Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers searching the caverns of Ulmin for... The Mutant Master:
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Sneaky Pete: A mutated weasel scout. Pete's telepathy and night vision take a backseat when he whips out his electrical powers. Currently hiding in a hollowed-out tree, nursing grievous injuries from the Glow.
Sonny Helianthus: a sentient sunflower artifact examiner with Restorationist ties.
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often.
Lathar Bracken: A pure-strain human from River Bend. He's got the muscle, the face, and a mount for most encounters. Lathar's trusty beast of burden, No Name, travels wherever he does.
Ramsay Kallax: Mutated Ram from the far-off KIA Academy with a predilection for ancient treasures... and the occasional head-butt.
Also tagging along with them were rescued prisoners from Ulmin, a Frog-Man named Roarg, a sentient fungi named Shroom, and an elderly purestrain named Iber.
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For Mutant sunflower Sonny Helianthus, a big part of their mission was mere feet from him... and completely uncooperative. Daradell was a trusted lieutenant for the Restorationist, but the winged, scaly altered human was completely in the mental throes of the Mutant Master, and might be willing die for the cause.
With the rest of the crew hiding on a cliff, a hundred foot away and fifteen feet up, Sonny was really alone with Daradell... and his one assistant who didn't pass out at the first glance of a flintlock pistol. A monitor crashing down on Sonny's head out of thin air, ended the negotiations, and prompted an early shot at Daradell.
Daradell's assistant pulled out two flintlocks and aimed them wildly around the tables.
"Everybody on the ground. Everybody!"
From the opposite side of the cliff face crew, Lathar could hear other voices coming from the larger cavern, "Was that a gunshot?"
Daradell did not have a firearm. Rather, he pulled out something white the size of a small brick,
"I know you don't know what this is, but with one quick stab, the Mutant Master doesn't have to worry about any of us...."
Sonny had no clue what the item in his hand was. It had two blinking button and a few stylish stripes, but no other telling marks.
The sunflower thought about tossing his weapon and teleporting to safety, but then foolhardy bravery seized the day. He sent one of his projectile seeds out of his face and fired it directly at the box.
There wasn't a fiery explosion, but a compressed wave flying out. Sonny braced for his teleport, but when that failed to materialize, he braced during the last micro-second of the explosion's impact. Sonny fell to the ground, nearly dead.
The assistant emerged from a turned-over table and exclaimed, "Holy shit!"
Daradell was still standing, although the box was no longer in his hand. As a matter of fact, his hand wasn't there at all. He tried to pull out a second brick, but fumbled it onto the ground.
A cloud of dust filled the room, hiding the inhabitants. Ramsay slid down the cliff with his ram's hooves, picked up the barely moving Sonny and negotiated back up the cliff face, as reinforcements started pouring into the cavern.
Squiggles could barely see, but knew where Daradell's box was and his telekinetic powers, picked it up and slowly pulled it towards him.
The party turned to go down the narrow passages, but Sonny tapped Ramsay on his back.
"Ramsay hold on one sec."
With the ram paused, Sonny stared down into the cloudy chaos and fired more seeds out of his face. There were no more explosions, but a few yelps, and the discharge of more flintlocks. A bullet up by the cliff grazed Lathar, who returned fire and alerted some that someone was up on the cliffs.
Lathar turned to Squiggles, "We're leaving out the river tunnel, right?
The worm nodded.
The party navigated the unused upper corridors, hearing the shouting of the large groups below with encountering any of them. They wandered back to the underground river, and with some ropes, scaled to the odd bridge running its length. They travelled the bridge away from the commotion. A few hundred feet and they encounted a large cave-in blocking off further travel. The river was obviously bubbling out from the rock pile, so Squiggles threw the rectangular object from Daradell down onto the rocks, pointed his flinlock, and opened fire.
Nothing happened.
"Well, that didn't work like I planned. And now they they know something is going on here. Other way!"
The carefully turned around the kept three points of contact onto this narrow bridge. The river cavern closed up, then opened into a giant cavern. Dozens of New Men were scrambling in a panic, with a cloud of dust spewing out of a passage on the far side. Beneath them on the near side of the cavern were far calmer, better armed mutants, guarding some sort of odd metal container.
As the were directly over the metal object, a mutant crossed back towards that side of the river, "Daradell is dead! The assassins blew off his hand! They could be anywhere. Leave no stone unturned!"
Another figure appeared atop the metal structure and with a soothing, calming voice said, "We won't sacrifice them for the betterment of the Yorkem Torkel. Just kill them outright when you find them."
The voice was a giveaway, the blue skin and bandolier of grenades from the holo-vid at Level A Ince gave him completely away. The Mutant Master was here.
 |
| The Mutant Master, looking to join mutant fleas and mutated red hot chili peppers. |
Sonny, still in Ramsay's arms, whispered to him, "That didn't sound comforting at all...."
The Mutant Master entered the metal structure. After a few seconds, one word echoed from its cavity, "VUGRINALL."
Squiggles tried to use his Telekinetic hand to try to find something, but it felt too dangerous, so he stopped.
Another familiar, computer voice spoke from the metal box.
"At last, I am free to shine like the sun! In thirty minutes, yes, thirty minutes, I will detonate the Yorkum Torkel and everyone within one kilometer will shine with me like the sun! TWENTY-NINE FIFTY-NINE. TWENTY-NINE FIFTY EIGHT. TWENTY-NINE FIFTY SEVEN. TWENTY-NINE FIFTY SIX...."
All the mutants cheered!
Squiggles was bemused, "What could this possibly be, I kinda want to stay...." He was soon pushed by Ramsay and kept working downriver.
A few hundred feet, and another cave-in had collapsed the bridge, however a portion of the river was swimmable. They climbed down and jumped into the river.
The river switched from rapids, to almost completely underground, to merging with another underground river, finally stopping into a large body of water, where they floated to the top. They were in the middle of the luminescent lake behind Koto Dam, a few hundred feet from the island.
"TWENTY-ONE THIRTY EIGHT"
The party helped each other to the island, commandeered boats, and rowed the rest of the way to shore.
"SEVENTEEN FIFTY-SIX"
Working their way to the dam, Sonny reminded the crew, "Don't forget we need to grab our friendly, neighborhood weasel in a tree."
Lathar recovered No Name from the bushes and rode to the tree to find Pete. His calls provided no response. The only thing unusual was a pair of dead piranha
"THIRTEEN TWENTY-TWO"
The party tried to search for Pete, bellowing his name in all directions. After a few minutes, a distant voice replied back... from the road.
Reaching the trail, they saw Sneaky Pete, standing behind a familiar bearded face with an unfamiliar red parrot on his shoulder.
"Artemus? Why are you here? And why are you a pirate?"
Artemus continued walking down the trail, tugging on the weasel's arm.
"I don't know what you did back there, but it sounds great, and we should leave."
Sonny tried to hop on Non Name, "We should leave. The whole island is going to go!"
"Going to go? Go where? Teleportation?"
"Let's just say, Ancient Magic."
"TEN MINUTES"
Ten minutes later a distinct earthquake hit the region, followed by a shockwave. The party kept moving at a near run until the rumbling couldn't be detected while running.
Sleep wasn't easy, but necessary, as Pete cooked up the two dead piranhas. When they finally accounted for everyone, the fungi disappeared on the bridge, and the frog never seemed to emerge from the lake. Iber, the old man, somehow managed to escape.
The party circled around Jainus, where Artemus bid them adieu. They then headed down the old river bed to Fair Town, and finally River Bend.
One day out of Fair Town, Lathar succumbed to some illness. He was so ill that Sonny and Pete gave up their spots on No Name to get him home.
Once in River Bend, Justinian granted them an audience. The party, plus Old Man Iber, recounted their story. Justinian was quite pleased, even if he required an Esper to read minds to confirm the most outrageous of their claims.
One month later, Sonny was called back to Aspiration Hall. Justinian was at the table in the main room, a large wooden tube sat on the table.
"You familiar with a 'Valley of the Magi'?"
"No, can't say that I can?"
"They sent this to you. Seems very official."
Sonny undid the cap at the end of tube. An extremely large piece of parchment was inside.
A map from this "Valley of the Magi."
GM Notes: What happens when a Yorkem Torkel detonates under a radioactive lake that's being filtered by a dam of the Ancients? That's going to be part of the campaign going forward, as even a damaged filtration system would cause harm to any settlements downstream, until it joined a larger river. GW 1 -The Mutant Master was the first module for the 4th Edition of Gamma World. For a building map on the island, I used the Temple of Malazzar from the City of Lahkhmar.
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