Geordi Hawking - Callous Rifleman
Kaktis - Super-Strong Cactus Mutant
The Dragon Slayers
Early next morning, the party headed out with about two dozen knights and the wizard Merle to a wide, four-lane street in bandit country. The journey was fairly short, quickly bringing them to a dense ruin of multi-story buildings, but they were uninterrupted though Geordi and Ben saw people watching them from the ruins. They came to a stop at a T intersection, about 1km away from the dragon's "mountain", which they could see was actually three buildings that had collapsed into each other, covered in rubble.
Merle started setting up the rocket launcher on a tri-pod, and the party were instructed to watch the buildings to the right, as the motorcycle-mounted knights couldn't maneouver at close quarters without dismounting. Once Merle gave the ready signal, Giles and a squad of four knights rode off towards the mountain to rile up the dragon, and shortly after they left, the bandits attacked.
Three floors above the party, they opened fire on Kaktis, who was standing in the Doom Buggy's turret mount, but their bullets just bounced off the armoured vehicle. Ben got out on the far side of the car, while Geordi run up to the building's front door to storm it with his shotgun, and Kaktis hosed down the area three floors up, only chipping away bits of building due to the sharp angle.
The bandits returned fire with pistols that could barely harm Kaktis through his armour, let alone the Buggy itself, and were picked off one by one by either machine gun fire from Kaktis, or pop-up shots from Ben. Combat had broken out all around them as well, but the knights seemed to have it covered. A trio of bandits ran out into the building's lobby, but were forced into cover after one was shredded into bits by Geordi's shotgun.
They shot back from cover, and one with a shotgun managed to take a chunk out of Geordi's torso despite the cover, causing him to run back into the Doom Buggy, only to take another bullet through the window before crouching in the fetal position in front of the seat. A pair of riflemen came into sight on the third floor; one waited for Ben to stick his head out, while the other took aim at Merle.
Ben popped up, heard the first rifleman's bullet bounce off of the Buggy's armoured plates, and fired off a shot at him, ignoring the other one that had aimed at the completely exposed Merle. Worst-case, Ben figured, Merle would die, and then somebody else would get to fire the rocket launcher at the dragon, and claim all the glory. Sure enough, a trio of well-placed shots sent Merle to the ground, motionless, just as the dragon came into view in the distance, chasing the knights on motorcycles.
With a quick yell at Kaktis to cover him, Ben ran out into the streets to take control of the rocket launcher, and the mutant laid down suppressing fire on the third floor of the building, killing one of the riflemen who dared stick his head out. The bandits in the building's lobby moved up, and took shots at Kaktis, but barely managed to hurt him, while those above died or cowered.
The dragon came close, and the rocket shot forth, impacting the great beast with an enormous explosion, shattering windows down the street and greatly wounding it. But the dragon was still alive, and flew towards Ben, letting forth a burst of flame that stopped just short of frying him, before he fired the second rocket and the dragon crowed out in pain and thundered to the street.
With the dragon and many of their comrades dead, the bandits scattered, and the knights let out a victory cry. Giles came over and thanked the party for their part, especially Ben, who had ultimately carried the day despite Merle's untimely demise. He invited the party to the great feast that was sure to begin once they returned, but they decided that they'd rather search the dragon's mountain immediately, before the bandits could take anything.
The Mountain
The climb up the mountain was long and difficult, with the loose rubble proving treacherous as Geordi almost lost a foot, but arrived at the top to find a giant bronze sculpture of the sun, likely from the top of one of the buildings that had collapsed, reflecting the sun's light down into the dragon's old nest. Inside, where it was quite warm, were three man-sized baby dragons. After discoving they were non-aggressive, the party decided to leave them alone, and got to scavenging the area around the nest.
They were able to access the upper floors of a hospital and some sort of high-tech lab, where they found some syringes of nanoboost and two sealed environment suits. They also found a set of three small radios in an apartment, but after 6 hours, decided to head back. On the way out, they came across a large group of people being led by an old man wearing the american flag as a toga, who introduced himself as Uncle Sam.
Kaktis was initially friendly, but was off-put by Sam's rudeness, so the party went on their way back down the mountain. This time, Geordi did break his ankle, and had to be carried the rest of the way by Kaktis, but they arrived at the (amazingly unstolen) car without further issue, and headed back to the palace where the victory feast was in full swing. Geordi slunk away to eat because he's a Loner, while Ben barely resisted literally stealing candy from a baby.
Giles and Kaktis discussed the purpose of their journey, and Giles informed him that the Safe Zone was to the south east, fairly close to where he had been born. His mother had told him that while the Safe Zone was probably great, many bandits had set up camp around it, to catch easy prey. Kaktis asked why the bandits wouldn't have taken the Safe Zone for themselves, and Giles opined that perhaps whatever kept the zone so safe would have kept them out. The next morning, the party got back on the road.
Intermission
The party did some scavenging, but only found a couple of shotgun shells and a can of Patch-Up Punch.
The Caves of Steel
Near nightfall, the party noticed a bonfire in the distance, in the middle of the road. Geordi broke out the binoculars to take a look, and reported that there were multiple people sitting around, and one older looking man giving a speech and holding a staff tipped with some kind of reflective metal. They drove up to talk, but were taken aback when the old man hailed them as "angels of the flesh", and exclaimed that they had surely been sent by Father now that the angels of steel were not helping them.
The party took a look around and noticed that the people gathered were emaciated, and that all had ritual scars all the way down their arms; even the children. After some discussion with the old man, who claimed that the steel angels had stopped bringing them food, and so they were starving, Kaktis tried to convince the people that he could show them how to hunt for food themselves, but they weren't having it, and asked the party to go into the cave to sort things out. Eventually, they relented.
After hiding the car, the party followed the villagers to the cave entrance: clearly a blast door that was fully open, leading to a pitch-black room which their flashlights revealed to hold a cargo elevator at the top of a 45° angle shaft that went down into darkness. None of the villagers would go into the cave, so the party went in without them, and Kaktis tried the cargo elevator. It shuddered, creaked, and suddenly dropped 3', but then stopped, so the party got off and started walking slowly down the long shaft.
About 10 minutes later, they arrived at the bottom, and found a large airlock door surrounded by a group of unpowered robots sitting next to charging cradles; some small with a spout to pour liquid, three forklifts, and one heavily-armoured sentry with an impressive-looking gun. Geordi and Ben went around the back of the cradles to take a look at the power cables, and found a shimmering red dog-sized beetle with a glowing rear, as well as broken electrical cables that were dangling into a nearby puddle.
The beetle shot out a burst of fire from its rear, which went dim, but didn't hit anyone, and was then cut into pieces by Kaktis' talons, covering him in gasoline. Geordi carefully removed the cables from the water, and opened the door, which emerged into a narrow airlock, with gas masks on a hatrack, several heavy coats and coveralls, and another two doors, one on each side. There were also several messages scrawled onto the metal walls and floor in chalk.
- A square box containing the words "Conduit here, DO NOT DRILL" on the ceiling
- "Rest in Peace Samantha Hamilton, beloved Mother and Wife, 04-25-1993 - 11-06-2035" on one wall
- "Seal broken here" followed by an arrow pointing at a section of the door where the seal was, indeed, broken
They tried the left, and found that it led to a long steel walkway suspended about 1' over a water cistern, but that the gantry had collapsed halfway across. As well, some kind of mud-like slime had burst through from one side, forcing the door at the far end open, and another loose electrical cable was dangling into the water. Rather than trying their luck with jumping across the gap, they headed back to the door on the right.
That door was harder to open, but Kaktis forced it easily enough, and opened to revealed a misty, ice-slicked chamber full of advanced computers and high-tech tools. Kaktis slipped heading across the room to the far door, which was covered in icicles, but managed to right himself quickly enough. He struggled to open the door, however, and his teeth started to chatter just as the door gave way, and he stepped through, noticing that the chill from the icy room didn't seem to follow.
Kaktis saw that the next room was flooded, with a few islands made as the floor had warped and deformed. Some sort of automated assembly line that seemed to produce blocks of pure metal was dormant, and all of the plastic and paint on the left side of the machines had been heavily corroded. Ben and Geordi headed over, careful not to slip, and Geordi told them all to get out because the flooded room was being bombarded with heavy radiation from the left.
The party ran back, though Geordi stopped to take a look at the equipment, and placed them as being used in the construction and programming of nanobots. A closer look saw that a small steel canister had been punctured, possibly by beetle jaws, which led him to suspect that the incredibly localized icy chill was actually because of nanobots.
They decided to jump across the gap in the electrified water cistern, and Ben went first with no issues, only for Geordi to fall just shy of the far side, getting only lightly shocked before crawling back onto the gantry. Ben investigated the mud with his knife, and observed that it was very sticky, but resolved to move through the opened doorway anyway, as there was only room for two people on that side of the walkway.
He made it through the mud, though it clung to his clothes and boots, and arrived to find a workspace, with several benches and sets of tools, a drill press, and a welding torch. A water pipe seemed to have burst in the ceiling, and a fine mist covered the far side of the room. Now that there was room for him on the walkway, Kaktis jumped, but slipped and landed in the water. Fortunately, he was also able to quickly crawl out, and was only barely shocked.
Ben noticed that the paint of tools in the mist were discoloured and pitted, so he tested the mist with his knife, which confirmed that it was actually some sort of acid. Geordi got stuck in the mud, so Kaktis picked him up and carried him through with no difficulty. After some discussion on how to get past the acid spray, it was decided that Kaktis would go back to the car, grab the environment suits, then Geordi would put one on and weld the pipe shut with the torch.
It wasn't easy, and took about half an hour, but eventually the leak was sealed, though the suit's seals around the face were starting to melt. After jiggling the door for a bit, Kaktis opened it to reveal a living space containing five beds, with an adult skeleton holding a book on the furthest one. There was also a kitchenette, and a computer in sleep mode, as well as two doors; one on the far end, and another on the right wall.
Geordi checked the book, and found that it was a journal written by whomever had built the bunker, and skimmed through it. The journal told the tale of a man who had built the bunker in the face of growing instability, and had made it inside with his children, but not his wife. The children adapted poorly to the confined spaces, but did well enough that the author did not worry until his health rapidly began to deteriorate, with symptoms that Geordi identified as severe radiation poisoning. It ended with him forcing his children to leave, and warning them never to return, once the radiation fields outside were low enough.
Kaktis got bored and forced the door on the right, to discover a rec room, with a pool table supporting 6 fire beetles, as well as a large, semi-translucent nest with several glowing shapes inside on a ruined couch. He slammed the door, and the party reconsidered their options while the beetles pointlessly scrabbled at the other side. Ben checked out the computer, and was presented with a screen that said "Enter Password". He typed in "Password", and was greeted with a chime and another menu which showed many design files, with titles such as "reactor_waste_system_V5" and "bunker_foundation".
Geordi took a look through a file on nanobots, but made slow progress due to Ben distracting him by calling him a nerd repeatedly. After reading it, a low-battery warning flashed up, and he figured he only had time to read two files, so he decided on the reactor and the robots. Kaktis checked for food in the kitchenette, but found that the only things that remained had been ruined by the beetles.
Once Geordi was done, they readied behind the door: Kaktis in front, Geordi behind and to the left, and Ben behind and to the right. The door swung open, and Kaktis ran in, directly into the blasts of 6 fire beetles; some missed, but he was still lit aflame. This turned out to not be that bad, however, as he charged forward and started cutting up the beetles regardless.
Geordi gunned down a bunch of beetles with his shotgun, and managed to empty his shotgun before taking third degree burns to the leg. Meanwhile; Ben used his plasma rifle, which caused the beetles to explode in a ball of flame, one of which even caused a chain reaction taking out another pair of beetles, all of which also badly burned Kaktis while covering him in yet more gasoline.
More beetles crawled from the nest and ineffectually grappled Kaktis' feet, but met only flaming death, until a slightly larger, winged beetle emerged, which they realized must be the queen. Kaktis ran it down while on fire, and tore it to shreds, only to be badly scorched when its larger gas sacs were torn. He then ran back to the sticky mud and rolled around in it to put out the flames, which worked, but also burned his skin and clothes; apparently the mud was also corrosive.
After a short rest, and some first aid, the party checked out the door to the right, which opened into a steel chamber bathed in a sickly green light, emanating from a hole in the wall which was surrounded by dead beetles, as well as another unlit nest. Geordi realized that the beetles had died from radiation poisoning, and they retreated back into the entertainment room, slightly more radioactive.
Notes:
I made the bandits require a Will roll to break cover while under suppressive fire, which is apparently not a rule in GURPS, but probably something I stole from Dark Heresy or Deathwatch.
Geordi doesn't have Search, so he missed out on a Stash.
For some reason we thought Kaktis needed to make Will rolls in order to move about while on fire. On the plus side, he passed most of them, and took very little damage.
The beetles' mandibles couldn't possibly hurt Kaktis through his boots!
No comments:
Post a Comment