Our heroes, the De Facto Explorers, are investing a facility of the Toard Jakey between Riverbend and Fair-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.
Thunnelda Haycock: A peculiar local woman, who has a penchant for wandering the surrounding territories for particular oddities, and possibly could be winning the heart of Lathar.
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The Explorers left the Toard Jakey research facility, a little worse for plan, but full of ideas how to test the new mysteries and artifacts they uncovered. The two day journey back to Riverbend was full of Thunnelda singing new off-tune songs about her bright yellow hinge the giant tank had painted for her, and Pete seemed a little uneased, with his yellow treasure: the dark yellow powder that he found absolutely delicious. Pete seemed to have a perennial and permanent yellowish tinge from the powder.
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| Pete and evidence of his new predicliction |
There were no surprises on the hike back, rather, the group split up to focus what was most important to each of them.
Sonny had a laser-focus to assemble enough equipment to continue experiments back at the facility. The tarp was thrown off the cart sitting in the backyard of Lathar's mom's home, and was soon filled with tool kits, containers, and crates, materials to experiment on, and lines, ropes, and rudimentary pulleys to extract things out of that tank.
Pete's concern, besides his yellow-stained paws, was convincing the town elders to expand the palisade. There was no way they could reach the Restorationist compound, the Yulius farm, but the home of Lathar's mom was still unprotected.
There was a great debate and harsh words were directed towards Lathar's mom. Lathar was none too pleased: Me and my betrothed are about to get real stabbey,"
The news of Lathar and Thunnelda's upcoming nuptials caused a stir among the townsfolk in Riverbend, but fear Thunnelda's mood swings and Lathar's firepower kept that to a low murmur. The happy couple stayed with Lathar's mom, out of sight, and decided relaxation was the course they needed to take.
For the few short days they had in town, Sonny acquired his scientific stockpile and Pete began assembling barrels and boxes for the experiments. They all worried that the recent attacks on the town and at the facility had depleted their energy sources for their weapons of the Ancients. Another trip back down to KIA Academy was necessary sooner than later.
Lathar spent those days relaxing with Thunnelda, sipping cool drinks in the backyard in hammocks.
Squiggles attempted to gather intel within town from the surrounding area, and didn't even return to Farmer Yulius' land, until the death of his beloved offspring, Fatso.
In their excitement of finding this facility Thunnelda had uncovered, the Explorers had left the surviving podog from the pack attack alone with Squiggles' worm children.
The worm children had not been successful in training the wild podog, and one day, it lunge and murdered Fatso.
The younger spawn of Squiggles have not been successful, and poor Fatso was just a bit slow for the podog's powerful jaws.
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| Fatso (L) and Twitchy (R), both dead since Winter broke. |
Lathar hired most of the town as mourners to attend Fatso's funeral.
Pete tried to use his telepathy to try to connect with the podog. Offering food, then threatening it with starvation, his demands were met by simple compliance by the beast, at best. One or two word answers. The podog did not like the yellowy powder engrained now in Pete's fur, nor did he appreciate the weasel's attitude.
Finally, the podog had had enough badgering, and when it had it's chance, lunged at the Pete, causing superficial wound, it turned towards Lathar, allowing Pete time to fire his blaster rifle into its hind quarters.
The podog distracted, Lather attempted to mount the beast and control it. The podog simply threw the barbarian off its back, crashing through the pen that confined it. It moved towards Pete, and the weasel emptied his last energy cell in his blaster rifle to fell the worm-killing podog.
As the group departed back to the secret facility, they openly debated establishing a government to enact all the changes they wanted to do to improve the town.
Hopefully the results coming from their new lair, the "Pool House" would win some of the townsfolk over.
GM Notes: We did figure out that Squiggles is now a middle-aged worm and his children are already considered established teenagers in worm years.
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