Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, have returned to Riverbend. War is in the air downriver and the participants are still largely unknown. Strange goings-on have been effecting the town.
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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 nearly 10' tall sentient sunflower artifact examiner with trusted Restorationist ties. Knowledgeable, but not a good one with device repairs or upgrades. Just went out of his comfort zone to rescue Lathar from becoming a human sacrifice to "The Beast."
Slitheran Wurmtail (aka Squiggles): a mutated earthworm scout, in impromptu power armor, looking for trouble, and finding it often. He 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. Former jousting champion of Fair-Town.
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Squiggles had reached the furthest tracks for the giant shimmer wolf that had attacked town, terminating at the upriver tributary of the Big River. With a sample of the monster's fur in hand, the worm headed back to Riverbend to alert the others.
His worm hair stood on end, somethings were around him.
He began to move faster towards home, but the entities moved at the same rate. Quickly he discovered his pursuers were wild podogs, massive canines that were incredibly loyal companions if domesticated, but possibly vicious monsters if left feral.
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| Podog, minus the rider, times twelve. |
As he ran home, Squiggles was always a few steps ahead using his adrenaline-fueled telekinetic abilities flawlessly. Rocks, pieces of wood, and branches were all fair games as he used his powers to chuck them at the dogs, certainly slowing them down, but not scaring them off.
When he reached the outskirts of Riverbend, he tried for access at the Ascension Hall and the Restorationists, he even tried refuge at Farmer Yulius' place, but no one was answering. He hated the thought of leading a pack of murder dogs through Riverbend, but some of the narrow ways might give him a chance to escape, and there was no way the militia wasn't already on alert with all the barking and howling.
Once inside town limits, the pack did split up into four separate group. The main group still pursuing Squiggles met the resistance of the militia first. A number of militia simply fled from the charging beasts.
Sonny had run down the hill from the cemetery, along with with three of Squiggle's children, Poppy, Moneybags, and AmmoGal. Sonny raised his assault weapon and fired one shot, confirming the animals, did indeed, bleed. AmmoGal fired her flintlock into the air, while the other two wormlings saw their parent dive behind a building to catch his breath. "My children..... come here and be safe for now."
The injured podog pounced onto the sunflower, easily knocking him to the ground. Sonny, still holding his assault rifle, fired off most of his in a long burst, and that was miraculously enough to scare off not only his attack, but a number of podogs following it.
The wormlings around Manchi Squiggles decided defending their town was higher than defending their parent, and leapt into action to aid the militia. What they didn't know was that Squiggles was using his telekinetic powers to distract and abuse the podogs.
AmmoGal was the first who noticed the rest of the podogs had crashed through walls and doors of a building and savagely attacked inhabitants inside. She broke a window and fired into the building to no avail. Sonny also broke a window and fired inside, for minimal damage, but that drew the creature's attention. The Podog rushed the wall, crashing through it and landing on Sonny. AmmoGall broke through the other window and raced over to the back of the podog on Sonny. She tried to stab it with her puny knife to no avail.
Sonny, assault rifle in hand, fired full auto into the podog, killing it, forcing it to collapse on the sunflower's feeble body.
Meanwhile, the militia handling most of the fighting had taken many wounds, but only one casualty. Moneybags and Poppy had tag-teamed one animal, but were taking grievous wounds in the process.
Squiggles, finally recovered, attempted to use his blaster rifle on the podogs, to no avail. He dropped his rifle, and pulled out the stun ray, which managed to knock out one of the beasts.
With some vicious melee fighting, more podogs perished and the rest finally fled back out into the wilderness. Recovering, they counted five podog corpses and one unconscious and tied up podog...
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