Act 1: The Ship
All players are in the main lounge of the Imperiallines TJ transport ship. They have just witnessed the escape of Sebastian Gailbreath from his human prison. It is pitch black.
Wil locates an emergency supply kit, containing a cold light lantern. He uses it to illuminate the lounge area. The beam reveals the massive devastation in the lounge area. There are dead mercenaries and Vargr everywhere, not to mention a great deal of blood.
MARCUS: “Maybe we should go to the bridge.”
The group picks their way over bodies and Vargr flambe’ chunks to reach the bridge. All power is off here as well.
MEEHO: “Where are we? check out the window”.
MARCUS: “Wherever we are, it’s awful dark…not even any stars”.
ENISE: “Isn’t there even any battery power?”
BEN: “The explosion must have wiped out the control circuits in this section of the ship. We’ll have to get down to engineering to rig battery power back up.”
MARCUS: “Okay, but let’s all stick together.”
With that, our intrepid heroes walk en-masse toward the rear of the ship. They reach a point about midway through the galley and encounter a large stone wall.
WIL: “Hey! that doesn’t belong there! I disbelieve the wall”.
ROCK WALL: remains in place
MARCUS: “Ah Ha! this is some sort of Zhodani trick!” He switches on the Psionic shield built into his combat environment suit.”
ROCK WALL: stubbornly remains in place
MARCUS: “My suit must not be working either…I go get the D.O.D. and try that.”
The D.O.D. is broken, and fails to work at all.
MEEHO: “Is the wall hollow?”
ROCK WALL: *Thud* *Thud* – a very solid sound.
THANN: “Good job Commander”.
MARCUS: “Hey, wait a minute, I’m not the one who ordered the ship to land! We’ve probably misjumped.”
The next several minutes are spent searching the upper and lower decks of the ship for any sign of exit. The ship appears to be buried in some sort of cave. The entire rear end of the ship is lost in a wall of rock, and the very front of the ship is lost as well. Unfortunately, this means that they have no access to any of the normal hatches or ports on the ship. While searching the lower deck fuel tank (which is empty), they notice a strange pattern on the deck. It appears as if the metal of the hull has been heated to a very high temperature in a large circle that extends beyond the port and starboard bulkheads. There are four clearly visible “flash points” on the deck. (Actually, there are six points, equally spaced along an imaginary circle…it is just that two of them appear outside the hull of the ship.) The burn marks show no sign of heat or other radiation. They continue their survey of the ship. Eventually they start to hear scratching sounds along the outside of the hull. Getting to a window and shining the flashlights outside they see gargoyle-like creatures skittering along the hull. They seem to be fleeing the light.
MEEHO: “Gargoyles!”
MARCUS: “Don’t be silly. Those are obviously Droyne. “
Enise notices a strange glowing ball of light that enters the starboard side of the ship.
ENISE: “Hey guys, check out this light!”
The ball of light traces its way along the charred deck, exits at the port side, then moments later reenters the port side and traces the other char mark back toward starboard. The ball of light appears to be tracing the imaginary circle defined by the flash points.
Moments later, they hear the sound of something banging against the hull. There are no viewports facing in the right direction so they are unable to tell what is happening, but whatever it is, appears to be coming from the lower fuel tank starboard side. Now there are two balls of light progressing along the circular track.
Even though something outside is trying to get through the hull with a battering ram, they are confident that they have time to play with the balls of light, so they spend several minutes trying to reflect and/or deflect them with a mirror. Nothing they do seems to effect them. Soon there are three balls. They are spread out so that they are equally distributed around the circle. As the balls travel along the track, a faint whine can be heard emanating from them.
The onslaught from outside is starting to damage the hull itself. It can bee seen buckling as the battering ram relentlessly pounds on the outside of the ship. Apparently they have managed to breach the outer hull, and are now working directly on the inner hull. There are now four balls of light, and the accompanying whine is growing louder. All party members are assembling in the fuel tank area, preparing to defend against boarders.
The battering ram finally makes its appearance. The hull of the ship has split open enough for the end of the ram to poke into the fuel tank. It backs out of the hole. Wil runs up to the hole to try to see outside. Wil looks out the hole and sees the business end of the battering ram being run straight at his face as the creatures wielding it ram it once more into the breach. Wil manages to roll aside just in time. The ram appears to be a petrified log, and is now extending 5 meters into the fuel tank. A bunch of the party members jump at the ram, and try to wrestle it out of their attacker’s hands. They are so caught up in the action that they don’t even notice that there are now five balls of light traversing the track.
The wrestling match for the battering ram is going badly. The ram is twisting back and forth in the hole, and even widening the breach slightly. Suddenly the ram is dragged back through the hole, the strength of the attackers is immense compared to that of the party, and they are unable to prevent it. Moments later, the first two Droyne appear in the impromptu doorway.
BEN: “Eat hot 10cm slugs!”
WIL: “Hey, wait! I’m still by the doorway!”
Alas, poor Wil. We knew him well. A 10cm round goes wild and strikes Wil in the shoulder.
WIL: “Ahhh!”
GM: “It hurts more than that.”
WIL: “AHHRRRGGHHHH!”
Satisfied with the level of agony, the action continues…
The next several combat rounds get very confusing. Some highlights follow:
BEN: “Take that!.”
MEEHO: “Hey, this one’s got my foot!”
ENISE: “Wil!”
WIL: “AHRHRHRHRHGH!”
Droyne attackers are entering each combat round, two at a time. They are being killed off a little slower than that. There are now six balls of light traversing the track! They are starting to pick up speed, and the high-pitched whine is increasing in intensity.
ENISE: “Hey! Everyone, get in the center of the circle!
MARCUS: “Hey! Everyone, get out of here, I think those things are about to explode.
EVERYONE: ” ? “
In a sense, Wil makes the choice for everyone as he is dragged kicking, screaming and bleeding through the hull breach by several of the creatures.
WIL: “AHRRHRHGRHGHRGHGHGHGHG”
Everyone dives out through the hull.
More shots are fired as the creatures assaulting Wil are brought down. The cave is lit by the strobe effect of the six balls of light flickering through the ship’s hull. There is a brilliant flash of light, and what was left of their ship disappears. Once again, they are plunged into darkness.
ENISE: “I told you to get into the circle.”
Act 2 – The Cave
They quickly take stock of their situation. They are in a large cave, lit only by their two flashlights. The cave has two exits, one in front of them, the other behind where the ship used to be. They can hear chittering sounds echoing through the cave, coming primarily from the exit in front of them. Naturally, they decide to take the other exit.
The wanderings through the caves took a lot of time. Marcus was mapping, and got lost. During their wanderings, they encountered a nest of Droyne, were attacked, and killed more. Enise was having a fun time with her Neural Pistol, and Ben was kicking butt with his cannon. Eventually, their ammunition started to run low, and this wandering ceased to be fun anymore.
In time, they found a small alter with a very ugly Droyne statue on it. This marked the entrance to another section of cave. Now they could hear voices mixed in with the random chittering noises. They came around a corner and found themselves face to back with an extremely large, winged Droyne guard. It didn’t seem to notice them, but Enise knocked it out with the Neural Pistol, just to be sure. After the guard crumpled to the floor they were able to hear the following conversation:
MASTER: “…I don’t care what you told them, I want them disposed of before they cause any more trouble!”
SEBASTIAN: “They are only humans Master, surely the others…”
MASTER: “The others understand the danger! It is you who needs the lesson. First Chyxxpakh imprisons you, and then you are defeated by a single human female…”
SEBASTIAN: “No, my Master! I was weakened by her, but not defeated! I was still working toward achieving your goals. You retrieved me too soon.”
MASTER: “Too soon! You always were arrogant! Millennia have passed since that battle! If not for the fact that I KNOW you were there before, I would not have felt compelled to retrieve you now!”
SEBASTIAN: “I don’t understand…”
MASTER: “Of course you don’t. I did not make you with the capacity for such understanding. The properties of this proto-dimension make it possible to deliver you to your destiny. But first, dispose of the intruders.”
SEBASTIAN: “I will not fail again, my Master.
By hiding down a spur tunnel, the party manages to wait until Sebastian and a group of the large Droyne file past. They decide to follow their pursuers. Moments later, they find the original cave again, and stop following the Droyne to check it out. This time they notice that the flash points in their ships corresponded to rock nodules on a black obsidian ring on the floor of the cave. One of the nodules is taller than the others and looks almost like a control panel. There are four concave indentations in the flat surface, and a small bin containing a number of colored gems. It looks like the gems will fit in the indentations, so Marcus selects four gems at random, and places them in the holes. Six fiery balls of light appear at each of the six nodules, and begin to traverse the circular track. As they pick up speed, a shaft of obsidian begins to grow out of the surface of the panel. It reaches a length of about a foot and a half, with the base of the shaft glowing brightly. As the whine of the rotating lights picks up, the glow slowly climbs the shaft. Apparently they have to wait until the light reaches the top of the shaft.
That is when Sebastian and his search party return to the cave, and a new firefight erupts.
Ben exhausts the last of his 10cm ammunition, and then is wounded. Thann attempts to help Ben, and is also brought down. When the light reaches the top of the shaft, the obsidian circle becomes a static disk…looking for all the world like a television screen that isn’t getting any reception. The “snow” of the disk is slowly swirling toward the center of the circle. Enise grabs Thann, and jumps into the center of the disk. From everyone else’s point of view, she drops through the floor of the cave and disappears. Marcus grabs Ben and his gun, and follows. Everyone else jumps into the disk and feels a sensation like being sucked through a drinking straw…
Act 3 – The Desert
The characters exit through a portal that is hovering approximately 10 feet above the ground. Naturally, their first action is to fall to the ground. There is a disk of static, embedded in a cloud over their heads. The static circle is spiraling outward from the center. After a few moments, the static dissipates. Shortly after that, the cloud disappears as well. Their surroundings are very different. They are standing in the middle of a barren wasteland. The violet sky above them is streaked with pink clouds. The sandy plain upon which they stand extends to the horizon in all directions. There is no sun in the sky overhead, so direction is meaningless. Off to the right, there is a column of smoke rising from a distant campfire. Using binoculars, they can make out what appears to be a small cluster of houses…a settlement! They can even see a woman walking out of one of the houses. She appears to be carrying a cordless drill. Satisfied with the technological level of the distant settlement, they gather up their wounded, they make for this cradle of civilization. ‘
As they approach the settlement, they are met by two men. The elder gentleman introduces himself as Jack Donner and…
Mike: “Dahmer?”
Neal: “Oh great…Dahmer.”
GM: “No, no, Donner, Jack Donner, the leader of the settlement.”
DONNER: “It has been so long since we’ve had visitors. Please, allow us to extend the hospitality of our homes to you.”
With a sigh of relief, the party holsters their weapons and follow Jack and his young friend into the compound.
The settlement seems primitive at best. They have no communications devices, their electricity comes from a generator shed in one corner of the compound. They claim that the only vehicles they have are currently in “town”. The town of Sleepmute is some 45 miles to the west, and they assure the party that the vehicles will be back in a day or two. In the mean time, the party is fed, and offered shelter. Because the few buildings are all occupied, the party members must split up at night, and sleep two to a house. The first night passes uneventfully, with Enise using up as much of her medications as possible to heal everyone. Ben and Thann are both in bad shape, and are only occasionally even conscious.
The second night is when the action starts. Enise is awakened in the night, by a feeling that Ben is in trouble. She pulls on a few clothes and crosses the compound toward the Donner house. The bonfire in the center of the compound has been stoked, and is burning quite well. As she approaches the Donner house, she can hear the sounds of a struggle from inside. She arrives inside just in time to see two men trying to keep Ben quiet. He is struggling, but to no avail. She cannot see Thann, but the unmistakable sound of a cordless drill can be heard coming from the room as well. Enise jumps unarmed into the room.
Once again a confused combat ensues. One by one, other party members awaken and make their way toward the Donner house. Many people are wounded, Enise gets stabbed in the chest with the tines of a pitchfork. Someone is wielding an axe. And through the whole thing, the sound of the drill boring into something in that room can be heard.
Baboon is the last to awaken. Coincidentally, he’s the only one with a working gun who isn’t already unconcious. He grabs his gun and heads for the action. Outside, in the light of the bonfire, he can see two figures running toward the Donner house. One is a woman, the other is a man, who is completely hidden in shadow. He chases them, and draws his gun on them. For some reason, these two newcomers are unable to understand a word that Baboon is saying, but his meaning is clear. They are gesturing and gibbering wildly. A few more screams echo from inside. The Donner Party has been beaten, and Enise has just gotten a look at Thann…the target of the drill attack. With a look of grim determination, she bolts from the Donner house and heads back to her own room to get her medical kit. She has left Wil in the bedroom of the Donner house, doing his best to keep Thann’s brains from oozing out the holes in his head!
Somehow, the two newcomers (who do not appear to be in a mood to harm anyone) enter the Donner house. Everyone is in shock at the moment, staring down at Thann. Enise returns and is rummaging through her medical kit for anything that might save Thann’s life. The damage is too great, there is nothing she can do. At that point, the shadow-man kneels beside Thann. The man seems to be wearing a fedora hat and a cape, which are also too shadowy to make out. The only color on his entire person is a bright gold ring on his left hand. He puts his right hand on Thann’s head, his left hand on Enise’s shoulder, and the three of them promptly vanish. The remaining party members immediately turn on SaraLynn and begin screaming at her in a language she cannot understand!
[Introducing SaraLynn Devereaux…]
Act 4 – The Titan
Enise experiences a feeling of intense disorientation, and suddenly finds herself, her patient, and the shadow man among a large number of rocks. The terrain around them is very hilly, with scrub brush scattered among the rocks. The sky above is dark, and there are no stars.
ENISE: “Hey, what’s going on?”
The shadow man holds out his hands in a gesture for her to wait. He then reaches into her bag, and pulls out a small scalpel. He holds out his hand, as if asking for her to place her hand in his. She obliges. He turns her palm upward and quickly pricks the tip of her finger with the scalpel. She watches as a drop of blood wells up from the wound, and then to her amazement, the blood retreats back into her finger and the wound closes. The man then takes her hand and places it over the wounds on Thann’s head. He holds her hand there for a moment, then gestures for her to stay, and vanishes.
SaraLynn and the rest of the players are busy trying to form a basis for communication. Eventually, SaraLynn starts picking up some of the words they are speaking. They will occasionally utter words that she CAN understand. In a short time, they begin a very primitive dialog. From the party’s point of view, she seems to speak a very strange dialect of Galanglic. They can communicate on a number of levels, yet inquiries about the nearest Starport, the frequency of Starship visits, or for that matter, what Planet they are on, go completely over her head. She just doesn’t understand their words for these concepts. Shortly after that, the shadow man returns. Through SaraLynn, he explains that he can take two party members at a time.
The act of transporting the party takes a great deal of time. Eventually, it is down to only two characters: SaraLynn and Wil. As far as they can tell, the shadow man comes back every fifteen minutes or so. This causes a little concern when four minutes into the wait, the headlights of two or more vehicles appear in the distance, and head directly toward them.
Meanwhile, back among the rocks, Enise is holding onto Thann’s head when the sky begins to brighten. As the sun breaks the horizon, she hears the call of birds. Moments later, she sees a flock of large birds flying in her general direction. As they grow closer, she sees that they look like metalic vultures. They fly overhead, and dive down beyond the rocks. Shortly after that, the deafening roars of a giant beast echo through the hills.
In the distance, SaraLynn and Wil see two pickup trucks speeding toward the compound. They run behind the Donner house to hide. The men on the trucks call out, and enter the various buildings. When the enter the Donner house, their calls turn to cries of alarm. They have found the dead and wounded of the settlement, and begin a search for the perpetrators. Two of the men come around the two sides of the shack, and SaraLynn and Wil are imediately fighting for their lives. Just when things really start to look grim, the shadow man returns and takes them to join the others.
The wounds in Thann’s head seem to be healing themselves, so Enise joins the other members of the party. Once again consulting with SaraLynn, the shadow man disappears. The roars of the creature can still be heard, coupled with the occasional metalic screech of a vulture. Their curiousity gets the better of them and they climb to the top of the hill to see what is making all the racket. Over the next rise, they see an enormous man chained to a granite incline. Enormous is actually an understatement, this guy is at least 25 meters tall! He is lying on his back, and the vultures are perched on his chest, ripping out his inards. Even as the vultures tear into his flesh, the wounds seem to almost begin healing, but the number of birds tearing into him prevents any healing from taking place.
In a blast of static and lightning, a black shadowy cube appears on the ground next to Thann. The wounds in his head have completely healed, and he is beginning to stir. For that matter, most of the party members’ wounds have healed as well! The shadowy cube sits there for several moments, and then a slightly darker shadow hand appears from the surface and beckons to them. Collecting Thann, they step into the cube.
They suddenly find themselves in a small room, standing in the center of a black smoky rectangle. There is a man standing before them wearing a brown felt hat and a plaid cape. He speaks to SaraLynn for a moment, and then walks up a flight of stairs. The party members are trying to find out what is going on from SaraLynn, but she doesn’t quite seem to understand how to explain it to them. A quick inventory reveals that most of their remaining posessions were left at the Donner’s, including Ben and Enise’s guns. The only gun they have is Baboon’s, and it is empty. Enise has her medical kit, and everyone else has nothing that wouldn’t easily have fit on their person while they slept.
Act 5 – The Talamasca
Marcus paced nervously around the room. The other members of his crew watched him with confused disinterest. Obviously the man and woman had access to some sort of matter transmitter. That was the only explanation he could think of. For the moment, nobody appeared to be in any danger, so he allowed the party members to rest here, while SaraLynn watched on. A short time after this, the man returns and gestures for the party to follow him. They climb a flight of stairs, go down a short corridor, around a corner, and into a conference room. There are a number of men and women sitting at one end of the room. They speak to SaraLynn for several minutes, during which the man in the hat leaves the room.
SaraLynn faced the elder council of the Talamasca, and waited for them to acknowledge her presence. At last the chairman looks up and speaks…
SUPERIOR1: “Crowley tells us that the two of you have found some…strays…”
SARALYNN: “We found some people in need of help. I wouldn’t exactly call them strays…”
SUPERIOR1: “…Furthermore, you seem to be the only one who can speak to them.”
SARALYNN: “They are speaking a very strange dialect of French.”
SUPERIOR2: “Ah yes, your background is French Canadian.” He speaks quickly into an intercom, “Giselle, would you join us in the main conference room please.”
SUPERIOR3: “Who are they.”
SARALYNN: “They are very confused. Their leader refers to himself as Count Natoko.”
Hearing his name, Marcus steps forward.
MARCUS: “Will you please tell us what is going on?”
SARALYNN: “Quiet, I’m tring to find out myself.”
SUPERIOR1: “But who are they? How did they come to be in…Ah Giselle, would you join us please?”
GISELLE: “Certainly sir.”
SUPERIOR1: “…Now where was I? Ah. If you found them traveling in the dimesions, they could be a threat to us.”
SARALYNN: “No sir! I sense no hostility from them at all!”
SUPERIOR2: “Nor do we, but that is precisely what we would expect. Their presence here is at best an accident. Whether they come to us by design or chance, we cannot risk the Talamasca!”
SUPERIOR3: “Nevertheless, we should do our best to determine their threat potential. SaraLynn, you and Giselle will question them now. If they are harmless, we will release them, and they can find their way home.”
SARALYNN: “You mean just put them out on the streets of Phoenix? I don’t think they’re from around here.”
SUPERIOR1: “That is not our concern.”
Marcus watched SaraLynn speaking to the men and women at the table. They were apparently in charge here. He watched as SaraLynn indicated the members of the party several times. She seemed to be trying to convince her superiors that they should aid these people. Another person is brought in who speaks the same language as SaraLynn, and together they try to question the party.
MARCUS: “Where is the nearest starport?”
GISELLE: “What is that word…starport?”
MARCUS: “A place where ships land.”
GISELLE: “We are a great distance from any seaports.”
MEEHO: “No, not sea ships…these…fly.”
SARALYNN: “You can afford to fly!?”
GISELLE: “There is an airport outside of the city.”
MARCUS: “What planet is this?”
GISELLE: “Planet?”
ENISE: “What place is this!”
SARALYNN: “Phoenix!”
To be continued…
This adventure originally took place on December 5, 1992.