(Gamma World) This is Not a Test #28 - Shrapnel From the Ancients

 Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, assisting the Hissers of Notex with the sky falling....

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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 trusted Restorationist ties. 

Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often.  Recently "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies.

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 he has named Chambray.

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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After leaving the safety of Notex's walls, they figured out how a pistol of the Ancients worked, at the expense of Squiggle's face.  Stabilizing the earthworm, they saw five objects streaking down from somewhere in the heavens.  Each object had a flaming head and a smokey tail, and all five appeared to be headed a towards the village, the mesa, and the dish that serves nothing.

One thing the crew did confirm: they molten objects weren't falling off of the odd dish atop the mesa.  They came from much, much higher.  

They had already moved out of their test clearing and closer to the tree line once Squiggles was stabilized.  Seeing the objects careening to Gamma World the moved further in and tried to find additional shelter in ditches, beside fallen logs, all while Lathar tried to wrangle No-Name, while Pete was giving the beasts telepathic calming, telepathic suggestions.

Sonny dove on Squiggles as the first objects impacted.  There were no explosions, but as they peaked out amongst the trees towards Notex, they could see flames and smoke coming over the walls.  There were other dust clouds around the mesa.  

Our heroes ran back to help the village, only to find a water brigade well in hand, taking care of a burning building that had suffered one of the objects crashing into it.    A portion of the fence appears to have been hit and knocked down as well, that object cratered in one of the community gardens.  

Peter tried to coordinate further assistance, but the Hissers brushed him aside.   The injured had already been rescued and wounds being tended to.  From a cursory glance through the hivemind thought, no one had scene anything fall.  

Pete then tried to seek out the Hisser Elder, Goral, and repeated their question how they could help.  

"We have everything under control.  We needed to find a few missing folk."

Peter was confused, "Who would do this to you?"

"The sky, silly mammal!  They've always come from the sky.  Finish the promise you came to enforce!  The other elders think you going into the rock has obviously made things worse.  Just stop this." and with that he slithered to check 

Goral the Elder, Ready for anything...

Sonny gently moved passed the chaos of the burning building and went over to investigate the crater in the gardens.  While the remains of what fell were still quite hot and steaming, the mutant sunflower's card of the ancients that detected the glow, only detected a very minor increase in the area, nothing more than they already walked through to get there.   

Sonny was perplexed.  Everything they had assumed about the "sky is falling" was wrong.  He relied on his other prior experience:  reading the flimsy catalogs of the Ancients he had acquired back in Fair-Town.  He had read through most of one before turning his collection over to Justinian and the Restorationists.  It was largely militaristic pure-strain militia working along the shoreline of the "ocean", even a few in vehicles that could go underwater.  But very little mentioned anything from the sky, and he was completely confused about something called "Lichtenstein Flash."

"There was one news article about some flying metal vessels fighting in the sky, shooting cannons like giant versions of the pistols they had just tested.  There was some sort of damaged Ancients facility in the background.    One side were a rebellion run by brothers, the other side, OHTORI, held possession of the Murder Base.   The only line I remember was 'ZERO HOUR IS NEAR!    If this is related to that, then we need to search further and see if we can stop it launching attacks.'"

Returning to the crash site in the garden, they investigated the melted orb in the crater.  It looked the same as the others they had located.  Some of them did notice pieces of super-thin shiny material getting kicked up and blown away by the light breeze.  Sonny grabbed one with his fronds, it was indeed metal, and crumpled within the slightest adjustment, only to be pulled pack with some effort.  There was no writing on any of the pieces they hunted down.  The sunflower fold the pieces into quarters and tucked them away between the pieces of writing paper he had brough along.  

Pete was not enthused, "Okay, we have to go back in.  My bigger question is who gets to wield the new gun?"

Sonny was taken aback, "That will take a bit, since I need to train you guys.  I also want to get it intact, so we can go back and fix up the broken one with more parts."

"Agreed, as the best shot, I should probably use it."

"Squiggles is an equal shot, an after that accident, needs additional help, although Squiggles might not want anything to do with it."

"I do NOT!" was all Squiggles could yell out. 

The Hisser healers were busy dealing with their own kind, and with the discovery of two bodies in the building, funeral rituals were put forth.  Our heroes set up camp just outside the walls and let the natives be.    

GM Notes: Boy's Life, August 1986, inside front cover.

NEXT: #29 - Dr Helianthus and the Return to the Lost City