Curse of the Coal Mine
Aug. 28th, 2004 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we actually had a real RPG session again, starting the GURPS game for real this time. We fought the fearsome bees, and bears, losing one NPC in the process. Stupid bears.
Fighting wildlife makes me think 'Ultima', especially fighting puny wildlife (eg, bees) that nearly kills several members of the party.
Of course, we didn't get started until 8 or 9pm (Lazar said 8, I said 9, no one really remembered) because Murdock was late (he has to work later on Fridays for the forseeable future) and cooking dinner took a long time. Dinner was actually the limiting factor.
Sandy spent the whole time we were playing the game disassembling Lego Mindstom things and putting them back in the box, sorted, so that Snowwy could borrow/take them. I guess I shouldn't be surprised it took that long... and Sandy is kind of obsessive about things like that, so I shouldn't be surprised she took the time to do it. I think I would have just tossed the things in the box and hoped they were all there and fit, personally. }:P
When she was finally done neatly sorting everything back into place, she handed the box to Snowwy, who held it by the sides instead of the bottom, and it dropped to the ground and scattered legos everywhere. D'oh!
So, Charlie finished his protective rituals to keep JR's minions (which included himself) from getting cursed, although he wasn't sure if they would work. He didn't *say* that in so many words, he used many more weasel words.
But at any rate, it was time to walk to JR's to use his newfangled 'automobile' that Don had built for him to drive to the mine, which was fourteen miles outside of Athens. On the way, JR stumbled and acted strange, but waved it off as nothing. Charlie tried to check his aura to see if it was something, and noticed that *all* of them seemed to be affected by a sort of psychic wind, that swept past the other pedestrians without any effect.
At the garage, they drew straws to see who had to ride in the external rumble seat, and Bill lost. But as Charlie stepped into the automobile, he felt something crunch beneath his feet, and a swarm of angry wasps rose up to attack!
Charlie, thinking quickly, screamed like a little girl and ran outside into the rain, where (out of sight of the others) he cast a smoke spell (one of his spirit-granted knacks) to drive the wasps away. He actually managed to pull that off before getting stung -- but the smoke just made the wasps angrier, and they flew back inside to attack the others. By the time Charlie stopped coughing from the smoke, and found and gassed the wasp nest (with a deadlier attack spell, 'stench'), all the wasps had already gone inside to sting Bill and JR (Duncan and Don wisely stayed inside the automobile and closed the doors to keep the wasps out).
Bill and JR killed all the little winged demons, but were stung badly. Fortunately, they had a doctor on hand to bandage them up and suck out the poison. That crisis past, they all got in the automobile (again) and headed out towards the mine.
The rain was pretty bad, and the road unpaved, so it wasn't long before Don's so-called driving got them stuck in a rut. Bill and Charlie got out to try to push the three-ton machine out of the mud, but were stopped by the attack of a giant rabid bear.
Don, with questionable wisdom, leaped out of his seat and drew his rapier, trying to fence with the bear. It didn't work so well -- the bear dodged his thrust, and mauled his arm. Bill shot at it with a revolver, actually managing to hit, but that just made it angry -- it leapt on top of him and started eating him.
After hiding in the automobile and drawing his rifle, and swapping out the bullets for non-ghost bullets since he didn't want to waste them, Charlie finally shot at the bear, missing completely. Seeing the situation turning desperate (as JR was out of the fight, Bill was possibly dead, and Duncan and Don were about to engage the beast with a large wrench and a spear respectively) he resorted to magic, and rushing through a barely-known ritual managed to put the creature to sleep. It fell asleep on top of Bill.
Sneaking around, so as not to wake it up, the three of them (Charlie, Duncan, and Don) carefully lined up their shots, and blew the bear away by putting a bullet through its eye. Then they dragged Bill out from under the corpse, and Charlie spent about an hour bandaging him and JR up, while Don scrounged up a board to put under the wheel to get the automobile moving again, before they had to fight the OTHER bears Charlie could sense being 'pushed' their way by the evil wind.
They dropped Bill off back in the city -- he was badly mauled, with broken ribs, and wasn't likely to survive anything in the mine if they took him along. JR wasn't nearly as badly hurt as it'd seemed at first, once the gashes were bandaged (and some magic covertly applied). Which was good, because he was leading the expedition.
Charlie decided that all this couldn't possibly be a coincidence, but that maybe a normal old guardian spirit could follow their automobile and protect against the evil wind's influences. He summoned up a cheerful, friendly otter spirit, then bound it to his will, ordering it to follow along and protect them. It was hard to say if the binding worked, since the spirit probably would have cooperated anyway.
Whether because of the spirit's help, or just because their luck held, they managed to arrive at the mine unharmed, to find that the mine was flooding. Don quickly analyzed the myriad coincidental malfunctions that had shut down the pump, and fixed them in five minutes, but Charlie suggested that they wait an hour or so to pump out most of the water before going down, just in case. Well, and so he could rest to regain the faitgue he'd spent healing everyone (and gassing wasps).
last week | next week
Fighting wildlife makes me think 'Ultima', especially fighting puny wildlife (eg, bees) that nearly kills several members of the party.
Of course, we didn't get started until 8 or 9pm (Lazar said 8, I said 9, no one really remembered) because Murdock was late (he has to work later on Fridays for the forseeable future) and cooking dinner took a long time. Dinner was actually the limiting factor.
Sandy spent the whole time we were playing the game disassembling Lego Mindstom things and putting them back in the box, sorted, so that Snowwy could borrow/take them. I guess I shouldn't be surprised it took that long... and Sandy is kind of obsessive about things like that, so I shouldn't be surprised she took the time to do it. I think I would have just tossed the things in the box and hoped they were all there and fit, personally. }:P
When she was finally done neatly sorting everything back into place, she handed the box to Snowwy, who held it by the sides instead of the bottom, and it dropped to the ground and scattered legos everywhere. D'oh!
So, Charlie finished his protective rituals to keep JR's minions (which included himself) from getting cursed, although he wasn't sure if they would work. He didn't *say* that in so many words, he used many more weasel words.
But at any rate, it was time to walk to JR's to use his newfangled 'automobile' that Don had built for him to drive to the mine, which was fourteen miles outside of Athens. On the way, JR stumbled and acted strange, but waved it off as nothing. Charlie tried to check his aura to see if it was something, and noticed that *all* of them seemed to be affected by a sort of psychic wind, that swept past the other pedestrians without any effect.
At the garage, they drew straws to see who had to ride in the external rumble seat, and Bill lost. But as Charlie stepped into the automobile, he felt something crunch beneath his feet, and a swarm of angry wasps rose up to attack!
Charlie, thinking quickly, screamed like a little girl and ran outside into the rain, where (out of sight of the others) he cast a smoke spell (one of his spirit-granted knacks) to drive the wasps away. He actually managed to pull that off before getting stung -- but the smoke just made the wasps angrier, and they flew back inside to attack the others. By the time Charlie stopped coughing from the smoke, and found and gassed the wasp nest (with a deadlier attack spell, 'stench'), all the wasps had already gone inside to sting Bill and JR (Duncan and Don wisely stayed inside the automobile and closed the doors to keep the wasps out).
Bill and JR killed all the little winged demons, but were stung badly. Fortunately, they had a doctor on hand to bandage them up and suck out the poison. That crisis past, they all got in the automobile (again) and headed out towards the mine.
The rain was pretty bad, and the road unpaved, so it wasn't long before Don's so-called driving got them stuck in a rut. Bill and Charlie got out to try to push the three-ton machine out of the mud, but were stopped by the attack of a giant rabid bear.
Don, with questionable wisdom, leaped out of his seat and drew his rapier, trying to fence with the bear. It didn't work so well -- the bear dodged his thrust, and mauled his arm. Bill shot at it with a revolver, actually managing to hit, but that just made it angry -- it leapt on top of him and started eating him.
After hiding in the automobile and drawing his rifle, and swapping out the bullets for non-ghost bullets since he didn't want to waste them, Charlie finally shot at the bear, missing completely. Seeing the situation turning desperate (as JR was out of the fight, Bill was possibly dead, and Duncan and Don were about to engage the beast with a large wrench and a spear respectively) he resorted to magic, and rushing through a barely-known ritual managed to put the creature to sleep. It fell asleep on top of Bill.
Sneaking around, so as not to wake it up, the three of them (Charlie, Duncan, and Don) carefully lined up their shots, and blew the bear away by putting a bullet through its eye. Then they dragged Bill out from under the corpse, and Charlie spent about an hour bandaging him and JR up, while Don scrounged up a board to put under the wheel to get the automobile moving again, before they had to fight the OTHER bears Charlie could sense being 'pushed' their way by the evil wind.
They dropped Bill off back in the city -- he was badly mauled, with broken ribs, and wasn't likely to survive anything in the mine if they took him along. JR wasn't nearly as badly hurt as it'd seemed at first, once the gashes were bandaged (and some magic covertly applied). Which was good, because he was leading the expedition.
Charlie decided that all this couldn't possibly be a coincidence, but that maybe a normal old guardian spirit could follow their automobile and protect against the evil wind's influences. He summoned up a cheerful, friendly otter spirit, then bound it to his will, ordering it to follow along and protect them. It was hard to say if the binding worked, since the spirit probably would have cooperated anyway.
Whether because of the spirit's help, or just because their luck held, they managed to arrive at the mine unharmed, to find that the mine was flooding. Don quickly analyzed the myriad coincidental malfunctions that had shut down the pump, and fixed them in five minutes, but Charlie suggested that they wait an hour or so to pump out most of the water before going down, just in case. Well, and so he could rest to regain the faitgue he'd spent healing everyone (and gassing wasps).
last week | next week
