Carrie's Revenge
Mar. 20th, 2004 01:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was another episode of the Sci-Fi Shadake game. The party arranged a meeting with prospective buyers of their ancient martian artifacts, bought a used van, and went out looking for trouble.
Since Kirin (the paralyzed Illiski originally working for Maytag) and Shadarack were both laid up in the hospital, the party moved its base of operations to the city with a hospital in it. After hearing that healing both would take some time and investigation, Jackie and Adam set about replacing his lost alchemy lab and buying stocks of ingredients. Jackie spent 50k (about $6000) on herbs and spices -- about 250 pounds worth. Good thing he's a bottle mage.
Meanwhile, Hesperius kept in touch with Shadarack (sneaking in to talk to him now and then, since he was being kept incommunicado, officially, as well as quarantined, to prevent a panic) and started following the plan laid out to find buyers for their artifacts. After several leads suddenly and abruptly ran dry, he did find two groups that wanted to see the artifacts and maybe purchase them for their exhibits and/or research -- a children's museum in orbit around Venus doing a 'mysteries of the planets' exhibit, and a serious archealogical institute located elsewhere on Mars.
Hesperius arranged for a meeting a week from then with both groups, where they'd show off the artifacts and maybe explain where they got them, or at least why they were sure they were ancient martian.
He tried to do research on the net about the ancient martians, and in addition to a bit of useful information, got a huge pile of drek, including one crackpot who claimed that the martians were parasites who'd invaded Terra 10,000 years ago, before the original split into Ur and Earth, and had taken over the brains of all sentient creatures -- what mages and priests called the 'soul' was really the parasitic martian living inside each person's head. There were plenty of other probably-false and definately-insane theories out there, and the real information was mind-numbingly dull.
But Jackie rescued him by suggesting they follow up on the other treasure-hunting lead Shadarack had found, the Farm of Death. Originally, it had just been a case of a farm collective mysteriously breaking contact with the outside world, but after the space-spider attack a Ronin made a flyby and saw the same black spiders crawling all over the city -- apparently, they'd managed to break through without being seen a few days before the big flashy attack, and take that one town. No one had actually tried to go and find out what they were doing or looking for, though -- until now.
But first they needed a real vehicle. The altered and semi-trashed burrower was not a pleasant thing to fly or ride in, and used hovercars were cheap. For 10k they bought a minivan with an autopilot spirit to drive the car when they were too lazy, and flew it off the lot, flipping the switch to wake up the autopilot.
But the autopilot was a loud, arrogant dragon-looking thing that swore up and down that it wanted its owners dead, and would kill them in a second if it wasn't bound to obey all traffic laws. Adam decided that he'd rather he be in control of the vehicle, but the dragon kept complaining every time he so much as drifted a single klick above the speed limit, until it was taunted and harassed back into hiding, in the glove compartment.
But they still had no trouble reaching the Farm of Death. Like most martian farms, this farm was well-lit by a magic lens floating far overhead, that focused the sunlight from a wide area around it onto the ciruclar farm to make it bright enough for easy photosynthesis. This particular farm was 5 miles in radius, with a small town in the center.
At the edge, along the side of the road they were following, were a trio of abandoned vehicles. There was no sign of what had happened to the people in them, but the nearby field was a cornfield, and Hesperius flew up to investigate. He saw a couple places where it looked like bodies might have fallen and been removed, as well as a giant thresher. Jackie tried to turn on the thresher, but had no idea how to work the dozens of unlabeled buttons and levers, even though he was pretty good with a starship. He did manage to turn it on for a second, but accidentally whirled it around to almost attack Adam before finding the off switch (or, rather, the way to get it to shut down by overloading it with contradictory commands).
Next the party investigated a nearby farmhouse. Right through the door, it was obvious that something was wrong -- the living and dining room (at least) had been stripped, and the contents piled into a large nest in the center of the living room, on which a black spider perched. Adam was still afraid of black things, and decided to wait outside while the spider was dispatched.
Jackie bottled the nonmagical components of the pile of junk, unleasing dozens to tiny black spiders, which immediately ran away. This gave Adam something to shoot at, and Jackie something to chase after, during which chase he was pounced by a very large spider.
Which he bottled, using a mana stone to help beat its aura.
Adam came in, as the party reassured him that all the scary black spiders were gone, only to be jumped on by a pair coming down the staircase. He held his gun on continuous beam and disintegrated one of the pair, while fleeing in terror to cower in a corner. The other was quickly dispatched by Jackie and Hesperius, with some help from Adam's panicked firing.
But these spiders disgorged drakivolki corpses when killed -- a man and a woman, both dead of old age. Jackie found the man's ID, which was dated that year and said he was 35, and showed a picture of a much younger drak, with the same color patterns on his fur and scales. Hesperius said that that meant that the black spiders were soul-burners, but it was obvious in any case that they certainly aged their target, quickly -- the farm had only been attacked a couple days before.
Before leaving the house, the party decided to search upstairs, and were attacked by children's toys. They didn't take much (any) damage, but the animated objects refused to die even after they were cut up into little bits too small to fight. Jackie looked carefully at an animated toothbrush floating slowly towards him, and decided to set off a 'suppress illusions' smoke bomb to see if someone invisible was perhaps holding it up.
It turned out that his 'suppress illlusions' bomb worked primarily by blotting out the illusions (and everything else) with a thick choking cloud of black smoke. It also suppressed Hesperius' creations, which were solid, but still made of illusion magic. It did not reveal anyone holding up the toothbrush or other objects, even after the smoke dissipated. Jackie absentmindedly shoved the toothbrush into one of his pouches.
Adam had fled, again, at the sight of the black smoke, but at the bottom of the stairs a gun and a pair of kitchen knives waited to do him harm. He cut the gun in half with one swipe of his sword, puncturing its power cell and making a big 'boom!'
After searching the attic and finding nothing, the party decided to move on to the center of town, instead of messing about with more farmhouses. The town was abandoned, and full of dead cars scatterd around the streets. They flew to the central square, where the town hall's door was bashed in by a car smashed through the wall beside it.
Jackie spotted a humanoid figure pinned under the car, and ran to see if he could help. The victim was beyond help, but the car was still very much animated. Jackie thought quickly as it sprang to life, though, firing a dispel-bubble at it that it'd have to hit to get to him. The car was dispelled, killing not only the engine, but tossing the animating spirit out of the vehicle, where it reformed as a big black spider. And was quickly killed.
When this spider died, though, it disgorged half a dozen bodies, one of which was (barely) alive.
But while the bubble had been up, Jackie had been able to see magic, and had seen that there were four other cars in the square that were animated. He warned the other party members of it just after they, too, sprang to life.
Hesperius used a rocket to blow up a pair of them, but while this slowed them down (destroying their engine and forcing them to hover under their own power) it didn't killed them. Jackie tried to go up and do the dispel bubble trick again on a third car, but this time the spider wasn't dispelled, and he was smacked hard and thrown across the square. Adam tossed a fire bomb at a pair of cars, but its radius was too pathetic to hit anything, and Adam fell in love with the car he'd been trying to hit -- if only he could get the damn spider out of it without hurting it!
Hesperius blew up the car that had hit Jackie, getting it dead-on with one of his one-shot sulfer missiles, then played cat and mouse with one of the two semi-destroyed cars, leading it on a merry chase and calling on Katara to aid him. Jackie tossed another spider out of the other damaged car, which he then proceeded to fight, slowly, over the course of seveal rounds, until he finally managed to wound it badly enough, with Katara's cooperation, to set it running.
At which point he followed it to the town hall's door, and tossed it four firebombs. Their random radius were all Very High, though, and they not only killed the spider and hurt Jackie, they set the town hall ablaze. He bottled a couple of living-but-now-on-fire people that fell out of that spider when it was killed, then tossed a spare space-suit to Katara (against the green gas being dumped on the town now) and headed for the hills, or at least the parking space where Hesperius had said he was taking the prisoner.
Adam, by contrast, was tryin to somehow stop his love, the car, without hurting it. As it was going out of its way to kill him, he got a couple saves, and eventually regained control of his own mind. Although not of the vehicle, which had kidnapped him and driven him out into the country, where assorted farm machinery approached with painful slowness.
The only really dangerous specialized farm hardware were the Thresher and the Cropduster. Adam tried to steer out of danger, but the steering whee was stuck, and he was driven under the cropduster and sprayed with pesticide.
Eventually, he got the idea of pulling the key out of the car, which shut down its engines, and just fly back to the central town area. He did manage to get there with oxygen to spare, and holed up in the old school house, which like all martian buildings was pressurized, Just In Case. He washed some of the pesticide off with a quick shower, but wondered what he should do.
And all this time Hesperius was flying back to the van with the first living (but sleepy) drak.
last week next week
So... tired... I should have waiting until morning to write this. x.x
Since Kirin (the paralyzed Illiski originally working for Maytag) and Shadarack were both laid up in the hospital, the party moved its base of operations to the city with a hospital in it. After hearing that healing both would take some time and investigation, Jackie and Adam set about replacing his lost alchemy lab and buying stocks of ingredients. Jackie spent 50k (about $6000) on herbs and spices -- about 250 pounds worth. Good thing he's a bottle mage.
Meanwhile, Hesperius kept in touch with Shadarack (sneaking in to talk to him now and then, since he was being kept incommunicado, officially, as well as quarantined, to prevent a panic) and started following the plan laid out to find buyers for their artifacts. After several leads suddenly and abruptly ran dry, he did find two groups that wanted to see the artifacts and maybe purchase them for their exhibits and/or research -- a children's museum in orbit around Venus doing a 'mysteries of the planets' exhibit, and a serious archealogical institute located elsewhere on Mars.
Hesperius arranged for a meeting a week from then with both groups, where they'd show off the artifacts and maybe explain where they got them, or at least why they were sure they were ancient martian.
He tried to do research on the net about the ancient martians, and in addition to a bit of useful information, got a huge pile of drek, including one crackpot who claimed that the martians were parasites who'd invaded Terra 10,000 years ago, before the original split into Ur and Earth, and had taken over the brains of all sentient creatures -- what mages and priests called the 'soul' was really the parasitic martian living inside each person's head. There were plenty of other probably-false and definately-insane theories out there, and the real information was mind-numbingly dull.
But Jackie rescued him by suggesting they follow up on the other treasure-hunting lead Shadarack had found, the Farm of Death. Originally, it had just been a case of a farm collective mysteriously breaking contact with the outside world, but after the space-spider attack a Ronin made a flyby and saw the same black spiders crawling all over the city -- apparently, they'd managed to break through without being seen a few days before the big flashy attack, and take that one town. No one had actually tried to go and find out what they were doing or looking for, though -- until now.
But first they needed a real vehicle. The altered and semi-trashed burrower was not a pleasant thing to fly or ride in, and used hovercars were cheap. For 10k they bought a minivan with an autopilot spirit to drive the car when they were too lazy, and flew it off the lot, flipping the switch to wake up the autopilot.
But the autopilot was a loud, arrogant dragon-looking thing that swore up and down that it wanted its owners dead, and would kill them in a second if it wasn't bound to obey all traffic laws. Adam decided that he'd rather he be in control of the vehicle, but the dragon kept complaining every time he so much as drifted a single klick above the speed limit, until it was taunted and harassed back into hiding, in the glove compartment.
But they still had no trouble reaching the Farm of Death. Like most martian farms, this farm was well-lit by a magic lens floating far overhead, that focused the sunlight from a wide area around it onto the ciruclar farm to make it bright enough for easy photosynthesis. This particular farm was 5 miles in radius, with a small town in the center.
At the edge, along the side of the road they were following, were a trio of abandoned vehicles. There was no sign of what had happened to the people in them, but the nearby field was a cornfield, and Hesperius flew up to investigate. He saw a couple places where it looked like bodies might have fallen and been removed, as well as a giant thresher. Jackie tried to turn on the thresher, but had no idea how to work the dozens of unlabeled buttons and levers, even though he was pretty good with a starship. He did manage to turn it on for a second, but accidentally whirled it around to almost attack Adam before finding the off switch (or, rather, the way to get it to shut down by overloading it with contradictory commands).
Next the party investigated a nearby farmhouse. Right through the door, it was obvious that something was wrong -- the living and dining room (at least) had been stripped, and the contents piled into a large nest in the center of the living room, on which a black spider perched. Adam was still afraid of black things, and decided to wait outside while the spider was dispatched.
Jackie bottled the nonmagical components of the pile of junk, unleasing dozens to tiny black spiders, which immediately ran away. This gave Adam something to shoot at, and Jackie something to chase after, during which chase he was pounced by a very large spider.
Which he bottled, using a mana stone to help beat its aura.
Adam came in, as the party reassured him that all the scary black spiders were gone, only to be jumped on by a pair coming down the staircase. He held his gun on continuous beam and disintegrated one of the pair, while fleeing in terror to cower in a corner. The other was quickly dispatched by Jackie and Hesperius, with some help from Adam's panicked firing.
But these spiders disgorged drakivolki corpses when killed -- a man and a woman, both dead of old age. Jackie found the man's ID, which was dated that year and said he was 35, and showed a picture of a much younger drak, with the same color patterns on his fur and scales. Hesperius said that that meant that the black spiders were soul-burners, but it was obvious in any case that they certainly aged their target, quickly -- the farm had only been attacked a couple days before.
Before leaving the house, the party decided to search upstairs, and were attacked by children's toys. They didn't take much (any) damage, but the animated objects refused to die even after they were cut up into little bits too small to fight. Jackie looked carefully at an animated toothbrush floating slowly towards him, and decided to set off a 'suppress illusions' smoke bomb to see if someone invisible was perhaps holding it up.
It turned out that his 'suppress illlusions' bomb worked primarily by blotting out the illusions (and everything else) with a thick choking cloud of black smoke. It also suppressed Hesperius' creations, which were solid, but still made of illusion magic. It did not reveal anyone holding up the toothbrush or other objects, even after the smoke dissipated. Jackie absentmindedly shoved the toothbrush into one of his pouches.
Adam had fled, again, at the sight of the black smoke, but at the bottom of the stairs a gun and a pair of kitchen knives waited to do him harm. He cut the gun in half with one swipe of his sword, puncturing its power cell and making a big 'boom!'
After searching the attic and finding nothing, the party decided to move on to the center of town, instead of messing about with more farmhouses. The town was abandoned, and full of dead cars scatterd around the streets. They flew to the central square, where the town hall's door was bashed in by a car smashed through the wall beside it.
Jackie spotted a humanoid figure pinned under the car, and ran to see if he could help. The victim was beyond help, but the car was still very much animated. Jackie thought quickly as it sprang to life, though, firing a dispel-bubble at it that it'd have to hit to get to him. The car was dispelled, killing not only the engine, but tossing the animating spirit out of the vehicle, where it reformed as a big black spider. And was quickly killed.
When this spider died, though, it disgorged half a dozen bodies, one of which was (barely) alive.
But while the bubble had been up, Jackie had been able to see magic, and had seen that there were four other cars in the square that were animated. He warned the other party members of it just after they, too, sprang to life.
Hesperius used a rocket to blow up a pair of them, but while this slowed them down (destroying their engine and forcing them to hover under their own power) it didn't killed them. Jackie tried to go up and do the dispel bubble trick again on a third car, but this time the spider wasn't dispelled, and he was smacked hard and thrown across the square. Adam tossed a fire bomb at a pair of cars, but its radius was too pathetic to hit anything, and Adam fell in love with the car he'd been trying to hit -- if only he could get the damn spider out of it without hurting it!
Hesperius blew up the car that had hit Jackie, getting it dead-on with one of his one-shot sulfer missiles, then played cat and mouse with one of the two semi-destroyed cars, leading it on a merry chase and calling on Katara to aid him. Jackie tossed another spider out of the other damaged car, which he then proceeded to fight, slowly, over the course of seveal rounds, until he finally managed to wound it badly enough, with Katara's cooperation, to set it running.
At which point he followed it to the town hall's door, and tossed it four firebombs. Their random radius were all Very High, though, and they not only killed the spider and hurt Jackie, they set the town hall ablaze. He bottled a couple of living-but-now-on-fire people that fell out of that spider when it was killed, then tossed a spare space-suit to Katara (against the green gas being dumped on the town now) and headed for the hills, or at least the parking space where Hesperius had said he was taking the prisoner.
Adam, by contrast, was tryin to somehow stop his love, the car, without hurting it. As it was going out of its way to kill him, he got a couple saves, and eventually regained control of his own mind. Although not of the vehicle, which had kidnapped him and driven him out into the country, where assorted farm machinery approached with painful slowness.
The only really dangerous specialized farm hardware were the Thresher and the Cropduster. Adam tried to steer out of danger, but the steering whee was stuck, and he was driven under the cropduster and sprayed with pesticide.
Eventually, he got the idea of pulling the key out of the car, which shut down its engines, and just fly back to the central town area. He did manage to get there with oxygen to spare, and holed up in the old school house, which like all martian buildings was pressurized, Just In Case. He washed some of the pesticide off with a quick shower, but wondered what he should do.
And all this time Hesperius was flying back to the van with the first living (but sleepy) drak.
last week next week
So... tired... I should have waiting until morning to write this. x.x
