Vigorous Negotiation
Apr. 24th, 2004 01:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was the sci fi shadake game I've been running... bleargh. It looks like it's going to end after the next session, since Shadarack is leaving earlier than expected, and Lazar is out of school and ready to be a GM again. Probably for the best.
I wanted to run a sci fi game without magic. I'm kind of sick of magic, and when you mix it with technology it's just... difficult. But nooo, everyone wanted to be a wizard, except for the people who wanted to be McGuyver. Ah, well.
Anyway, I hope we have more than two players and Lazar for his game. He said he knows some people who might join, but he says that all the time, and it very rarely pans out.
So the party heard the shuttle pilot go off the air, and felt the ground shake. Soon after, the Lunar Finanacial System's voice came on over the intercom, asking all citizens and visitors to help repel the ongoing invasion.
The procyonisk on duty (whose job was mostly to be there so the party didn't break stuff) was in something of a panic! The shield was still down, and they were under attack! Someone had to get to the control room! The party agreed, and off to the control room they headed.
They didn't get far, though, before the elevator door exploded, depressurizing the room and stunning the procyonisk, who'd been closest to the blast and slowest to dodge the shrapnel. Hesperius sealed the elevator with a wall, but the air was still leaking out the vents. Fortunately, they all had their suits close to hand after the last incident where the air went bad back in Mare Crisium, and the procy was wearing one.
Through the shifting fractal wall, they saw a group of humanoid figures rappel down the shaft to the level below, where the checkpoint to the rest of the complex was located. After waking up and healing the procyonisk (who expressed surprise that the air was leaking out the ducts -- they were supposed to have baffles to stop that sort of air loss! Meepas thought "oops", remembering all the 'grates' he'd slashed open while exploring the system), they dismissed the wall (there was no air left to try to hold in) and dropped to the lower level.
There they saw the invaders doing battle with the security checkpoint. The mages, with the help of glowing orange mana-enhancing scales, were holding off the robots, while the soldiers snapped off a shot here and there when the mages dropped the shield for a second between assaults. Their weapons didn't seem to be very effective, though.
The party recognized the invaders as being four soldiers and two mages from the Constantine family, despite the large 'UTMN' stenciled on their backs. "Can you help us with these robots?" one of the mages asked, sure that the party was there to assist them.
"Maybe," Meepas said, then turned to the Procyonisk. "I'll have to bottle you. I'll probably have to touch one of the scales they have to do it." The procyonisk had no idea what he was talking about, but he explained it in simple terms and she agreed, initially...
But while he was flying up to get close to the scale, the procyonisk kind of freaked out about him obviously being in cahoots with the invaders, and when he cast the spell she tried to resist, without success. He did drain a little too much power from the scale, disrupting the mage's shield just at the wrong time -- the entire invasion party, along with Meepas, were knocked unconscious by the robot's blast.
Hesperius created a wall blocking off the robots, and he and Shadarack dragged the unconscious folk back into the room to wake them up, while the robots stared at the wall, frustrated by their lack of wall-burrowing ability.
So the entire party crept through the air ducts, with Meepas in the lead. They did have to go through the checkpoint in the open air, but Meepas shot himself out of the duct like a spitball from a straw, and managed to hit the vent in the far wall instead of splattering himself against the wall. Hesperius made a solid rock tunnel between the two ducts for everyone else to scurry though (the Constantine mages shrank them to fit).
On the far side, Meepas set the procyonisk free. She was covered in sulfur crystals, and looked really sick, but stumbled off towards the control room, while the invasion party headed downstairs to secure the ship. "Getting the shield back up would be a good way to delay the Illiski," they told Meepas, "But make sure she has it down when it's time for us to leave."
Meepas was heading to the control room anyway to try to heal the sulfur contamination he'd caused by using the scale, and Hesperius and Shadarack followed. Hesperius made a box around the robot in the checkpoint between the second elevator and the control room to keep it from interfering with them.
The procyonisk was having trouble raising the shield, since whatever kept battering the base (they still felt a crash and rumble every few minutes) kept damaging more shield generators. Meepas tried to cure her poison, but the natural means of cleaning poisons from the body were not pleasant to watch or, presumably, to experience -- the procyonisk coughed out a cloud of yellow smoke, then collapsed to the ground, curled up fetal, clutching her convulsively incontinent bladder. "Oops."
So Shadarack and Hesperius tries to combine their talents to put up the shield, and somehow managed to sabotage the generator. The entire base lost power, while the generator, located directly below the control room, glowed brighter... never a good sign.
Hesperius went down to try to fix the generator, while the other three headed down the shaft to catch up with the Constantines. At the bottom, they found the soldiers in a shootout with a few remaining procyonisks, while all around the room the ringtail critters were frozen like statues, most in poses as if they'd been fleeing for their lives. The mages were trying to sneak past a checkpoint robot, but having little luck as it seemed immune to sneaking.
Their pet procyonisk tried to tackle the soldiers, and got shot and put into stasis as well. Shadarack used his glove to destroy the cover the last few procyonisks were depending on, basically ending the battle. The robot was eventually frozen as well, right about the same time Hesperius got back from repairing the generator (which had been in perfect working order, except that all the power was routed back into its own containment field -- no meltdown risk after all).
With everyone present, and no enemies left active, the Constantines moved into the airlock to enter the hangar, leaving the party behind. The party was planning to use the next airlock cycle, but after a few minutes passed with no cycling airlock, Shadarack got anxious and used his glove to vanish the inner airlock door.
Unlike the room they were in, the hangar was still pressurized. FWOOMPH! Everyone, Constantine and party member and frozen procyonisk and table alike, was slammed into the far wall as air rushed out of the hangar, through the room, and eventually to the freedom of space. Until Sharadack un-vanished the inner door.
But the Constantines painted a grim picture of the hangar -- it was full of procyonisks using stun guns and lasers to guard against people coming out the airlock. So it wasn't until they actually heard the Illiski finally smashing through the hangar doors that they were spurred to action.
It was almost too late! The hangar defenders were in total disarray, since the sudden depressurization had flung them into the lack-of-air like rag dolls, but a large spherical ship was preparing to tow the Constantines' vessel out of the hangar, to god-knows-where. It was painted like a pirate ship, though.
The party had flying belts, and managed to cling to the ship before it was too far away. Only one of the Constantines made it with them. Once inside, the Constantine sent Hesperius to the engine room to make sure nothing blew up, while dragging the others to the bridge.
The ship looked like it needed a MUCH larger crew to function properly, though. Hesperius was basically lost trying to manage the massive engine room, and Shadarack and the Mage weren't all that confident about their ability to pilot the ship with only two people instead of the recommended 20.
To make things worse, they were boarded by pirates. Hesperius made himself invisible, and stayed in the engine room to watch what the pirates did -- namely, jack into the engineering computer and take over. Other groups of pirates moved for the bridge, although they were slowed by the emergency blast doors Shadarack dropped in their path.
They weren't stopped, though, so Meepas went out to stop them, all on his lonesome. He tried grenades, first, but quickly switched to Basilisks, which proved to be most effective. The only surviving pirate ran back to his ship.
Around the same time, Hesperius wandered out of engineering and over to the pirate ship Meepas was at to have a look and see who the pirates *really* were. The ships looked piratey on the inside too, but were in direct contact with 'Nova Romana', the habitat Hesperius grew up at, now interdicted due to its support for slavery. He only narrowly escaped becoming an invisible statue, as did Meepas -- the Basilisks were still around, and still looking in various directions.
On the bridge, there was still trouble -- the pirates were coming in through the other access tunnel as well, and as the Constantine mage was busy preparing the stasis field, only Shadarack was there to stop them. So he used some of Jackie's old shells, making a succession of invisible steel walls to delay the inevitable.
Eventually Meepas came to the bridge, basilisks in tow. Stoning Shadarack, although the Constantine mage quickly dispelled it. The basilisks froze the pirate team trying to get in from the other side, too. The bridge was secure.
But without engineering, they couldn't actually *do* anything.
So they decided that since they were having so much luck, they'd cleanse the ship of pirates. The first ship they hit went fairly well -- the basislisks were useless, as the 'pirates' had improvised defensive goggles that used mirrors to prevent petrification, but stun grenades and Meepas's claws and Shadarack's katana were enough to kill bothe pirates -- who turned immediately into Illiski. They were just *playing* at being pirates, apparently.
The second ship didn't go as smoothly. The airlock hatch was closed, and Shadarack noticed, before opening it, that various things had been tampered with, and if he'd actually opened it, they'd all have been sucked out into space.
Instead, he peered throug the window... and looked right down the barrel of a gun! A very BIG gun. Belonging to the pirate ship they'd been heading to clean out. And it fired, destroying the airlock, but not hurting any of the party too badly, although they had to evacuate that section of corridor before the blast doors closed.
Not knowing where to head next, they headed to engineering. There they found Hesperius (none of them could talk to him, only to his disembodied voice), who told them that the engine was trashed -- before scuttling off for the rear nacelle, the Illiski had deleted the engine software. And all backups. They raced for the rear, but the Illiski got away -- and they were still dead in the water, and being towed.
On the bridge, the Constantine tried negotiating with the 'pirate' leader to buy the ship as orginally agreed, although of course for a much higher price to make up for the murder of several of his crewmembers. The pirate didn't seem amenable to that sort of persuasion, until they were actually in orbit around Nova Romana, and they suddenly offered to sell. Of course, they agreed.
Hesperius was kept in the loop, though, thanks to his assorted delaying tactics -- the ship had been inspected, and did not have the technology they needed. He'd have to find the other projects and seeif they had it. Whatever the hell it was.
last week
I wanted to run a sci fi game without magic. I'm kind of sick of magic, and when you mix it with technology it's just... difficult. But nooo, everyone wanted to be a wizard, except for the people who wanted to be McGuyver. Ah, well.
Anyway, I hope we have more than two players and Lazar for his game. He said he knows some people who might join, but he says that all the time, and it very rarely pans out.
So the party heard the shuttle pilot go off the air, and felt the ground shake. Soon after, the Lunar Finanacial System's voice came on over the intercom, asking all citizens and visitors to help repel the ongoing invasion.
The procyonisk on duty (whose job was mostly to be there so the party didn't break stuff) was in something of a panic! The shield was still down, and they were under attack! Someone had to get to the control room! The party agreed, and off to the control room they headed.
They didn't get far, though, before the elevator door exploded, depressurizing the room and stunning the procyonisk, who'd been closest to the blast and slowest to dodge the shrapnel. Hesperius sealed the elevator with a wall, but the air was still leaking out the vents. Fortunately, they all had their suits close to hand after the last incident where the air went bad back in Mare Crisium, and the procy was wearing one.
Through the shifting fractal wall, they saw a group of humanoid figures rappel down the shaft to the level below, where the checkpoint to the rest of the complex was located. After waking up and healing the procyonisk (who expressed surprise that the air was leaking out the ducts -- they were supposed to have baffles to stop that sort of air loss! Meepas thought "oops", remembering all the 'grates' he'd slashed open while exploring the system), they dismissed the wall (there was no air left to try to hold in) and dropped to the lower level.
There they saw the invaders doing battle with the security checkpoint. The mages, with the help of glowing orange mana-enhancing scales, were holding off the robots, while the soldiers snapped off a shot here and there when the mages dropped the shield for a second between assaults. Their weapons didn't seem to be very effective, though.
The party recognized the invaders as being four soldiers and two mages from the Constantine family, despite the large 'UTMN' stenciled on their backs. "Can you help us with these robots?" one of the mages asked, sure that the party was there to assist them.
"Maybe," Meepas said, then turned to the Procyonisk. "I'll have to bottle you. I'll probably have to touch one of the scales they have to do it." The procyonisk had no idea what he was talking about, but he explained it in simple terms and she agreed, initially...
But while he was flying up to get close to the scale, the procyonisk kind of freaked out about him obviously being in cahoots with the invaders, and when he cast the spell she tried to resist, without success. He did drain a little too much power from the scale, disrupting the mage's shield just at the wrong time -- the entire invasion party, along with Meepas, were knocked unconscious by the robot's blast.
Hesperius created a wall blocking off the robots, and he and Shadarack dragged the unconscious folk back into the room to wake them up, while the robots stared at the wall, frustrated by their lack of wall-burrowing ability.
So the entire party crept through the air ducts, with Meepas in the lead. They did have to go through the checkpoint in the open air, but Meepas shot himself out of the duct like a spitball from a straw, and managed to hit the vent in the far wall instead of splattering himself against the wall. Hesperius made a solid rock tunnel between the two ducts for everyone else to scurry though (the Constantine mages shrank them to fit).
On the far side, Meepas set the procyonisk free. She was covered in sulfur crystals, and looked really sick, but stumbled off towards the control room, while the invasion party headed downstairs to secure the ship. "Getting the shield back up would be a good way to delay the Illiski," they told Meepas, "But make sure she has it down when it's time for us to leave."
Meepas was heading to the control room anyway to try to heal the sulfur contamination he'd caused by using the scale, and Hesperius and Shadarack followed. Hesperius made a box around the robot in the checkpoint between the second elevator and the control room to keep it from interfering with them.
The procyonisk was having trouble raising the shield, since whatever kept battering the base (they still felt a crash and rumble every few minutes) kept damaging more shield generators. Meepas tried to cure her poison, but the natural means of cleaning poisons from the body were not pleasant to watch or, presumably, to experience -- the procyonisk coughed out a cloud of yellow smoke, then collapsed to the ground, curled up fetal, clutching her convulsively incontinent bladder. "Oops."
So Shadarack and Hesperius tries to combine their talents to put up the shield, and somehow managed to sabotage the generator. The entire base lost power, while the generator, located directly below the control room, glowed brighter... never a good sign.
Hesperius went down to try to fix the generator, while the other three headed down the shaft to catch up with the Constantines. At the bottom, they found the soldiers in a shootout with a few remaining procyonisks, while all around the room the ringtail critters were frozen like statues, most in poses as if they'd been fleeing for their lives. The mages were trying to sneak past a checkpoint robot, but having little luck as it seemed immune to sneaking.
Their pet procyonisk tried to tackle the soldiers, and got shot and put into stasis as well. Shadarack used his glove to destroy the cover the last few procyonisks were depending on, basically ending the battle. The robot was eventually frozen as well, right about the same time Hesperius got back from repairing the generator (which had been in perfect working order, except that all the power was routed back into its own containment field -- no meltdown risk after all).
With everyone present, and no enemies left active, the Constantines moved into the airlock to enter the hangar, leaving the party behind. The party was planning to use the next airlock cycle, but after a few minutes passed with no cycling airlock, Shadarack got anxious and used his glove to vanish the inner airlock door.
Unlike the room they were in, the hangar was still pressurized. FWOOMPH! Everyone, Constantine and party member and frozen procyonisk and table alike, was slammed into the far wall as air rushed out of the hangar, through the room, and eventually to the freedom of space. Until Sharadack un-vanished the inner door.
But the Constantines painted a grim picture of the hangar -- it was full of procyonisks using stun guns and lasers to guard against people coming out the airlock. So it wasn't until they actually heard the Illiski finally smashing through the hangar doors that they were spurred to action.
It was almost too late! The hangar defenders were in total disarray, since the sudden depressurization had flung them into the lack-of-air like rag dolls, but a large spherical ship was preparing to tow the Constantines' vessel out of the hangar, to god-knows-where. It was painted like a pirate ship, though.
The party had flying belts, and managed to cling to the ship before it was too far away. Only one of the Constantines made it with them. Once inside, the Constantine sent Hesperius to the engine room to make sure nothing blew up, while dragging the others to the bridge.
The ship looked like it needed a MUCH larger crew to function properly, though. Hesperius was basically lost trying to manage the massive engine room, and Shadarack and the Mage weren't all that confident about their ability to pilot the ship with only two people instead of the recommended 20.
To make things worse, they were boarded by pirates. Hesperius made himself invisible, and stayed in the engine room to watch what the pirates did -- namely, jack into the engineering computer and take over. Other groups of pirates moved for the bridge, although they were slowed by the emergency blast doors Shadarack dropped in their path.
They weren't stopped, though, so Meepas went out to stop them, all on his lonesome. He tried grenades, first, but quickly switched to Basilisks, which proved to be most effective. The only surviving pirate ran back to his ship.
Around the same time, Hesperius wandered out of engineering and over to the pirate ship Meepas was at to have a look and see who the pirates *really* were. The ships looked piratey on the inside too, but were in direct contact with 'Nova Romana', the habitat Hesperius grew up at, now interdicted due to its support for slavery. He only narrowly escaped becoming an invisible statue, as did Meepas -- the Basilisks were still around, and still looking in various directions.
On the bridge, there was still trouble -- the pirates were coming in through the other access tunnel as well, and as the Constantine mage was busy preparing the stasis field, only Shadarack was there to stop them. So he used some of Jackie's old shells, making a succession of invisible steel walls to delay the inevitable.
Eventually Meepas came to the bridge, basilisks in tow. Stoning Shadarack, although the Constantine mage quickly dispelled it. The basilisks froze the pirate team trying to get in from the other side, too. The bridge was secure.
But without engineering, they couldn't actually *do* anything.
So they decided that since they were having so much luck, they'd cleanse the ship of pirates. The first ship they hit went fairly well -- the basislisks were useless, as the 'pirates' had improvised defensive goggles that used mirrors to prevent petrification, but stun grenades and Meepas's claws and Shadarack's katana were enough to kill bothe pirates -- who turned immediately into Illiski. They were just *playing* at being pirates, apparently.
The second ship didn't go as smoothly. The airlock hatch was closed, and Shadarack noticed, before opening it, that various things had been tampered with, and if he'd actually opened it, they'd all have been sucked out into space.
Instead, he peered throug the window... and looked right down the barrel of a gun! A very BIG gun. Belonging to the pirate ship they'd been heading to clean out. And it fired, destroying the airlock, but not hurting any of the party too badly, although they had to evacuate that section of corridor before the blast doors closed.
Not knowing where to head next, they headed to engineering. There they found Hesperius (none of them could talk to him, only to his disembodied voice), who told them that the engine was trashed -- before scuttling off for the rear nacelle, the Illiski had deleted the engine software. And all backups. They raced for the rear, but the Illiski got away -- and they were still dead in the water, and being towed.
On the bridge, the Constantine tried negotiating with the 'pirate' leader to buy the ship as orginally agreed, although of course for a much higher price to make up for the murder of several of his crewmembers. The pirate didn't seem amenable to that sort of persuasion, until they were actually in orbit around Nova Romana, and they suddenly offered to sell. Of course, they agreed.
Hesperius was kept in the loop, though, thanks to his assorted delaying tactics -- the ship had been inspected, and did not have the technology they needed. He'd have to find the other projects and seeif they had it. Whatever the hell it was.
last week
