(Gamma World) This is Not a Test #23 - Manchi

Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, have returned home to Riverbend

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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.  Recent jousting champion of Fair-Town and has been awarded... a peacock.

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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It had only been a few days, and nothing had befallen them during their trip to Fair-Town, but to the De Facto Explorers, Riverbend was a sight for sore eyes.

Sneaky Pete returned to his riverside burrow for a long nap.  

Ramsay found a stall in the stable to stretch out and rest.  

Lathar returned to the home of Mrs Bracken, his mother, for pancakes and mothering.

"My big boy won an award!"

Squiggles searched for a safe location.  His rendezous with Ubenda in Fair-Town had proven productive.  He was with children and looking for place to let them hatch.  Farmer Yulius' farm was as good a place as any, and by the latrine was as safe a place for self-reliant offspring that he could think of.  

Sonny was on the far side of the farm, pulling in his flimsy books from the bug-mart into his shed next to a garden.  He doffed his frockcoat and planted in the garden with a mid-80's issue of Boy's Life.  

The next day, Squiggles woke up and emerged from his shed to a trees filled with blackbirds. Most were crows, and most of their attention was in the area of the privy.  The worm dashed over, howling like a banshee, firing flintlocks into the trees to scatter the birds. 

"Not my babies!!!!"

The birds flews off.  Except for a few cursory scratches in the ground, the unhatched eggs were still buried deep enough to avoid unwonted chaos.

Back in town, Lathar's mom just made pancakes for the two of them.  While he tried to go into more detail about the joust, his mother was more worried about the future.

"With your father not here, I need grandbabies. I'm going to get palpitations before that, I fear."

Lathar gave his mom a peck on the cheek, and ran off towards Pete's followed by Sonny and Squiggles.  The pair heard the gunshots and upon their arrival, Squiggles was pacing the yard.  

"If you see any birds, get rid of them, please..."

"Okay... Is there a reason the birds are even more your mortal enemy than any other day."

"Of course!  My babies!!!"

"Waitwhat... Congratulations!"

"Yeah, proud Dad... or Mom..."

Sonny was not in his shed.  So they headed into town.

Earlier in the morning, Sonny had dragged his red wagon of books and traveled to Ascension Hall. 

The acolyte who opened the door looked puzzled, "What is that?"

Sonny depanned his response, "Chauncey, this... is knowledge..."

Chauncey led Sonny to Justinian's office, "Once he comes back from breakfast, he wants to talk to you."

Sonny waited for a bit for a Justinian to return, an armload of bread for his acolytes. 

"Where were you guys," Justinian asked with a mouthful of bread.

"Fair-Town."

"Oh"

"Is there a problem?"

"No, Fair-Town is a fine place, just not where we normally look for knowledge."

"That's where I got the wagon full of knowledge that's sitting in the foyer."

"The one that could be pulled by a tiny horse?"

"Indeed, a lot of survival knowledge.  Kind of martial knowledge we try to avoid, but its quite interesting."

"There so flimsy"

"I got them for a fair price."

"Sounds good, you guys aren't soldiers, you can do what you like, but something came up."

Justinian continued, "Have you guys seen the falling stars the last couple of nights."

"No...."

"I happened upon a visitor yesterday morning, the Hisser of Huush from across the river.   There's more than that one enclave of them across the river near the ruins of Level A and beyond.  The last few nights , one of their larger villages was getting hit with multiples objects from the heavens.   Not major damage to any buildings, but the objects have struck a number of Hissers, killed a few as well.   It's a phenomena that's not happening in any other village, and with clean water and a formerly safe location, that wary about running away.  They begged for help. They're willing to pay for help, this village of Notex, well above Level A, but on the opposite side of the river."

"So we're doing diplomatic work?"

"If it's no you, who?  I'm not sending Chauncey up there."

Sonny left Ascension Hall and hunted down the other Explorers to fill them in on the mission.

After hunting down the boys, then finding Ramsey, the group went about resupplying and finding the members of the White Hand that could help.

All three healers were actually in town, tripling the amount of smoke and incense inside their shack.

Seraphina, the plant expert, did not use her normal "bag of tricks" on Sonny.  Rather she used a series of sucralose wraps with something called chakras to get the sunflower as close to tip-top shape as possible.

The young male healer, was very confused by Lathar's injuries.  Lather was very patient, "I'll self-administer the electricity damage around my bum."  

"Thank you for that, it's my medical opinion, that the scarring damage around your bum will not completely heal."

"BUH-CAW!!!"

"What the hell was that?"

"That's just Chambray, my peacock."

Squiggles was leaning up against the wall, opposite a make-shift privacy screen, "You named the peacock, Chambray?  What the hell?"

With that, Lathar grabbed some bird feed from the dry goods store, and the crew returned to Lathar's mom's place for lunch and some experiments between Lathar and Sonny improving black powder weapons.

The Explorers stayed one more night in town before investigating the Hisser issue.  After an early evening, everyone returned to their homes to be ready to depart around dawn.

Lathar wasn't as inebriated as before, but he was ready for his mother's tirade.

"Mother, look at everything I've gained, and yet you complain about grandkids. "

"BUH-CAW!!!"

 Look at Chambray, look at No Name, these are my companions and friends...." *THUD*

Lathar lifted his head from the floor, "And I have met some other Pure Strain humans, a leader of her own people.  And next time, when I go to Fair-Town, I will actually talk to her."  *DOUBLE THUD*

Squiggles found himself being chased by a large, black bird.  He was running through the woods, but stumbled.  The bird jumped upon his exposed chest and started pecking at him.  

Squiggles woke up from his nightmare to a dozen inch-long versions of him, trying to wake him up. 

"Father, Father, Help, Quick"

He emerged from his shed to find his eggs had hatched.... and the black birds had returned.

Dozens of little white worms with arms and legs were running to and fro, the blackbirds trying to feast upon as many as their could be.   

Using his flintlocks, he killed two birds and scared off a number of others, before running around like a madman to shoo the rest and secure the surviving three dozens offspring.  

"Papa, Mama... save us."

The ones that had awoken Squiggles called to him, 

"Father, can we stay inside your building."

"My shed is your shed.  And I will protect you.  Call me.... Manchi"

Squiggles secured his spawn in his shed, overturning some of the soil to give them easier access.  With that he heard the eldest, "Inexplicable" soothe his siblings, showing great resourceful a two hour-old worm.

"We'll be alright in the shed.  The big bird will not get us, and we'll definitely be safe from the little ones.  They only do the big bird's bidding.  He like their Bird God."  

With that, Squiggles shut the door, latched it, and walked to his friends preparing for their mission.

GM Notes:  All my knowledge for Squiggles and his offspring were based off of Welsh Ministry of Natural Resources.  As Lathar pondered the sheer army that Squiggles had created, worries of recreating the Clone Wars storyline were announced.  

Next: #24 - Podogs Down by the River