Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, successfully thwarted the Mutant Master, and have returned to River Bend for some well-need R&R.... and a mysterious map.
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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. Recovering from his injuries from the Glow near Ulmin.
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. Looking for trouble in all the right places.
Ramsay Kallax: Mutated Ram from the far-off KIA Academy with a predilection for ancient treasures... and the occasional head-butt.
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Sonny's sunflower head somehow beamed as he looked down at the parchment map he had just received from "The Valley of Magi."
Sonny had not fared well in his mission to stop the Mutant Master. His wounds seemed to heal slower than his animal counterparts, but he spent the time tinkering with an improved musket. He had been experimenting with adding a second barrel, a second hammer, and a second trigger side by side, so the firer could let off two shots. The time the Restorantionists took to copy enough was enough to go through a room full of bins of various parts of old devices from the ancients. He was interested less in electronics and more on machined metal.
Two days later, he had hailed Ramsey from his room at inn. Ramsay has helped with the first days of research after their return, but their engineering and jury-rigging techniques conflicted. With the new invention ready, the tough old ram was quite competent in a musket to be a great test subject.
They went behind Aspiration Hall, where the Restorationists dumped some of the broken curios or debris from sites of the Ancients. Ramsay picked out some plentiful brown glass bottles, and a strange large, yellow glass ball in the center atop a stone wall.
The first shot discharged, flying high in the sky. The kickback on the poorly weighted weapon knocked Ramsay back a few steps. The ram adjusted his hold and the second shot shattered the yellow orb.
Gunshots were enough to draw the attention of the town, and the crew and a few onlookers arrived at the hall.
Lathar was impressed, "You were holding out on us. What is that?"
Upon a formal presentation of the weapon, Sonny could sense Lathar big eyes and covetousness.
"Have a go...:
Squiggles picked out the armor components of a machine of the Ancients, but some odd metal dishes.
Lathar aimed and fired the left barrel. Like Ramsey, the kickback surprised Lathar and shot went into the air. The second shot resulted in an explosion near Ramsay's face. The right barrel, the original on the weapon, had exploded. A quite trip to the Healers for Lathar, and Sonny's realization that they could heal plants as well, they had broached the subject of the map.
Between the Restorationists hustling to copy the map, and the glint in his party's eyes upon looking at the map, the scene almost descended into chaos.
Unclean grubby hands clamoring all over it, tugging in multiple directions nearly gave the sunflower an episode of mania. Ramsay tried to be the voice of reason, advising the everyone could make a copy of the map. This took an entire day and created a pile of varying inaccurate maps.
It also allowed Pete to perform his own experiments on the maps, specifically the odd purple lines. Water had no extraordinary effect on the parchment, and even attempted to bead off of the purple.
This map was far more expansive than all the maps the explorers had collected. It was the first time anyone had seen their home labelled as the "Dominion of River Bend."
Seeing how close KIA Academy was, the crew had multiple questions for Ramsay. The School for Ancient Technology Examiners, about one hundred older children of various origins learning the trade, was the major industry. He had never paid attention to where the traveling merchants were coming from.
With no direction as of yet, Pete saw the Upriver Road continue on beyond their normal distances, up to some odd place called Catacombs and started asking locals about who or what comes downriver. Most of the adults considered the Catacombs evil, the kids told of stories of skeleton armies, but a handful of folks have dealt with merchants who travel that way. Either Catacomb or Blackvale beyond provided superior metalwork, even proper nails. But for the day, no one in town had actually visited the either place.
Lathar tried to visit some of the Healing Society staying in town short-term. He offered domars for items from the MedKits from the Ancients, but they would not negotiate.
Ramsay tried to get to know the group better, "Lathar, when did you arrive in River Bend"
"Dude, when I was born. I've lived here all my life."
"Yeah, man," Squiggles added. "Lathar and his mom have been here forever?"
"Just his mom? Where's his dad?"
"That sonuva bitch ran off when I was young," Lathar grimaced. "I don't need him anyway."
That conversation sent Lathar reeling. He got up and left for the tavern.
Lathar spent the rest of the night drinking and trying to hit on the barmaid, Delaney. So long as his domars came onto the bar, she was a friendly smile and an empathetic ear.
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| Delaney |
Pete wandered around to try to find a use/price for the Terleens feathers he had harvest on the way to Jainus. Most had no clue, outside of the attractiveness of the feathers. He ran into a booth on the side of the market and met a woman name Hervetta. She was a traveling merchant, with a podog pulling a cart, and a display of crafts with feathers.
She was intrigued by the weasel and the feathers, "These are great, they're in good shape, you just need a lot more to put them to good use."
"Good use? Like what?"
"The feathers, en masse, won't protect against the glow, but they could retard an energy attack from most mutants. She offered 50 domars for the feathers he had, but Pete declined. They did agree to be on the lookout for semi-precious stones and Terleen feathers for each other.
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| Hervetta |
It was getting late, so Pete went to his den along the levee on the river.
The next morning, Squiggles emerged out of the dirt floor from a shed upriver from town. He emerged under the door said good morning to an awakening Sonny. After taking care of a few quick chores for the shed's owner, Farmer Yulius Medley and they headed back into town.
Pete was the last to wake up. He brewed some river coffee and headed to Lathar's mom's house. The others were around the table, patiently waiting for Lathar's mom to finish up a stack of pancakes.
The weasel could only smile, as he asked only one question, "Where do we go next?"
"I'm game for wherever," Sonny answered, "I just want my second prototype working before we go out. Lathar won't get to use it."
"Hey!"
"I think we should spend as much time as possible so we perfect your device." Pete added.
"The device was perfect, I'm sure of it." Sonny replied.
For the next three days, the crew spent time resupplying, while Sonny and Ramsay worked on a repair copy of the double-barrel flintlock. The new version was less balanced, and the barrels were different lengths. but things looked good.
Ramsay took the weapon behind Aspiration Hall, aimed and fired. The first shot went high (again). The second shot exploded in hits face, destroying the replacement barrel.
Clutching his face, Ramsay immediately set off to another trip to the Healers' Society was in order.
Seeing the ram running to the Healers', Lathar could only yell out to Sonny, "See!!! It's not my fault!"
GM Notes: This session came in three parts: (A) Piecemeal character advancement (B) the DeFacto Explorers, sans Sonny, figuring out the map, and (C) Sonny's initial examination of the map which occurred the week after the rest of the group. It was also a lot of distractions, including discovering American Barbarian.
It took until this session to have some of the players ask background details, like, "Where the heck do we sleep?" And yes, Pete lives in a den, down by the river.
Next: #17 - On to Fair-Town!
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