Magical Mystery Tour
Feb. 18th, 2006 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothHad a session of Lazar's game last night. It looks like Twidget won't be coming back anymore, because of conflicts with his job. Like we've never heard that one before...
It took a while to get the basket-wagons up and running. They were 'five times bigger on the inside than the outside', but unfortunately the plans had been drawn up assuming that was five times as big in every dimension, and of course they were only five times the volume. But there was enough dead canopy for three wagons, and the 'every dimension' bit had really only been counting two dimensions (as on a floorplan), so while space was a little tight, they managed to fit most everything in.
The first wagon was mostly storage -- a levicus cage to lighten the load of all the metal and other materials they needed to work their magitech. In the other half, the danger room from the ship was installed, and Jardin's forge was put inside.
The second wagon was the living quarters, with a small kitchen, an 'entry chamber' fixed up to look like the entire inside of the wagon under cursory inspection, and curtained off living quarters for everyone (left) to sleep in.
The third was actually twice as big inside as the others, with the extra space forming a 'basement' only accessible by secret door, where they stored most of the levicus they harvested from the glowing lands. Other valuable-looking cargo (including more food machines and the mirrors) filled the top.
The three wagons had wooden wheels, and were pulled by headless horses forged by Jardin. The anchors from the ship were installed on top of the wagons as weapons, and they were rigged with levicus plating that could be relatively quickly sealed airtight to make the wagons weightless, in case they needed them to verrry... slowllly... fly sometime. Slowly because they'd still have all (well, 1/5th, they were also wagons of holding) their mass and would have to be towed by hand.
While they were setting all that up, the pirate that Ka'sa had been controlling came back, dying of radiation sickness, and passed out. They healed him and tied him up, and told him that they'd let him go when they left, but that they were NOT going to take him with them, because he wanted to kill them. Before that, the kid (Jeff the mage) talked to him a bit, didn't trust him not to start killing people, and picked up Ka'sa's dagger... but wasn't possessed either. Maybe it was broken?
"It keeps trying to take over, but it doesn't seem to be working," he reported. Wayne suggested that he give the dagger to Roshan -- and it worked, with Ka'sa's soul animating Roshan's body. This was good in that (a) they wouldn't have to feed and clean her in her coma and (b) she remembered many of Ka'sa's skills, like carpentry> It was not as good as they might have hoped in that she didn't have any memories of... well.. anything. Not Roshan's or Ka'sa's. He'd evidently damaged himself with the soul-manipulations that had gone on, and possibly in trying to take over Jeff -- the dagger was not designed to work against the mages themselves.
The silver dragon hatchling also returned, smashing the fourth basket (which was useless anyway) to bits when it tried to use it as a landing pad. Apparently, it had gone around talking to everyone and telling them about the party, and finding interesting things to eat. Like giant grasshoppers! When asked how he'd found them again, he mentioned that *of course* he could *always* find Perrel. They were linked in some fashion.
At any rate, they decided it was time to get going, and headed into the glowing lands, hoping that their enemies wouldn't be able to find them. It was slow going, since the glowing lands, deadly as they were, were overgrown with life... but after a few days when they started running out of food and water they discovered two things.
First, that somehow the food and water stores on the ship had been given the lowest priority for available cargo space in the wagons. So they were running out.
Second, that the strangely crystalline plants and animals they saw were not edible, even if you ignored the possibility of radiation.
They did find water, albeit slightly radioactive water (but what choice did they have?), but food was... non-nutritious. They basically had to eat processed cloth and levicus, which was mostly cellulose. So when they found some dead grasshoppers from a fragment of the army that had been killed by something or other, they decided to process them into food despite their being kind of... ripe. Rudy was good with the machines, though, and managed to make them taste not horrible. Just really bad.
Later, when that ran out, they managed to capture a Swimmy -- a flying eel that was able to warp in and out of various portals, that seemed to be common in the glowing lands. The swimmy put up a fight, but not enough of one, and... my god, the stench! Aaarrgh! Maybe death would be preferable! But no, they ate it too.
There were other neat things in the glowing lands, and they collected samples of some of them, although they were mostly trying to keep up the pace (which was, as noted, going a lot more slowly than they'd hoped due to the lack of roads), and some dangers, like a giant 8-legged weasel, an acre-sized swarm of ants, and worst of all -- a light rain. Which made the land glow with hard radiation (which they were fortunately shielded against -- Chochang had used all their gold to make more of the anti-radiation paint, and they'd been wearing it day and night, just in case of rain).
They also took the time in the middle to try to call home. They antigrav'd and floated one of the wagons up into the air until they had line of sight to the last mirror (back in the cloudforest)... the only signal they got was 'we have lost contact, please respond'. So they did, with a short message telling that Balthazaar was missing, that the ship was destroyed, and that they were heading home -- and asking if 'they had anything to tell them', since the language the journal taken from one of the dead soldiers had been written in was Jiraean.
But when they got back down, Jeff told them that the people they'd actually been talking to were not in Jirae -- they were on the centaur isle, and felt similar to the army that was chasing him. This didn't necessarily mean that they were the enemy, of course... but that the signal hadn't reached Jirae was worrying.
Worse, though, was when, at long last, after nearly two weeks, they reached the far edge of the glowing lands, and found the grasshopper army camped out, seemingly waiting for them. With the silver dragon apparently an honored guest.
last session | next session
Bleargh. I seem to be getting a slight cold, today. I hope it stays slight.
It took a while to get the basket-wagons up and running. They were 'five times bigger on the inside than the outside', but unfortunately the plans had been drawn up assuming that was five times as big in every dimension, and of course they were only five times the volume. But there was enough dead canopy for three wagons, and the 'every dimension' bit had really only been counting two dimensions (as on a floorplan), so while space was a little tight, they managed to fit most everything in.
The first wagon was mostly storage -- a levicus cage to lighten the load of all the metal and other materials they needed to work their magitech. In the other half, the danger room from the ship was installed, and Jardin's forge was put inside.
The second wagon was the living quarters, with a small kitchen, an 'entry chamber' fixed up to look like the entire inside of the wagon under cursory inspection, and curtained off living quarters for everyone (left) to sleep in.
The third was actually twice as big inside as the others, with the extra space forming a 'basement' only accessible by secret door, where they stored most of the levicus they harvested from the glowing lands. Other valuable-looking cargo (including more food machines and the mirrors) filled the top.
The three wagons had wooden wheels, and were pulled by headless horses forged by Jardin. The anchors from the ship were installed on top of the wagons as weapons, and they were rigged with levicus plating that could be relatively quickly sealed airtight to make the wagons weightless, in case they needed them to verrry... slowllly... fly sometime. Slowly because they'd still have all (well, 1/5th, they were also wagons of holding) their mass and would have to be towed by hand.
While they were setting all that up, the pirate that Ka'sa had been controlling came back, dying of radiation sickness, and passed out. They healed him and tied him up, and told him that they'd let him go when they left, but that they were NOT going to take him with them, because he wanted to kill them. Before that, the kid (Jeff the mage) talked to him a bit, didn't trust him not to start killing people, and picked up Ka'sa's dagger... but wasn't possessed either. Maybe it was broken?
"It keeps trying to take over, but it doesn't seem to be working," he reported. Wayne suggested that he give the dagger to Roshan -- and it worked, with Ka'sa's soul animating Roshan's body. This was good in that (a) they wouldn't have to feed and clean her in her coma and (b) she remembered many of Ka'sa's skills, like carpentry> It was not as good as they might have hoped in that she didn't have any memories of... well.. anything. Not Roshan's or Ka'sa's. He'd evidently damaged himself with the soul-manipulations that had gone on, and possibly in trying to take over Jeff -- the dagger was not designed to work against the mages themselves.
The silver dragon hatchling also returned, smashing the fourth basket (which was useless anyway) to bits when it tried to use it as a landing pad. Apparently, it had gone around talking to everyone and telling them about the party, and finding interesting things to eat. Like giant grasshoppers! When asked how he'd found them again, he mentioned that *of course* he could *always* find Perrel. They were linked in some fashion.
At any rate, they decided it was time to get going, and headed into the glowing lands, hoping that their enemies wouldn't be able to find them. It was slow going, since the glowing lands, deadly as they were, were overgrown with life... but after a few days when they started running out of food and water they discovered two things.
First, that somehow the food and water stores on the ship had been given the lowest priority for available cargo space in the wagons. So they were running out.
Second, that the strangely crystalline plants and animals they saw were not edible, even if you ignored the possibility of radiation.
They did find water, albeit slightly radioactive water (but what choice did they have?), but food was... non-nutritious. They basically had to eat processed cloth and levicus, which was mostly cellulose. So when they found some dead grasshoppers from a fragment of the army that had been killed by something or other, they decided to process them into food despite their being kind of... ripe. Rudy was good with the machines, though, and managed to make them taste not horrible. Just really bad.
Later, when that ran out, they managed to capture a Swimmy -- a flying eel that was able to warp in and out of various portals, that seemed to be common in the glowing lands. The swimmy put up a fight, but not enough of one, and... my god, the stench! Aaarrgh! Maybe death would be preferable! But no, they ate it too.
There were other neat things in the glowing lands, and they collected samples of some of them, although they were mostly trying to keep up the pace (which was, as noted, going a lot more slowly than they'd hoped due to the lack of roads), and some dangers, like a giant 8-legged weasel, an acre-sized swarm of ants, and worst of all -- a light rain. Which made the land glow with hard radiation (which they were fortunately shielded against -- Chochang had used all their gold to make more of the anti-radiation paint, and they'd been wearing it day and night, just in case of rain).
They also took the time in the middle to try to call home. They antigrav'd and floated one of the wagons up into the air until they had line of sight to the last mirror (back in the cloudforest)... the only signal they got was 'we have lost contact, please respond'. So they did, with a short message telling that Balthazaar was missing, that the ship was destroyed, and that they were heading home -- and asking if 'they had anything to tell them', since the language the journal taken from one of the dead soldiers had been written in was Jiraean.
But when they got back down, Jeff told them that the people they'd actually been talking to were not in Jirae -- they were on the centaur isle, and felt similar to the army that was chasing him. This didn't necessarily mean that they were the enemy, of course... but that the signal hadn't reached Jirae was worrying.
Worse, though, was when, at long last, after nearly two weeks, they reached the far edge of the glowing lands, and found the grasshopper army camped out, seemingly waiting for them. With the silver dragon apparently an honored guest.
last session | next session
Bleargh. I seem to be getting a slight cold, today. I hope it stays slight.
