Act 1 – The Hummer ( “Slow Drug issss coooooool” )
Our story opens with the party in the aftermath of a series of heroic rescues. Of course the only reason the heroic rescues were needed in the first place, had something to do with actions that can best be termed. “How not to sneak into a Daemonic Ice Cave…” But we’ve already belabored this point enough.
Jay, Meeho and Wil are all in various states of disrepair, suffering under the ministrations of our resident surgeon, Enise.
ENISE: “The only way these guys are going to heal in any time soon is if I put them under with Slow Drug…I still have a few doses left in my medical kit.”
THANN: “If we drug them, they’re going to be out for 24 hours.”
ENISE: “If we don’t, they’ll be out for days.”
Shortly after the three seriously injured party members are resting in a Slow-Drug induced sleep, Baboon climbs onto the roof of the trailer to keep watch. Enise and Thann sleep. The next morning, Baboon wakes up after having dozed off. The early morning light is still subdued by heavy cloud cover. The cloud vortex that marks the location of the Ice Daemon cave is slowly spinning in the sky, and a half-dozen wolves sit watching the trailer from the other side of the road.
One by one, the wolves pick up their ears, and look to the north, up the road. Baboon notices the sounds of a vehicle coming slowly in their direction. At the approach of the vehicle, the wolves slip quietly out of sight.
[Introducing Robert Lupin…]
Robert makes his appearance. Thann and Enise put on their make-shift cold weather gear and approach the newcomer, who is already animatedly babbling in that language that nobody really understands well. Nobody that is, except SaraLynn who is gone, and Meeho who is as good as dead for the next day or so.
THANN: “I think he’s talking about the weather.”
ENISE: “Can’t drive in snow.”
ROBERT: “Parles Vous Francais?”
THANN: “Oui. Oui.”
ENISE: “Um…Can’t drive in snow.”
ROBERT: “Where are you guys from, anyway.”
THANN: “We are from France.”
Players: “Would you like to consume mass quantities of fried chicken embryos?”
THANN: “There are these tall, white, humanoid bipeds”
ROBERT: “How tall?”
THANN: raising his hand over his head, “REAL Tall.”
ROBERT: “You mean like basketball players?”
THANN (to ENISE): “I guess those big furry things are called basketball players.”
Robert inquires as to whether the party knows anything about the dune-buggy and van that are smashed together up the road. The party explains that those are their vehicles, so Robert offers to help them separate the vehicles. Thann gets in the Hummer with Robert and they drive to the wreck sight.
After some judicious jacking and prying, followed by winching and wincing, Robert manages to rip the dune buggy free from the grill of the van. The front bumper of the dune buggy, no longer attached to the dune buggy itself drops to the ground, revealing a gaping hole in the van’s radiator.
ROBERT: “Oh man, that van isn’t going anywhere. We’re lucky the buggy’s engine is in the rear!”
Robert picks up the crimped bumper and tosses it into the back of the dune buggy. Then he and Thann hook the buggy up to the Hummer, and they drag it back to the trailer.
Deciding to head for the nearest town, the group puts the injured (and unconscious) members in the back of the Hummer. Everyone gets in the Hummer except Baboon who is in the dune buggy. Baboon places the big gun back in the tripod mount on the back of the buggy and mans the gun while the Hummer tows the buggy along. As they continue south along the road, they are followed by a patrol of wolves. After about a mile, they pass a group of wolves sitting patiently by the side of the road. The first group of wolves turns back north and the new group paces the group for about another mile. This hand-off of wolf patrols continues until the vehicles come within sight of the town.
Act 2 – The ‘A’-Team ( “Make mine a Super SoakerTM” )
As they enter the town, they are overrun by town’s folk who are curious about what they have encountered in the frozen wastes. Someone runs out and gets the sheriff.
SHERIFF: “Right. What’s all this then?”
ROBERT: “I picked these guys up in a house trailer a couple miles outside of town. They seem to know what is causing this weather.”
SHERIFF: turning to Thann, “Is that so? All right then. Why is it so cold?”
THANN: “Basketball Players.”
Eventually Robert convinces the Sheriff to listen further, and in time the story of the cave and the wolves and the big guys in fur coats is relayed. The Sheriff, still doesn’t believe them completely.
SHERIFF: “What kind of fool do y’all take my for…anyhow?”
THANN: “Just go look!”
SHERIFF: “Listen. I’ve got a town to protect. I can’t go out investigatin’ every cock-‘n-bull story that some nutcase suffering from exposure cares to tell!”
BABOON: “Give us…er…how you say…explosives?”
SHERIFF: “Now I’m sure you think I’m a moron!”
ENISE: “Can’t drive in snow.”
SHERIFF: “Look hear, little lady. I don’t have the manpower to spare.”
BABOON: “I can stop them…need…explosives.”
The sheriff looks at Baboon, who incidentally, is still flushed with excitement at his new-found role as hero and protector.
SHERIFF: “You know somethin’ boy? I just bet you could stop anything you wanted to.”
THANN: “We stop basketball players. You give us…shelter?”
SHERIFF: “Now I know I’m out of my mind…”
The party follows the Sheriff to Pete’s Ace Hardware. The Sheriff talks to Pete for a few minutes. Pete disappears into the back room of his store and comes back holding a small wooden crate. It is half full of long red paper cylinders. Baboon pulls out one of the sticks and sniffs it. A feral grin spreads across his face.
BABOON: “Explosives.”
THANN: “Can we get any personal communications devices?”
SHERIFF: “Telephones?”
THANN: “No, portable ones.”
SHERIFF: “Oh! Walkie Talkies”
THANN (to the others): “Yes! Hey guys, communicators are called walkie talkies here.”
BABOON: “What about a grav vehicle?”
SHERIFF: “A what?”
THANN: “A vehicle that hovers over the ground.”
SHERIFF: “Oh! A helicopter. No we don’t have access to any of those.”
BABOON: “Can we get any large quadruped herbivores to ride?”
ROBERT: “How about if I just drive you back there?”
Players: (The ‘A’-Team Theme Music)
Wil and Meeho each take a Super Soaker 100 to fill with gasoline, and a Zippo to light it.
Players: (The ‘A’-Team Theme Music)
Baboon and Meeho each take an insecticide sprayer to fill with gasoline, and a Zippo to light it.
Players: (The ‘A’-Team Theme Music)
While the party is equipping themselves, Robert offers to get the dune-buggy repaired. He takes the buggy to Jebs Gas ‘n Go and arranges for a little body work. Meanwhile, back at the hotel, the Jay, Wil and Meeho are awakening, primed and ready for action. The talk in quickly turning into a tactics and strategy planning session, when the doctor lays her bombshell on them. The doctor refuses to go.
Becky: “I’m not going.”
GM: “They may not be coming back.”
Becky: “I don’t care. I don’t want to be with these jerks anymore.
The party tries to talk her out of it, but cannot seem to convince her. She agrees to remain in the hotel and finish patching them up before they go. Eventually everyone turns in for the night. While she sleeps the party members vote on whether Enise is coming along or not. They decide that their doctor is going with them no matter what.
John: “I steal a dose of slow-drug from her medical kit.”
Neal: “She can come willingly, or unconscious.”
Fortunately for everyone involved, the doctor decides to accompany them after all. Thann hands her the dose of slow drug, ignoring her stunned expression.
THANN: “We knew you’d come with.”
Fully healed and newly equipped, the party piles back into the Hummer and Robert drives them back to the trailer.
ROBERT: “I’ll wait here.”
The group selects a marching order and turns back toward the swirling gray vortex in the eastern sky.
THANN: “We’re off to the giant land boob to wipe out the coyotes and the basketball players!”
Act 3 – Return to the Caves of the Ice Daemon ( “Take that, Mr. Yeti” )
This time, Meeho goes first, wearing the winter coat that Wil stole from the cave. The stolen stun stick hangs on his belt. The super soaker is strapped across his back. He turns the first corner and enters the “Reception Area”. There are two Yeti and two wolves in the room. At his approach, one of the Yeti moves forward and holds out his hand as if expecting Meeho to hand something over. Meeho gives the Yeti his stun stick, and tries to walk past. The Yeti puts out a giant paw and hold him in place. The second Yeti bellows a call down the tunnel. A short time later, a human in a coat identical to Meeho’s walks into reception and looks at Meeho and then past Meeho at the anxiously waiting party.
HUMAN: He turns to the second Yeti, utters the phrase, “Wolf food.”, and turns back down the main tunnel.
Before anyone else can even react, Jay sprints after the departing human. His headlong plunge down the tunnel takes him directly across the path of the wolves. He flexes his mechanically enhanced limbs, and leaps lightly into the air in a graceful arc that will easily clear the lead wolf. The wolf however, sensing the hurtling human form, pricks up it’s ears in surprise. The sudden appearance of the two small flaps of fuzzy cartilage in the trajectory path, appears to completely confound the painstakingly accurate calculations that went into the perfectly executed leap…
…oh…bullshit…
Jay trips on a wolf and lands on his face. And so the Cyborg is valiantly kissing the floor as combat begins.
Thann, realizing that Jay has just about done it again, begins his own sprint across reception. Jay, however is not out of this thing yet. He turns his body before it even skids to a stop and rolls back to his feet. This time, his diving blow catches the human squarely in the back and the two of them fall to the ground. The human’s stun stick is jarred loose from its holster and lands a few feet to one side. Jay attempts to use his legendary hand-to-hand combat skills to quietly subdue the human. Of course, Jay is just as successful this time as always, and the human begins trying to bellow a warning. Fortunately, Thann arrives at the melee sight and picks up the stun stick. The human, now regains enough of his wind to croak out a small cry for help. Thann jabs the human with the stun stick. A brilliant flash of blue light fills the chamber, and when the flash is over, both the human and Jay are out cold on the floor.
JAY: *drool*
To make a long combat short:
Wil uses super-soaker to douse Yeti and light them on fire.
Nobody uses any guns.
Eventually, in secret, they manage to sneak into the cave complex, and are currently right outside of the teleporter room that Wil found earlier.
To be continued…
This adventure originally took place on September 19, 1993.