Weasels and Bugs, oh my!
May. 15th, 2004 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night Lazar started in on the Stargate campaign, using yet-another-revision-of-Shadake. We completed our first mission, more or less successfully. Although we wrecked our jeep.
After all the equipment was gathered, Theta team headed for the disk to travel to the world where Alpha team was (hopefully) stranded (or possibly dead). They decided to take a jeep, which Kyrae would drive through the portal, assuming it wasn't *too* far off the ground, with Carmine riding, while JT and Nuki flew in first to scout out the area.
The scouts discovered two things: First, that the jarring disorientation experienced when flying through the gate was worse than they'd expected, leaving them nearly helpless for half a minute after transit. The second was that there were explosions going off all around them, although none closer than fifteen or twenty miles. They weren't able to determine what was causing the explosions, but due to the distance they weren't *that* worried about it, so they decided to just let the rest of the team come through as scheduled.
Then everyone piled in the jeep and headed for a set of explosions sort of (but not really) on the way towards the transpoder signal -- the idea being to find out if the explosions were dangerous, before going to find alpha team, whose distress beacon said had taken cover in a 'temple'.
On the way, however, they were surprised by a bunch of giant, multicolored squirrels -- despite watching the forest for danger, and various psionic danger senses. Kyrae tried to run one over, but it didn't move -- the jeep just stopped, instead. Carmine tried to slice at the one gnawing on her with her arm blades, but they had little effect. JT tried to use a pistol, but instead of shooting bullets it sprayed an ineffective slurry of liquified gray goo. Meanwhile, the squirrels were breathing fire, sprouting wings, EXPLODING, and turning invisible. Things looked bad.
However, Theta team had brought a LOT of weapons with them, and eventually they found that tear gas and tasers worked normally on the creatures, and chased them off. Several were killed, and evaporated, leaving behind strange crystals. The invisible squirrel was taken captive, hog-tied and gagged.
Experimentation revealed that the squirrels were almost immune to psionics, but that still didn't explain how such large, brightly colored creatures had appeared all around the jeep, as if out of thin air.
Nuki and JT were badly wounded, but they had no choice but to press on. Eventually, the explosions they were chasing stopped... and as they arrived at the location they'd stopped at, they found what looked like the site of a battle between a bunch of weasel-like creatures in yarn-armor (who were lying around in shredded bits, but Carmine managed to piece together) and an unknown force of what had to be insects, from the chitin bits and non-weasel tracks. Apparently, the weasels had lost the battle, and the insects had taken all their equipment with them, except for clothing and some MREs. There were no signs of what had caused the explosions.
So after taking some samples, it was on to the signal from Alpha team. Strangely, the signal seemed to be coming from underground in an ordinary section of forest that had no signs of temples or anything else -- it was less strange when the jeep suddenly fell through a sinkhole, cracking an axle as it landed in a subterranean tunnel network.
Theta team took some pictures of the strange crystal walls which seemed to be regrowing the pitfall trap above them, gradually closing the exit to the sky, then headed off to follow the signal -- they could call their portal back whereever they wanted, so it didn't matter if they were trapped underground.
Alpha team turned out to be very close -- but in bad shape, unconscious and apparently suffering from dehydration. One of them, 'brick', was missing entirely. Spotting a hole in the cieling that was also gradually closing over, JT flew up to take a look and see if maybe Brick had run off that way.
Instead, he found an insect, which leaped down the hole after him! Tasers didn't work on this opponent, as its thick chitin deflected the prongs before they could shock. Flares seemed to do something to it, but it was really big and they didn't have many flares, so instead Kyrae and JT planted a (very small) C4 charge in the middle of its back, and everyone flew for their lives as it went off.
The insect was killed, but in the process some of the strange lava-lamp-like structures in the crystal chamber Alpha team had been found in were broken open, and out flew 'lava lamp creatures', for lack of any word to describe them. They swarmed around Theta team, surrounding them with illusions or hallucinations of various forms of energy -- fire, ice, light, thorny naturey stuff, and so on. Then they vanished.
At this point, Brick returned -- he'd been off looking for water, and heard the explosion. He told them that they'd been attacked by insects, and had almost immediately fallen down a sinkhole, injuring most of the team and leaving them without a return device.
With Alpha team now regrouped, Theta summoned back the portal -- a bit tricky to do in close quarters without frying themselves with the energy discharge as it opened, but they managed by using two opener devices. They even managed to get the jeep to limp back through.
On the other side, they were debriefed, and gave a full report, including the odd hallucinogenic effects. To no one's surprise, they were quarantined until someone could figure out what the hell had happened to them. Nuki was pretty sure that *something* had really happened (as opposed to them being hallucinations), because Carmine had touched and healed him just after the incident -- and there was certainly unknown technology at work in the ruins, repairing the pitfalls.
After a couple of days, Kyrae started manifesting strange powers -- or at least, JT could feel that he was the cause of the strangeness that was happening with no obvious source. Carmine, who was aware of her new healing power, and had been practicing, suggested that they bring in an outside occultist or psionicist to help train them to control whatever it was that the LLCs had done to them, since it 'felt like' psionics.
last session | next week
At that point, Sandy came in and berated Lazar for screwing up which colors of LLCs did what, and how many each person got, and so on... they'd worked together on that part of the system, and apparently still have some working together to do before we actually know who gets what.
But eh, whatever.
After all the equipment was gathered, Theta team headed for the disk to travel to the world where Alpha team was (hopefully) stranded (or possibly dead). They decided to take a jeep, which Kyrae would drive through the portal, assuming it wasn't *too* far off the ground, with Carmine riding, while JT and Nuki flew in first to scout out the area.
The scouts discovered two things: First, that the jarring disorientation experienced when flying through the gate was worse than they'd expected, leaving them nearly helpless for half a minute after transit. The second was that there were explosions going off all around them, although none closer than fifteen or twenty miles. They weren't able to determine what was causing the explosions, but due to the distance they weren't *that* worried about it, so they decided to just let the rest of the team come through as scheduled.
Then everyone piled in the jeep and headed for a set of explosions sort of (but not really) on the way towards the transpoder signal -- the idea being to find out if the explosions were dangerous, before going to find alpha team, whose distress beacon said had taken cover in a 'temple'.
On the way, however, they were surprised by a bunch of giant, multicolored squirrels -- despite watching the forest for danger, and various psionic danger senses. Kyrae tried to run one over, but it didn't move -- the jeep just stopped, instead. Carmine tried to slice at the one gnawing on her with her arm blades, but they had little effect. JT tried to use a pistol, but instead of shooting bullets it sprayed an ineffective slurry of liquified gray goo. Meanwhile, the squirrels were breathing fire, sprouting wings, EXPLODING, and turning invisible. Things looked bad.
However, Theta team had brought a LOT of weapons with them, and eventually they found that tear gas and tasers worked normally on the creatures, and chased them off. Several were killed, and evaporated, leaving behind strange crystals. The invisible squirrel was taken captive, hog-tied and gagged.
Experimentation revealed that the squirrels were almost immune to psionics, but that still didn't explain how such large, brightly colored creatures had appeared all around the jeep, as if out of thin air.
Nuki and JT were badly wounded, but they had no choice but to press on. Eventually, the explosions they were chasing stopped... and as they arrived at the location they'd stopped at, they found what looked like the site of a battle between a bunch of weasel-like creatures in yarn-armor (who were lying around in shredded bits, but Carmine managed to piece together) and an unknown force of what had to be insects, from the chitin bits and non-weasel tracks. Apparently, the weasels had lost the battle, and the insects had taken all their equipment with them, except for clothing and some MREs. There were no signs of what had caused the explosions.
So after taking some samples, it was on to the signal from Alpha team. Strangely, the signal seemed to be coming from underground in an ordinary section of forest that had no signs of temples or anything else -- it was less strange when the jeep suddenly fell through a sinkhole, cracking an axle as it landed in a subterranean tunnel network.
Theta team took some pictures of the strange crystal walls which seemed to be regrowing the pitfall trap above them, gradually closing the exit to the sky, then headed off to follow the signal -- they could call their portal back whereever they wanted, so it didn't matter if they were trapped underground.
Alpha team turned out to be very close -- but in bad shape, unconscious and apparently suffering from dehydration. One of them, 'brick', was missing entirely. Spotting a hole in the cieling that was also gradually closing over, JT flew up to take a look and see if maybe Brick had run off that way.
Instead, he found an insect, which leaped down the hole after him! Tasers didn't work on this opponent, as its thick chitin deflected the prongs before they could shock. Flares seemed to do something to it, but it was really big and they didn't have many flares, so instead Kyrae and JT planted a (very small) C4 charge in the middle of its back, and everyone flew for their lives as it went off.
The insect was killed, but in the process some of the strange lava-lamp-like structures in the crystal chamber Alpha team had been found in were broken open, and out flew 'lava lamp creatures', for lack of any word to describe them. They swarmed around Theta team, surrounding them with illusions or hallucinations of various forms of energy -- fire, ice, light, thorny naturey stuff, and so on. Then they vanished.
At this point, Brick returned -- he'd been off looking for water, and heard the explosion. He told them that they'd been attacked by insects, and had almost immediately fallen down a sinkhole, injuring most of the team and leaving them without a return device.
With Alpha team now regrouped, Theta summoned back the portal -- a bit tricky to do in close quarters without frying themselves with the energy discharge as it opened, but they managed by using two opener devices. They even managed to get the jeep to limp back through.
On the other side, they were debriefed, and gave a full report, including the odd hallucinogenic effects. To no one's surprise, they were quarantined until someone could figure out what the hell had happened to them. Nuki was pretty sure that *something* had really happened (as opposed to them being hallucinations), because Carmine had touched and healed him just after the incident -- and there was certainly unknown technology at work in the ruins, repairing the pitfalls.
After a couple of days, Kyrae started manifesting strange powers -- or at least, JT could feel that he was the cause of the strangeness that was happening with no obvious source. Carmine, who was aware of her new healing power, and had been practicing, suggested that they bring in an outside occultist or psionicist to help train them to control whatever it was that the LLCs had done to them, since it 'felt like' psionics.
last session | next week
At that point, Sandy came in and berated Lazar for screwing up which colors of LLCs did what, and how many each person got, and so on... they'd worked together on that part of the system, and apparently still have some working together to do before we actually know who gets what.
But eh, whatever.
