Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, havee stopped Protocol Gamma-6-Charlie from Rho Facility, saving the Hissers village of Notex. They are working their way back to their hometown of Riverbend, but first, they must find Lathar's missing steed, No Name.
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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.
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. Previously "gave birth" to a litter of sentient earthworm babies, but recently has been subject to genetic testing and developed super-human strength, a more human body, and a thick coat of shaggy white hair.
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.
RHA-9: A lab assistant piece of "Living Metal" that seems to have befriended the group... for now!
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With the Hissers departed to regroup their people and possibly salvage the ruins of Notex, the explorers repacked their gear began the long process of heading back to Riverbend. Pete and Squiggles would stay off the main trail and track Lathar's missing stegon, No Name, while Lathar, Sonny, and RHA-9 moved the spoils of the the facility. A backpack full of gold, reinforced by wood, was definitely better suited placed onto a strong six-legged reindeer, than lugged by a measely sunflower.
The weasel and furry worm did quick work of tracking. Within the hour, they spotted the stegon across the river, atop a hill looking over the river. They quickly began to ford the river and pursuit the creature.
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| Missing a leg, but I won't fight too much with free AI |
The beast was much faster, but the two scouts worked the angles, and the animals was partially pDFSed between some painful brambles and some large trees. Pete tried to use his telepathy to calm No Names, but the beast was much to agitated. The weasel made some inroads to clam the stegon, but No Name simply wandered off, back towards the river
And into the arms of Lathar, who had literally dopped everything and tried to follow the scouts and his mount. The beast had probably been running away from the falling items for about a day and a half, yet only had superficial wounds.
Once Lathar gave the stegon a proper once over, they were able to load up the heavier item and the journey home suddenly became a lot faster.
While everyone else was searching for No Name, Sonny stayed with the treasure, broke out his tool kit and tried to repair RHA-9 further, without initiating a self-destruct order. It appeared that the living metal's technology seemed working, rather he needed complete metal reconstruction of certain parts, and the local blacksmith might not even be enough.
Journeying down the river to the Huush River, the area opened up to grasslands with the occasional trees. All seemed normal, save two objects flying in the air, billowing black smoke from behind.
They were the same objects that the explorers had seen earlier in their journeys, but at lower altitude, there was certainly a human-shaped suit of armor flying.
The Explorers dove into cover and there was no further incident as the flying items flew over and headed toward the Catacombs.
Nearing closer and closer to Riverbend, the scouts managed to evade the Hisser communities at the last second, but realized that while the Hissers were normally quiet here, all signs pointed to the snake people picking up and leaving the village ruins.
Pushing further, they neared the upriver bend that gave their town its name, but not before hearing Ancient's blaster weapons fire over a rolling hill. Lathar was ready to pounce into action, and Pete was certainly intrigued, but with all the injuries, it didn't seem prudent to follow up.... Anyway, the shots stopped a minute or two later.
Another half-day travel and they were finally across the Great River and back in Riverbend. Everyone had a laundry list of places to go and things to do in town, including some actual laundry, but Sonny had an idea to visit one place first.
The Restorationists in Ascension Hall, demanding an audience with Justinian.
GM Notes: There are few pictures of stegons, so my attempts on Nightcafe were quite... bad. Good news, I'm ready for the This Is Not a Test Claymation special with the first (and best result):
In the levelling up process, Sonny player discovered the sunflower should have started with a Tech Level 3 toolkit. Still not sufficient to repair a piece of living metal. Next: #41 - Restorationists and Rumors
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