Holy Radioactive Robots!
Oct. 23rd, 2004 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we had a session of the 1890s Neverwhere GURPS game. As previously noted, it was supposed to be at Stacey's house, but she had an 'emergency' pop up and decided she couldn't come at all. Unfortunately, the only contact I have with people on the day of a game is through the yahoo group (or, well, livejournal, but I don't think anyone's ever used it for that) because I'm at work, and can't abide webmail, and don't want anyone to use my work address. The yahoo group isn't very timely about putting messages up if you send them in through e-mail, so never got the message saying that she cancelled... I only *barely* got the message that gave the directions to get there.
So, I headed down to Stacey's place, which is close to Lazar's... I decided to take an experimental route to try to find the upper end of the elusive Forbidden Overpass that would let me cross I-90 without heavy traffic, and did manage to find it... but only after driving through the entire BCC campus, which wasted more time than sitting in traffic would have. It also doesn't come out in an ideal spot, so while I managed to avoid all the traffic, it probably cost me time over taking the more direct routes. Which is probably why the more direct routes have more traffic.
At any rate, I got 'right' and 'left' mixed up, so it took a few tries before I found Stacey's place, where a random family member looked nervous and told me that no... she wasn't there. Hadn't I gotten the mail?
So I got to the game about an hour late, and then we went out to eat at Torrerros, which means we only got a few hours of actual playtime in. Sigh. v.v
Devon (as the boy who'd offered to take the party to a different world so that they wouldn't get stuck between was called, now) explained to Charlie, Don, and JR (Dodger having run off on some errand again) that it was easy to get to another world if you weren't stuck -- you just had to interact with someone from that world who could see you. In theory, you could interact with someone who *couldn't* see you, but that usually just ended up pulling them between. And it helped to do it in an area that only existed in one world. Which was why he was offering to send them to a world other than their own.
Charlie was okay with moving to a new dimension, since supposedly a place would be made for them there, and his place in the real world had always been somewhat tenuous. He worried about Don and JR, but both of them were okay with the idea as well. So they let Devon lead them into the steam tunnels, which were much more expansive between (as any artificial alteration done in any world existed between) and soon came to an area that looked inhabited, with glowy firefly globes providing illumination, and locked doors -- it reminded them of city streets, in a way.
As they proceeded, the light fixtures started to change, getting gradually more complicated and better made, until finally the globes were replaced by electric lights. Looking back, ALL the lights were electric. Apparently, the world was adjusting itself for them in advance.
Grandfather Ames [not 'Uncle Istvan', sorry] turned out to be the blue-flower-etched samurai that Charlie had seen fight what must have been a feral out by the library. Apparently, he was gifted with the ability to see people of other worlds, or at least between. He talked with them about the world, and as they chatted the room continued to adjust around him, which he found almost as disturbing as they did -- he'd seen this happen before, but he knew that it *wasn't* normal for such a large change to happen, simply from the presence of three new people.
Somehow, the three of them being there had expanded Grandfather Ames' town from a mere 223 people to more than 3000... and there were more books and technology, as noted. Ames didn't like electric lights, but looking at his records acknowledged that he was paying Don (and someone named 'Anakin') to build them. He, no doubt, lived somewhere on the grounds.
Charlie, Ames saw from his records, was a shaman being given sanctuary after being thrown out of his tribe for continuing to make deals with the Kits after they'd turned on the natives. "Am I still working for the Kits, then?" "I hope not."
The Kits were the multi-tailed dog-men, like the 'werewolf' Charlie and Don had 'fought off', who'd tricked the natives into letting them into the world by promising to drive out the white man, then had turned on the natives and started bringing more of their own kind in themselves. Since they'd entered properly, by interacting with the natives, they had now always been there, in the same way Charlie and Don and JR had always been there. They were more of a nuisance than a danger, though, because unlike the ferals, they spent most of their time back on their homeworld, and only occasionally popped in to kill a few people.
There was no record of John Richards in Ames' books. This turned out to be because John was not a local -- he'd been born and raised in England -- so whatever effect he'd had on the world had probably been mostly in England, although there would have to be some explanation as to why he was all the way over in Athens. Intercontinental travel was much less common on this world, because natural hazards were much more dangerous, and so people rarely left the protection of their Family. Also, they didn't have airplanes, just griffons. And griffons didn't fly across oceans.
At any rate, there was a party going on, because Ames had recently managed to kill one of the Kits who'd been plagueing his family. He suggested they go mingle, and find people who knew them, using alcohol as an excuse for lapses in memory.
JR was the first to find his place -- as he stepped out into the crowd, he was immediately attacked by a green-etched samurai. "Let's see if the stories about you are true!" Faster than anyone else could react, JR and the samurai traded blows, until the samurai put away his sword. "Did I outstep you there, at the end?" "A little..." JR admitted, having only gotten three turns to the samurai's five. "Then the stories about you aren't *quite* true." With that, he walked off.
JR, shaken by the sudden fight, decided he needed a drink. Two drinks later, he was unconscious, and someone carried him to the home he was staying at. Problem solved!
Next, someone approached Don and told him that his master, Anakin, was calling for him -- his symptoms were getting worse. Charlie offered to come and see if there was anything he could do to help, being a doctor and all. The first thing he was able to do, as it turned out, was create a doorway to let them teleport into the locked laboratory, since Don, of course, didn't remember the sequence of buttons to press to open the puzzle-box lock he'd apparently installed.
Anakin's appearance was quite a surprise. He was, in short, a robot -- shaped like a black human skeleton, with glowing green eyes, and steam jetting from his joints. He talked to Don about the 'factory' they were planning to build, and mentioned that the overheating in his joints was getting worse. In the middle of a sentence, he shut down for five seconds, only to restart as if nothing had happened... Don mentioned this to him, and he wondered if, perhaps, he needed to be recharged? Don asked to see one of his power sources so that he could examine it and figure out how it worked, and Anakin opened up his own leg and removed a circuit-board studded metallic rod, which Don took over to a workbench.
Meanwhile, Charlie had gotten permission to examine Anakin from the spirit plane, to see if that was the source of his issues. Anakin did not have a spirit of any kind, and there were no spirits or spells affecting him, but Charlie hadn't meditated in far too long, and felt compelled to pray to the spirits for a spell that would let him see what was wrong with the robot. After an hour, he was granted the power to see radiation -- and he saw the harmful light from the nine rods (well, eight now) embedded in Anakin slowly damaging and degrading his substance -- in particular, particles were breaking off the rods into his bloodstream (or whatever) and collecting in his joints.
Of course, the worse problem was Don over there handling the rod with his bare hands for an hour, since the light was MUCH more harmful to human flesh than to metal. Charlie warned Don of that, and pointed out the materials in the lab which seemed to best block the piercing light, and Don started working on a scheme to shield Anakin (and himself) from the effects of the radiation.
At that point, Charlie wandered off to try to find his own home. Conversation with Agamemnon revealed that the spirit had memories both of how this world used to be before Charlie came, and how it had always been now, and informed Charlie that, no, he was NOT working for the Kits... and that a shaman was waiting back at the 'church' where he lived, hoping to trade services with him. After another brief confrontation with the baby-craving scythe-handed spirit (in which it was revealed that once he gave it two more children, it would complete its side of the bargain and scour the white man from Charlie's world), Charlie headed in to talk with him.
last session | next session
So, I headed down to Stacey's place, which is close to Lazar's... I decided to take an experimental route to try to find the upper end of the elusive Forbidden Overpass that would let me cross I-90 without heavy traffic, and did manage to find it... but only after driving through the entire BCC campus, which wasted more time than sitting in traffic would have. It also doesn't come out in an ideal spot, so while I managed to avoid all the traffic, it probably cost me time over taking the more direct routes. Which is probably why the more direct routes have more traffic.
At any rate, I got 'right' and 'left' mixed up, so it took a few tries before I found Stacey's place, where a random family member looked nervous and told me that no... she wasn't there. Hadn't I gotten the mail?
So I got to the game about an hour late, and then we went out to eat at Torrerros, which means we only got a few hours of actual playtime in. Sigh. v.v
Devon (as the boy who'd offered to take the party to a different world so that they wouldn't get stuck between was called, now) explained to Charlie, Don, and JR (Dodger having run off on some errand again) that it was easy to get to another world if you weren't stuck -- you just had to interact with someone from that world who could see you. In theory, you could interact with someone who *couldn't* see you, but that usually just ended up pulling them between. And it helped to do it in an area that only existed in one world. Which was why he was offering to send them to a world other than their own.
Charlie was okay with moving to a new dimension, since supposedly a place would be made for them there, and his place in the real world had always been somewhat tenuous. He worried about Don and JR, but both of them were okay with the idea as well. So they let Devon lead them into the steam tunnels, which were much more expansive between (as any artificial alteration done in any world existed between) and soon came to an area that looked inhabited, with glowy firefly globes providing illumination, and locked doors -- it reminded them of city streets, in a way.
As they proceeded, the light fixtures started to change, getting gradually more complicated and better made, until finally the globes were replaced by electric lights. Looking back, ALL the lights were electric. Apparently, the world was adjusting itself for them in advance.
Grandfather Ames [not 'Uncle Istvan', sorry] turned out to be the blue-flower-etched samurai that Charlie had seen fight what must have been a feral out by the library. Apparently, he was gifted with the ability to see people of other worlds, or at least between. He talked with them about the world, and as they chatted the room continued to adjust around him, which he found almost as disturbing as they did -- he'd seen this happen before, but he knew that it *wasn't* normal for such a large change to happen, simply from the presence of three new people.
Somehow, the three of them being there had expanded Grandfather Ames' town from a mere 223 people to more than 3000... and there were more books and technology, as noted. Ames didn't like electric lights, but looking at his records acknowledged that he was paying Don (and someone named 'Anakin') to build them. He, no doubt, lived somewhere on the grounds.
Charlie, Ames saw from his records, was a shaman being given sanctuary after being thrown out of his tribe for continuing to make deals with the Kits after they'd turned on the natives. "Am I still working for the Kits, then?" "I hope not."
The Kits were the multi-tailed dog-men, like the 'werewolf' Charlie and Don had 'fought off', who'd tricked the natives into letting them into the world by promising to drive out the white man, then had turned on the natives and started bringing more of their own kind in themselves. Since they'd entered properly, by interacting with the natives, they had now always been there, in the same way Charlie and Don and JR had always been there. They were more of a nuisance than a danger, though, because unlike the ferals, they spent most of their time back on their homeworld, and only occasionally popped in to kill a few people.
There was no record of John Richards in Ames' books. This turned out to be because John was not a local -- he'd been born and raised in England -- so whatever effect he'd had on the world had probably been mostly in England, although there would have to be some explanation as to why he was all the way over in Athens. Intercontinental travel was much less common on this world, because natural hazards were much more dangerous, and so people rarely left the protection of their Family. Also, they didn't have airplanes, just griffons. And griffons didn't fly across oceans.
At any rate, there was a party going on, because Ames had recently managed to kill one of the Kits who'd been plagueing his family. He suggested they go mingle, and find people who knew them, using alcohol as an excuse for lapses in memory.
JR was the first to find his place -- as he stepped out into the crowd, he was immediately attacked by a green-etched samurai. "Let's see if the stories about you are true!" Faster than anyone else could react, JR and the samurai traded blows, until the samurai put away his sword. "Did I outstep you there, at the end?" "A little..." JR admitted, having only gotten three turns to the samurai's five. "Then the stories about you aren't *quite* true." With that, he walked off.
JR, shaken by the sudden fight, decided he needed a drink. Two drinks later, he was unconscious, and someone carried him to the home he was staying at. Problem solved!
Next, someone approached Don and told him that his master, Anakin, was calling for him -- his symptoms were getting worse. Charlie offered to come and see if there was anything he could do to help, being a doctor and all. The first thing he was able to do, as it turned out, was create a doorway to let them teleport into the locked laboratory, since Don, of course, didn't remember the sequence of buttons to press to open the puzzle-box lock he'd apparently installed.
Anakin's appearance was quite a surprise. He was, in short, a robot -- shaped like a black human skeleton, with glowing green eyes, and steam jetting from his joints. He talked to Don about the 'factory' they were planning to build, and mentioned that the overheating in his joints was getting worse. In the middle of a sentence, he shut down for five seconds, only to restart as if nothing had happened... Don mentioned this to him, and he wondered if, perhaps, he needed to be recharged? Don asked to see one of his power sources so that he could examine it and figure out how it worked, and Anakin opened up his own leg and removed a circuit-board studded metallic rod, which Don took over to a workbench.
Meanwhile, Charlie had gotten permission to examine Anakin from the spirit plane, to see if that was the source of his issues. Anakin did not have a spirit of any kind, and there were no spirits or spells affecting him, but Charlie hadn't meditated in far too long, and felt compelled to pray to the spirits for a spell that would let him see what was wrong with the robot. After an hour, he was granted the power to see radiation -- and he saw the harmful light from the nine rods (well, eight now) embedded in Anakin slowly damaging and degrading his substance -- in particular, particles were breaking off the rods into his bloodstream (or whatever) and collecting in his joints.
Of course, the worse problem was Don over there handling the rod with his bare hands for an hour, since the light was MUCH more harmful to human flesh than to metal. Charlie warned Don of that, and pointed out the materials in the lab which seemed to best block the piercing light, and Don started working on a scheme to shield Anakin (and himself) from the effects of the radiation.
At that point, Charlie wandered off to try to find his own home. Conversation with Agamemnon revealed that the spirit had memories both of how this world used to be before Charlie came, and how it had always been now, and informed Charlie that, no, he was NOT working for the Kits... and that a shaman was waiting back at the 'church' where he lived, hoping to trade services with him. After another brief confrontation with the baby-craving scythe-handed spirit (in which it was revealed that once he gave it two more children, it would complete its side of the bargain and scour the white man from Charlie's world), Charlie headed in to talk with him.
last session | next session
