the future and I have begun to train in wielding both of my rifles in melee in addition to being able to fire both at the same time.
Entry 22a: I Remember everything, now I can feel your pain.
I ... have regained my memories using the device, everything I am is a lie and perhaps I was the monster. I suppose I knew that already, but I chose to ignore it before. I worked in the agency that much is obvious. I was a scientist working on advance technology, but I was also one of their best agents, I felt no pity for the monsters I had to destroy for they felt none for us.
So is it any wonder that upon discovering a powerful bomb the size of a suitcase that could destroy our enemies without having to risk the lives of valuable agents I would jump on the opportunity to study and test it. When I was ordered to test them on a town completely overrun with cultist I smiled at the though that I could stop them before they killed hundreds of innocents and dozens of agents while trying to root them out.
When I watched from a distance after setting them off I saw reality break as fire consumed the town, I admit a certain level of satisfaction in the sight and my ability to not react to it at the time. After the most dangerous of the effects wore out I rushed into the town to survey the effects of the bomb to report to my superiors and to study/improve them.
Wandering through the town, empty and on fire I began to have my first doubts, what if this fell into the wrong hands, the thought of these being used on the innocent BY the cultists was horrifying and hellish. Then I thought about it and wondered what would happen if there were well entrenched cultists, but someone might use it to destroy them and the surrounding innocents just to make it easier on the agents. I heard a scream and saw a child, I rushed over to find two children, unconcious and injured from the blast, it's a miracle they survived at all. Given hindsight this was probably Colleen and Cookies. Something practically compelled me to pick them up and drag them to a nearby hospital and created false records so the agency wouldn't find out where they were from without a deep search and by then they would have bigger problems.
At this point in my memories I was furious, this went beyond bad Intel, this was a deliberate setup to test a super-weapon on a town which at this point I wouldn't be surprised if it had NO cultists at all. Upon returning I put on a mask of calm, perfected by years of practice and set my plans in motion to destroy all records of the Copperfield bombs and kill everyone who knew about them by setting up massive amounts of explosives in my lab, then wipe my own memory so even that would be denied to the agency. In hindsight, it was very likely something was influencing my emotions, but I am glad they did, or who knows how much more damage could have been caused.
I also remember I was the right hand woman of Ghost aka the kindred spirit sending me the messages. Apparently ghost seems to be everywhere in the Agency and knows just about everything in the agency
For obvious reasons I will stop attempting to reverse engineer the Copperfield rounds I had salvaged from Jackie's spend shots and stop taunting smoke about his part in the Copperfield bombs. That would seem immensely hypocritical at this point.
Luckily Ziggy was more interested in learning a new language and didn't look to closely or he might have noticed that I was crying after using the interface. And luckily the chamber was flooded so I could splash my face and claim I just got wet to throw off the rest of the troupe.
My ... family. I can't tell them, they need me to protect them, but if they knew they would kill me or doubt me in a moment where I could have saved them.
Especially Colleen and Smoke, while they are both pacifists, I could not bear to see the betrayal in their eyes if I told them. No, it's better to keep this to myself and try to make it up to them, knowing nothing I could ever do will redeem my soul for my actions.
Also a tragic thought is that despite saving many of the Aliens (known as crossbreeds in the future apparently), it is incredibly unlikely that any of them will survive without their carefully maintained environments and systems and with a large portion of their military destroyed. And that is assuming Stone doesn't slaughter them in a rage/as collateral damage of his fight.
Entry 22b: Bull Moose's letter
A message from the ringmaster transcribed into the journal
Troopers-
Sorry, guys. Turns out the Harbinger of Death can really do a number
on a fellow's entrance. I had planned to set everything straight, but once
more, the universe has intervened, and the show must go on regardless. What may
very well be my last words to you have to be Etched in my own goddamn blood
onto alien hick armor.
Ah well. If the universe accommodated our desires, it wouldn't need
people like us.
That brings me to our current predicament. See, right now, I've got to
get back into the Hunting Grounds and stabilize the portal; if we lose that
link, neither Jackie nor I can get back, and more importantly the Law Dogs
never get the portal for a power source, which is even more damaging than Stone
turning the whole place into a Deadland.
That, unfortunately, leaves you guys to carry out the work I was
planning on doing. Right now, the Agency and the Rangers are at each other's
throats, which is a huge drain on the two organizations best placed to keep the
Reckoners and their servants down. As long as they're busy playing Spy vs. Spy,
good men and women are dying out there and saving the fearmongers the trouble.
I was well on my way to stopping that in 1876, but there's rather a lot of rock
in the way of my counterpart--besides which, I was a bit of a wild child just
after I died. Better for you to do this, believe me. Thankfully, we've got an
opportunity like none other...I can't believe I'm calling Gomorrah an
opportunity.
Look...the town of Gomorrah isn't anymore. It's off by the Maze; check
a damn map. It wasn't much of a town when it was there, and it just got a hell
of a lot worse, what with the manitou Knicknevin materializing and running
amok. He had help, but the more immediately important issue is that both the
Agency's spooks and the Rangers lost...many .Josef Rocescu, Mr. Slate, Johnny
Quaid, Boom-Boom O’ Bannon, The Pennsylvania Kid, Melissa Thomas, Zeke
Beauchamp, Tombstone Frank, Danny Hamilton, Bartholomew Prospectus… I liked the
Kid, dammit. Also, and you may want to break this to Waltzing gently...Joeseph
Eyes-Like-Rain is dead. Tread gently around the Sioux.
Perhaps this warning would've been better given BEFORE you got miles
deep into the Sioux Nations and right next to the huge issue they have in
Deadwood. That would've made sense.
Anyway, I built the Law Dogs from the ground up after the Agents and
Rangers flailed senselessly against the remnants in Gomorrah. You all can and
must do better. I know Capt. Katie Karl, the Ranger in charge. She wants this
stupid cold war to end, and now she's got a reason; she just can't see it yet.
Find her a case for going to the Agency with her head held high, get the
Agency's man Cort Williams on board, and your work'll be half done. Do me a
favor and call it the Law Dogs. I had a club named that as a boy; it'd help me
find it once I come back to myself. Guess you could call it the Family,
too--you all look like you're getting along well enough like one.
In a larger sense, well, everything's gone to shit, and I'm fairly
sure you're the only ones who can get it even partially back. You know about
the Reckoners, of course, and you know they work through fear. Problem is,
we've got way too many guns out there, and if the bogeyman disappears quietly
as he came, everyone's expecting him back, if you take my meaning. We need
people out there looking out for the little guys, patching up the world on a
local level as well. As saccharine as it sounds, we need heroes better than the
stone cold badasses we deserve, and that means you
goofballs, with all your surprising capabilities. You guys carry some mighty
big sticks; just make sure you speak softly, too.
As for me, I've got a big glowing exit cue right behind me. There's a
lot of work to be done shooing the vermin away from the portal and reconnecting
it, and I've got Jackie to find and the Heart to get installed. Keep that
staff; when I've got the portal back up and running, it should reenergize the
collectors and start it pinging several dozen damage indicators. Once it gets
going, we'll need you uptime, but for now, you've got your, or rather my, work
cut out for you. Get Gomorrah's secret agencies working together, and I'll bet
you'll figure out the rest; I did, and you're much sharper than I. Good luck;
I've got a show to give, and the show, no matter when, must go on.
- Theodore Roosevelt
Entry 22: Between a Stone and a Hard Place
Then as we were planning our assault, all hell broke loose.
Stone showed up behind us and shot Ziggy, which also alerted the aliens to our presence. Jackie ran into the room, but she cant fire her spirit fucker rounds near the rift and so can't break through the glass encasing it. This prompted Smoke to curse her out saying "Take my gun you dumb bitch" (Which considering the ... tension between them was rather reasonable of him) and she began to shoot the glass. At this point Coleen was terrified so I ran to protect her while shooting at stone.
When the glass was broken, almost all noise was drowned out by screams of the damned and a vicious wind. Smoke pulls out another bomb causing the aliens to attempt to flee, although I am still not sure which of the catastrophes was the true cause of that. The high tech priest zapped Ziggy with his gun, nearly flooring him, but well it didn't hit his head. Cassanova grabs colleen and takes her away from stone while I shot stone with my ray guns, but moments before they could impact he reached out and CAUGHT the energy. Smoke gives Jackie the stone and tells her to run through the portal to get rid of it.
When she did so, stone became furious emitting waves of hatred that were practically immobilizing. To this day I still recall his words "I'm gonna kill all of you." with a cold fury that dwarfed the hatred rolling off of him. And none of us doubted we would die that day, but we wouldn't make it easy for him. Suddenly the metal plate blocking the portal flew off and slammed into Stone and a figure emerged from the portal saying revealing none other than the ringmaster himself.
"It takes more than that to kill Bull Moose*!" he proclaimed before stone began to fire at him with his guns that we later discovered could "hit anything and everything even if it doesn't exist" although since the ringmaster was able to dodge them all I assume that means it can hit, but does not automatically hit. Then the ringmaster began to fire what appeared to be a laser chain gun shooting glowing green rays (which he called a spirit broom).
Apparently the ringmaster was able to survive the explosion (as was stone), but it took him some time to crawl out of the Grand Canyon. The ringmaster tells us to "Get out, get to Gemora" and that we were the ones who start the organization Jackie is a part of that combines the agency and the Texas rangers (We clearly had a lot of work to do on that though). We will need to flee down through the maze and into the caverns since we can no longer escape through the roof. Kacie puts the heart in a machine while stone grabs Ziggy by the throat (at a distance) and heals back up while growing larger.
Stone and the ringmaster begin trying to kill each other in full, which we take as our cue to leave. Smoke takes the high tech-priest's staff and we blow a hole in the side wall to my strenuous objections(4 powercells detonated) to escape the fight by going to the floor below.
The tower began flooding from the water being pumped through the walls now having an outlet and the ramp down is collapsed, we went down a hole where there is less flooding and past the training maze into the cavers where we encountered 4 alien creatures (different ones that were more insectoid with strange bodies, biting and stinging). We fight them off, but they were vicious and stealthy so we were limping out of the tower. Once we are outside we learn that the staff Smoke claimed allowed the user to teleport to various places in the tower. so we use it to teleport to free the child, loot the armory and the hospital and rescue the trapped aliens (as well as giving them supplies). It was then that I hooked myself up to the main interface, while aware of the risk since that level was close to flooding (on a delicate electric chair inerface), but I needed to know what my dreams wanted me to remember.
It turns out. I remembered ... everything ... I will write more on that when I am more composed, it is too much to deal with at the moment.
The interface also gave me the ability to see every inch of the tower and fully granted me the knowledge of the Alien language.
Ziggy also wanted the knowledge of the language so insisted despite the rising water level that he be able to use the machine, and managed to do so in time to escape before the water began damage the interface.
After we got everything we needed from the tower we began to fly back to the town using the flight belts we ... salvaged.
*It would appear that Teddy Roosevelt is also a harrowed and was in disguise as the ringmaster setting events (us) in motion to stop stone,
Stone showed up behind us and shot Ziggy, which also alerted the aliens to our presence. Jackie ran into the room, but she cant fire her spirit fucker rounds near the rift and so can't break through the glass encasing it. This prompted Smoke to curse her out saying "Take my gun you dumb bitch" (Which considering the ... tension between them was rather reasonable of him) and she began to shoot the glass. At this point Coleen was terrified so I ran to protect her while shooting at stone.
When the glass was broken, almost all noise was drowned out by screams of the damned and a vicious wind. Smoke pulls out another bomb causing the aliens to attempt to flee, although I am still not sure which of the catastrophes was the true cause of that. The high tech priest zapped Ziggy with his gun, nearly flooring him, but well it didn't hit his head. Cassanova grabs colleen and takes her away from stone while I shot stone with my ray guns, but moments before they could impact he reached out and CAUGHT the energy. Smoke gives Jackie the stone and tells her to run through the portal to get rid of it.
When she did so, stone became furious emitting waves of hatred that were practically immobilizing. To this day I still recall his words "I'm gonna kill all of you." with a cold fury that dwarfed the hatred rolling off of him. And none of us doubted we would die that day, but we wouldn't make it easy for him. Suddenly the metal plate blocking the portal flew off and slammed into Stone and a figure emerged from the portal saying revealing none other than the ringmaster himself.
"It takes more than that to kill Bull Moose*!" he proclaimed before stone began to fire at him with his guns that we later discovered could "hit anything and everything even if it doesn't exist" although since the ringmaster was able to dodge them all I assume that means it can hit, but does not automatically hit. Then the ringmaster began to fire what appeared to be a laser chain gun shooting glowing green rays (which he called a spirit broom).
Apparently the ringmaster was able to survive the explosion (as was stone), but it took him some time to crawl out of the Grand Canyon. The ringmaster tells us to "Get out, get to Gemora" and that we were the ones who start the organization Jackie is a part of that combines the agency and the Texas rangers (We clearly had a lot of work to do on that though). We will need to flee down through the maze and into the caverns since we can no longer escape through the roof. Kacie puts the heart in a machine while stone grabs Ziggy by the throat (at a distance) and heals back up while growing larger.
Stone and the ringmaster begin trying to kill each other in full, which we take as our cue to leave. Smoke takes the high tech-priest's staff and we blow a hole in the side wall to my strenuous objections(4 powercells detonated) to escape the fight by going to the floor below.
The tower began flooding from the water being pumped through the walls now having an outlet and the ramp down is collapsed, we went down a hole where there is less flooding and past the training maze into the cavers where we encountered 4 alien creatures (different ones that were more insectoid with strange bodies, biting and stinging). We fight them off, but they were vicious and stealthy so we were limping out of the tower. Once we are outside we learn that the staff Smoke claimed allowed the user to teleport to various places in the tower. so we use it to teleport to free the child, loot the armory and the hospital and rescue the trapped aliens (as well as giving them supplies). It was then that I hooked myself up to the main interface, while aware of the risk since that level was close to flooding (on a delicate electric chair inerface), but I needed to know what my dreams wanted me to remember.
It turns out. I remembered ... everything ... I will write more on that when I am more composed, it is too much to deal with at the moment.
The interface also gave me the ability to see every inch of the tower and fully granted me the knowledge of the Alien language.
Ziggy also wanted the knowledge of the language so insisted despite the rising water level that he be able to use the machine, and managed to do so in time to escape before the water began damage the interface.
After we got everything we needed from the tower we began to fly back to the town using the flight belts we ... salvaged.
*It would appear that Teddy Roosevelt is also a harrowed and was in disguise as the ringmaster setting events (us) in motion to stop stone,
Entry 21: Tech heresy
After we dealt with the child, we went down a ramp that went down about 50-60ft, and as we went down we began to hear a constant low chatter of echoes. AS we got to the bottom, with no warning an alarm began blaring through the corridors and stopped just as suddenly half a minute or so later (we figured it must not actually be an alarm, but possibly a dinner bell or summons of some sort). With that worry put to rest (mostly), Colleen began to scout ahead as we descended further.
While Colleen is impressively good at going unnoticed, we were not prepared for a wall to drop behind us and trap us with 4 of the Creatures that were farming above, although these had armor, helmets, guns and goggles. Apparently Ziggy's attempts to communicate with the kid were quite productive, as he tried to talk the creatures out of attacking us (the conversation loosely translated to "Not Enemy" "Cattle, Xenomorph, Shit" "Not Cattle" "No. Targets!" before they began shooting). Colleen and Smoke decided that it would be a good time to get into an insult fight. Apparently these creatures have guns that shoot lasers, and after a brutal firefight with them, where they were shouting about some prophecy and doing their very best to kill us with their lasers, we defeated them and took their guns and make Colleen some makeshift armor out of scraps of theirs. Ziggy also cut their throats to make sure they were dead.
The guns are covered in the creatures writing, which I have begun to crack, due to having a decent amount of samples from our exploring and what we have taken from them, and a bit of luck. Apparently the guns have some sort of instructions for how to use them on them.
We went back up the ramp and reached the floor above the strange maze, this floor seemed warmer than the others, which since the caves seemed to be at a constant temperature before this likely meant this floor had something important on it.
Also it's at this point we learned that Smoke and Malady are not the best at sneaking, and what the Actual alarm sounded like, causing many more of the strange aliens to show up with guns and vests covered in their strange heiroglyphics. It did not look good for us. Colleen began to sing a hymn to try and calm them down. Interestingly these Aliens appeared less hostile, and one of them appears enthusiastic to see us (and has a device that can translate our languages, fascinating). I was equally if not more happy to meet a fellow scientist from an alien race willing to trade knowledge with us, so we agree to follow him to his lab. When we got there there was screaming coming from it from a human miner being experimented on, when questioned the aliens seemed to not understand our ... concerns since they were given these people by Kang and therefore there was no problem with it, they also appeared to not know what Morphine or opium was so the humans being experimented on had no painkillers.
I talked to him for a bit longer (It's not the most horrifying thing I have seen, so I can keep up the facade in order to get more information) and he tells us there is a Reliquary across from his lab in passing. At this point Jackie has run out of patience and shouts at the war pleader, who tries to stun her, but she then unloads several bullets in his face, while Ziggy slashes the tube keeping the tormented miner alive to put him out of his misery. We get into a vicious fire fight with the 4 remaining tech priests which Smoke stunned with one of his working flash grenades while Casanova keeps them from getting to the heavy hitters.
I really wanted to salvage some of their tech, such as a belt that allows incredibly accelerated healing when used on someone and the power cells which are used in nearly all the alien technology. Unfortunately, Ziggy begins to attack Waltzing with his arm wreathed in supernatural flame shouting "Enjoy, Magic Man!" and Immolating Malady. I used a (broken apparently) ray gun to attempt to disable the manitou by shooting his body, but it wasn't enough and he pulls out the HoD (Not sure how he got it, the demon can't be trusted) and shouts "YOU WANT THIS STONE!" to our horror.
We managed to finish him off and kill the monster and a tech-priest. Apparently there is a medicine ball that when powered acts as an medkit, at this point Ziggy who is back in control is demanding to be healed although we did not have the time to do so, and to be honest, some of us didn't want to until we were safe (Smoke is now carrying the HoD, since we all know he wouldn't give in to stone for anything). Smoke throws an alien powercell into the hallway filling up with alien soldiers, which explodes catastrophically anihilating the enemy and damaging some of the labs, which started glowing green, purple and light blue. Ziggy grabs and uses the medball and we rush to the reliquary, when we open it the amount of alien tech in it made me giddy. "This is the jackpot!" I said, almost losing sight of the actual goal as I saw the room with rack after rack of the alien power cells, rayguns, vests, belts and an odd chair with a helmet at the far end of it.
At this point several more tech-priests are rushing to the scene to take back their sacred vault, and while smoke began threatening to throw his "patented" "Death grenades" to get them to back off. Meanwhile Ziggy is stuffing as much into the strange Boxlike container he found in the room. Smoke tried to shoot one of the aliens but ends up hitting Casanova. Meanwhile I am looking at the chair, which has a label in their strange language that reads "Main Interface Terminal", but I was needed in the fight so I left investigating that until later.
After fighting off the tech priests we rush to the portal room, which has 10 tech-priests and 10 alien guards all of whom had ray guns. Smoke began to open the door and found that there is a steel plate blocking a laser coming out of the rift. There is also an alien wearing red and white fabric who we concluded was the tech priest's leaders. Ziggy as usual wanted to burn things and pull out a vial of nitroglycerin, which was promptly shot down since throwing highly volatile explosives into a room with alien tech and an unstable rift was a horrifying idea.
While Colleen is impressively good at going unnoticed, we were not prepared for a wall to drop behind us and trap us with 4 of the Creatures that were farming above, although these had armor, helmets, guns and goggles. Apparently Ziggy's attempts to communicate with the kid were quite productive, as he tried to talk the creatures out of attacking us (the conversation loosely translated to "Not Enemy" "Cattle, Xenomorph, Shit" "Not Cattle" "No. Targets!" before they began shooting). Colleen and Smoke decided that it would be a good time to get into an insult fight. Apparently these creatures have guns that shoot lasers, and after a brutal firefight with them, where they were shouting about some prophecy and doing their very best to kill us with their lasers, we defeated them and took their guns and make Colleen some makeshift armor out of scraps of theirs. Ziggy also cut their throats to make sure they were dead.
The guns are covered in the creatures writing, which I have begun to crack, due to having a decent amount of samples from our exploring and what we have taken from them, and a bit of luck. Apparently the guns have some sort of instructions for how to use them on them.
We went back up the ramp and reached the floor above the strange maze, this floor seemed warmer than the others, which since the caves seemed to be at a constant temperature before this likely meant this floor had something important on it.
Also it's at this point we learned that Smoke and Malady are not the best at sneaking, and what the Actual alarm sounded like, causing many more of the strange aliens to show up with guns and vests covered in their strange heiroglyphics. It did not look good for us. Colleen began to sing a hymn to try and calm them down. Interestingly these Aliens appeared less hostile, and one of them appears enthusiastic to see us (and has a device that can translate our languages, fascinating). I was equally if not more happy to meet a fellow scientist from an alien race willing to trade knowledge with us, so we agree to follow him to his lab. When we got there there was screaming coming from it from a human miner being experimented on, when questioned the aliens seemed to not understand our ... concerns since they were given these people by Kang and therefore there was no problem with it, they also appeared to not know what Morphine or opium was so the humans being experimented on had no painkillers.
I talked to him for a bit longer (It's not the most horrifying thing I have seen, so I can keep up the facade in order to get more information) and he tells us there is a Reliquary across from his lab in passing. At this point Jackie has run out of patience and shouts at the war pleader, who tries to stun her, but she then unloads several bullets in his face, while Ziggy slashes the tube keeping the tormented miner alive to put him out of his misery. We get into a vicious fire fight with the 4 remaining tech priests which Smoke stunned with one of his working flash grenades while Casanova keeps them from getting to the heavy hitters.
I really wanted to salvage some of their tech, such as a belt that allows incredibly accelerated healing when used on someone and the power cells which are used in nearly all the alien technology. Unfortunately, Ziggy begins to attack Waltzing with his arm wreathed in supernatural flame shouting "Enjoy, Magic Man!" and Immolating Malady. I used a (broken apparently) ray gun to attempt to disable the manitou by shooting his body, but it wasn't enough and he pulls out the HoD (Not sure how he got it, the demon can't be trusted) and shouts "YOU WANT THIS STONE!" to our horror.
We managed to finish him off and kill the monster and a tech-priest. Apparently there is a medicine ball that when powered acts as an medkit, at this point Ziggy who is back in control is demanding to be healed although we did not have the time to do so, and to be honest, some of us didn't want to until we were safe (Smoke is now carrying the HoD, since we all know he wouldn't give in to stone for anything). Smoke throws an alien powercell into the hallway filling up with alien soldiers, which explodes catastrophically anihilating the enemy and damaging some of the labs, which started glowing green, purple and light blue. Ziggy grabs and uses the medball and we rush to the reliquary, when we open it the amount of alien tech in it made me giddy. "This is the jackpot!" I said, almost losing sight of the actual goal as I saw the room with rack after rack of the alien power cells, rayguns, vests, belts and an odd chair with a helmet at the far end of it.
At this point several more tech-priests are rushing to the scene to take back their sacred vault, and while smoke began threatening to throw his "patented" "Death grenades" to get them to back off. Meanwhile Ziggy is stuffing as much into the strange Boxlike container he found in the room. Smoke tried to shoot one of the aliens but ends up hitting Casanova. Meanwhile I am looking at the chair, which has a label in their strange language that reads "Main Interface Terminal", but I was needed in the fight so I left investigating that until later.
After fighting off the tech priests we rush to the portal room, which has 10 tech-priests and 10 alien guards all of whom had ray guns. Smoke began to open the door and found that there is a steel plate blocking a laser coming out of the rift. There is also an alien wearing red and white fabric who we concluded was the tech priest's leaders. Ziggy as usual wanted to burn things and pull out a vial of nitroglycerin, which was promptly shot down since throwing highly volatile explosives into a room with alien tech and an unstable rift was a horrifying idea.
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Entry 20: First Contact
As we began to fly to the top of the tower, we spotted what looked like a military base that most likely belonged to Kang, the local Crime lord (member of the Triad) of the area who was working on building a railroad through the area. While Eric was navigating away from that we were attacked by huge Devil bats that appeared to be a monstrous combination of a bat and a huge shark.
They went directly for the ropes keeping the passenger basket attached to the plane itself, forcing Eric to angle us to at least crash into the top of the tower. I braced myself against the basket and managed to take out 2 of them with my rifles, while Ziggy attacked them with a stream of sparks. Unfortunately that left two of them and they grabbed onto Vudulady and myself (causing me to drop one of my rifles) and began flying upwards. I shot the Bat holding Vudulady and Malady and Casanova shot the one carrying me, although this led to us falling. Ziggy heroically jumped out of the basket and onto the roof to catch Vudulady, while Waltzing Buffalo turned into an albatross to catch me.
After we fixed up our wound we saw a devil bat nest with 2 young devil bats in it, which we quickly eliminated before they called in more devil bats. In the middle of the nest was a bizzare and freaky skeleton, and on its arm was a metal cage with claws and a cable that reached it's back, we also found a hand torch, which would glow if held. Mal decided to put the metal cage onto his arm, and it quickly bonded with his skin and the cable impaled his back. After Waltzing healed his injuries Mal found he could extend or retract the metal claws and it enhanced his strength. When Jackie saw the arm cage and the hand torch she commented that it was far beyond the technology of her time, which was distressing.
We looked for a way into the tower and found an air vent hidden behind some bushes that were moving weirdly. The vent extended for nearly 100ft before we reached the bottom which had a stone path leading further into the tower. When we entered the tunnel we were attacked by flying manta rays, but as if that weren't weird enough, they exploded when they were shot (possibly due to using an explosive gas to allow them to 'fly'). Eventually the tunnel ended and opened up into a well illuminated room, with very well groomed plant life in neat ordered rows, the garden was being tended to by creatures that resembled a combination of pig, rhino and monkey, who were probably angry and shocked by our intrusion (although it was hard to read their facial cues). There were also foot long worms flipping through the dirt, and quite a few large wasps flying around.
Ziggy tried to convince them we weren't hostile, while I prepared for combat and braced myself against a tree to reduce the recoil of using both rifles. After a bit of attempting to communicate with the creatures becoming increasingly Smoke fired one of his newest inventions (flash rounds), however like many of Smoke's inventions it malfunctioned and instead of blinding the creatures it exploded and incinerated several of them, causing the worms to immediately begin eating the corpses. I took this as a cue to open fire, and killed two of them, and in response they hit me with a strange weapon (a staff with two ends crackling with energy) which felt like being hit by a sledgehammer attached to a live wire. Lucky for me Waltzing used his healing magic to save me from becoming worm food. The creatures then attacked us again, and I was knocked out again (They didn't seem to want to let me shoot my rifles at them). Casanova protected me when I was down, and the rest of the creatures were killed, and then the wasps began attacking, although they were taken care of with smoke (and fire).
After I regained consciousness we examined their weapons, which we named 'Stun' Sticks, and found that they were powered by strange batteries, with a dial on each side that had 6 symbols which were presumably the amount of power that was being used to 'Stun'. And another button, that we found was what switched the stun sticks from stun to lethal. The batteries themselves have 30 different symbols on them (one of which was glowing slightly), which we speculated was probably how much charge was left in them.
After was finished experimenting with the stun sticks we heard muffled sound similar to the creatures from the far side of the room. Ziggy investigated the sound, in the hopes that he could still try to gain access diplomatically. The noises led to a room with chemicals tanks, sewage and other gardening equipment. Ziggy found a small child like version of the creatures we fought in the garden. Ziggy tried to calm it down and communicate with it, while I used the supplies to make a torch for us. After a bit of calming him down, and when we started to discuss what to do with the kid, it began catching on and glanced at Jackie and I and then at the ropes (I suspect he may have be a bit afraid of us). So we tied him up and hid him, figuring someone should find them when they investigated the farm.
They went directly for the ropes keeping the passenger basket attached to the plane itself, forcing Eric to angle us to at least crash into the top of the tower. I braced myself against the basket and managed to take out 2 of them with my rifles, while Ziggy attacked them with a stream of sparks. Unfortunately that left two of them and they grabbed onto Vudulady and myself (causing me to drop one of my rifles) and began flying upwards. I shot the Bat holding Vudulady and Malady and Casanova shot the one carrying me, although this led to us falling. Ziggy heroically jumped out of the basket and onto the roof to catch Vudulady, while Waltzing Buffalo turned into an albatross to catch me.
After we fixed up our wound we saw a devil bat nest with 2 young devil bats in it, which we quickly eliminated before they called in more devil bats. In the middle of the nest was a bizzare and freaky skeleton, and on its arm was a metal cage with claws and a cable that reached it's back, we also found a hand torch, which would glow if held. Mal decided to put the metal cage onto his arm, and it quickly bonded with his skin and the cable impaled his back. After Waltzing healed his injuries Mal found he could extend or retract the metal claws and it enhanced his strength. When Jackie saw the arm cage and the hand torch she commented that it was far beyond the technology of her time, which was distressing.
We looked for a way into the tower and found an air vent hidden behind some bushes that were moving weirdly. The vent extended for nearly 100ft before we reached the bottom which had a stone path leading further into the tower. When we entered the tunnel we were attacked by flying manta rays, but as if that weren't weird enough, they exploded when they were shot (possibly due to using an explosive gas to allow them to 'fly'). Eventually the tunnel ended and opened up into a well illuminated room, with very well groomed plant life in neat ordered rows, the garden was being tended to by creatures that resembled a combination of pig, rhino and monkey, who were probably angry and shocked by our intrusion (although it was hard to read their facial cues). There were also foot long worms flipping through the dirt, and quite a few large wasps flying around.
Ziggy tried to convince them we weren't hostile, while I prepared for combat and braced myself against a tree to reduce the recoil of using both rifles. After a bit of attempting to communicate with the creatures becoming increasingly Smoke fired one of his newest inventions (flash rounds), however like many of Smoke's inventions it malfunctioned and instead of blinding the creatures it exploded and incinerated several of them, causing the worms to immediately begin eating the corpses. I took this as a cue to open fire, and killed two of them, and in response they hit me with a strange weapon (a staff with two ends crackling with energy) which felt like being hit by a sledgehammer attached to a live wire. Lucky for me Waltzing used his healing magic to save me from becoming worm food. The creatures then attacked us again, and I was knocked out again (They didn't seem to want to let me shoot my rifles at them). Casanova protected me when I was down, and the rest of the creatures were killed, and then the wasps began attacking, although they were taken care of with smoke (and fire).
After I regained consciousness we examined their weapons, which we named 'Stun' Sticks, and found that they were powered by strange batteries, with a dial on each side that had 6 symbols which were presumably the amount of power that was being used to 'Stun'. And another button, that we found was what switched the stun sticks from stun to lethal. The batteries themselves have 30 different symbols on them (one of which was glowing slightly), which we speculated was probably how much charge was left in them.
After was finished experimenting with the stun sticks we heard muffled sound similar to the creatures from the far side of the room. Ziggy investigated the sound, in the hopes that he could still try to gain access diplomatically. The noises led to a room with chemicals tanks, sewage and other gardening equipment. Ziggy found a small child like version of the creatures we fought in the garden. Ziggy tried to calm it down and communicate with it, while I used the supplies to make a torch for us. After a bit of calming him down, and when we started to discuss what to do with the kid, it began catching on and glanced at Jackie and I and then at the ropes (I suspect he may have be a bit afraid of us). So we tied him up and hid him, figuring someone should find them when they investigated the farm.
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