Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, have finally returned to their hometown of Riverbend for some much needed rest, artifact identification, and administration
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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! Currently getting repairs done by the Restorationists.
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While the rest of the group continued their celebrations in town with Squiggles' children, Lathar walked No-Name back to his mom's home. We was alarmed when he opened the door to screeching and a clattering of pots and pans.
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| The Lathar Homestead |
"MAAAA!" Lathar hollered as he walked into the living room. Turning the corner he could his mother standing in the kitchen, in a combat pose, wielding a cast iron frying pan at an unknown assailant.
Walking closer, he could her opponent was his peacock, Chambray. It sat atop the hearth in the kitchen, its feathers in full display.
"That son-of-a-bitch ate the necklace your father gave me! Took it right off my neck."
"Oh...."
"I was pondering, if you weren't coming home soon, how to prepare this bird."
"Let's not be too hasty."
Lathar grabbed the peacock and threw the bird into his bedroom.
"Thank goodness. How was your trip with your little friends."
"Nice, we're tired, probably all hungry. Is there food ready?"
"Is there food? Always sweetie, I'll warm something up."
"Excellent. Chambray should pass his necklace in a day or so."
"And the rings... and the bracelet."
"Oh..."
Lathar performed a few chores around the house, and right when the food was ready, the other Explorers rolled up to the house.
"Lathar! Come out! We've got something for you!"
The enforcer walked out to the front porch. His friends were still on the street, ogling a strange piece of technology.
"So we found a medkit for 3,000 domars, but we picked up this for you and No Name."
Lathar saw a sturdy tripod with some device atop it, with two small horizontal tires. A spear was placed between the tires.
"It's an automatic spear-chucker," Squiggles proudly proclaimed.
Sonny quickly corrected him, "Technically, we should call it a ballista."
"You want me to strap this to the top of No Name?" Lathar asked.
"We can work together to create a platform to stabilize it." Sonny suggested.
Everyone came inside and had a meal, while covering all the news and rumors the found out around town.
"We really need to see it the guy can be worked down in price, or at least in trade." Pete chimed in.
"I was going to work on advancements on our muskets, but with our new weapons, that seems like a waste of time," Sonny lamented. "I guess we can check out with Justinian tomorrow, and Lathar can work on that Bozo guy."
"Boson"
"Boson guy to trade for the gold bars and gold domars we got."
The next morning, the group, with Squiggle's children in tow, wandered to the distant side of town, a collection of buildings around Boson's place almost formed its own separate village, but everyone knew their loyalties were towards the almighty domar.
Townsfolk filled the neighborhood, making running their errands, and a distinctive collection of altered humans sitting around tables, day-drinking and smoking unknown substances. Pete went a bit manic, worried that everyone could be a danger, but no one interacted with the rest of the party as they entered Boson Higby's Meatmarket.
The inside was even more tables and chairs, with a large standing glass deli-case. Half the case was filled with dried meats, the other was full of jewelry and trinkets of the ancients.
A man with crackly skin entered the room, "Lathar? You're causing the ruckus with the old ladies outside? Why are you here, boy?"
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Bosan Higby
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Lathar produced a single gold bar, and Boson pulled out some equipment to test and measure it. He grew more perplexed with each result.
"Did you guys become river pirates? I haven't seen a bar like this in years. You digging for buried treasure? What are you guys looking for? Domars?"
"What do you have beyond the case?"
Boson led them to the back beyond a kitchen and pulled back a curtain. Beyond the curtain were two anthropomorphic blackbirds, one wearing a hat, both of them quite dead.
"Don't worry about da boids. I assume they were bothering your little ones. Don't worry, we took care of them, no charge. Now, the plant looks smart, what do you make this?"
Beside the bird bodies was a large metallic object, definitely from the ancients. Sonny saw its sleek, cylindrical form with various components neatly arranged in a linear sequence.
"It definitely fell out of the sky. Some of my neighbors hauled it back. It's probably worth a lot more than the couple grand I can demand."
Sonny knew it resembled one of the smoke-belching motors of the flying living metal they had seen twice now in their wanderings. There was one definite emblem on the item:
"This is above our price range, and we may take the gold bars elsewhere, if that's alright."
"I appreciate people who appreciate things like this. I know if we didn't grab it, someone more nefarious, such as an evil version of you, may make this a whole lot worse for everyone. Anyway, I have one object that's far more opulent than what I throw in the case. "
Boson pulled out a huge, oversized silver medallion with topaz bordering it. "This was found on da 'boids body."
Lathar offered the slugthrower shells and some other trinkets for the medallion.
"Good enough, youse guys get outta here, before I change my mind."
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| The symbol on the mysterious medallion |
Emerging from Boson's market, they collected all the worm children. The locals had taken a liking to these energetic kids with a complex to please people. They had been running menial tasks for the men and earning a domar for each task. All the children were upset that they needed to leave and wanted to revisit the nice men in the future.
Pete was leaning up against the wall, ensuring the safety of the wormlings. Upon seeing the medallion, Pete put it on and he felt his entire body hum. Quickly taking it off, he informed the others. The rest all took turns trying it on, but no one else felt the humming and vibrations like Pete.
They finished their day with yet another visit to the Restorationists. Justinian was happy to report that they could reinforce their living metal so it would take significant damage to set the self-destruct process and identified Sonny's pistol as an invisible heat ray. There was some basic haggling over some of the minor Ancient's artifacts and the keycards for Rho Facility, enough to keep haggling with the medkit merchant to a minimum.
GM Notes: Squiggle's player, Steve, spoiled the high-tech ballista to the rest of the group, out of game. He happens to coach his son's baseball team, and has a horrible track record using a pitching machine one for batting practice.
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