The Kingdoms After Action Report #8: Ruin

[Baelfyre]

The Kingdoms: The Kings Own After Action Report #8

Dramatis Personae:

Vicki (last name unknown, varies according to when she is asked): One of six surviving Kings Own, an order of Knighthood in the Kindoms that was disgraced and disbanded two hundred years ago, due to alien lies and betrayal from within the Kingdoms, she has a single mission... to kill the man and woman she loves. Or save them. She is the first new Kings Own in two hundred years.

She has an affinity for guns, cybernetics, and a knack for the impossible. She carries the Dead Mans gun, thought lost two hundred years ago on the original Starmist.

Alan Crenshaw: His history is a mystery even to him... all he knows is that he was created by a corporation and rescued by the Whisper for reasons of their own. His primary interests are flying and women... in that order. He has recently joined the mental gestalt that forms the Whisper. It has yet to be known if he will succumb to their insanity...

He has all the talents of the Whisper (Heightened Mental Stats, telepathy (works on machines too!), direct mental control over information, and access to all the hidden technology of the Kingdoms.

He is one of the best pilots to ever live.

Kelly Parkinson: The lead scientist of the original mission on Patchwork to survey the three moon telescope, she seems to be a minor politician and scientist.

But she keeps on surviving. She’s managing to keep her secrets... for now.

Tawny Walker: Another of the scientists from the original Patchwork mission, she has been quietly staying on the ship doing research on all of the various things that the group has discovered.

Vicki found out last week that she is an android, with no idea where she’s from. Because of the Kingdoms current policies on AI’s and Gennies (genetically engineered beings) she created a false identity for herself, and is searching Forerunner remains for clues to her origin. It is not known at this time if she has any form of enhanced attribute etc.

Fred Blackwell: A low ranking noble from the Kingdoms (heir to a count, in charge of the County of Farwell), his primary claim to fame seems to be that when the planetary Duke ordered him to put the group in the dungeon, he actually found one. (There are no dungeons in the Kingdoms. Well, only one anyway.)

He is a trained officer from the Kingdom Navy, with competence in every aspect of both shipboard life and the underbelly of society, particularly regarding smuggling and ports. The rest of the group found out last night that he is a VERY powerful pyrokinetic as well. He is sure to have other secrets as well.

Tam Murdoch: The head of the security team on the original Patchwork mission, he has seemed to be a competent but not exceptional soldier up to two episodes ago. Then they found out that he was a soldier from an advanced alien empire.

Tam had the group completely snowed until a metahuman blew his cover.

Tam is an expert with every known form of combat, from bioweapons to flint arrowheads to starship weaponry. He has massive genetic modifications to his body as well as extensive cybernetics. It is not known at this time if he has any metahuman or psi powers.

Ruin:

The system of Ruin is the single oldest Forerunner find ever. It is known to be billions of years old; the sun has used up all it’s fuel, been regenerated, and burned down again...

Wreckage and installations dot the entire system, with several coherent “rings” of wreckage in varying orbits around the sun. Passage through the system is extremely hazardous, because there are forerunner defense installations scattered all over the system; many of them fire on any kind of active scanner such as radar or lidar. Most of them will also fire if approached. The system has a single world, which is covered by a single enormous city. Even the oceans are covered with enormous, 50-60 mile on a side building, with the exceptions of a few bays made for large scale construction. Virtually all of the buildings are dark husks with no working power.

Each group of buildings has an enormous garden, much like Central Park in New York (though far larger, usually approx 60miles on a side). There, the pets of the former tenants have evolved to sentience. Felines, canines, bovines and porcines have evolved to human levels of intelligence and tool use.

They were doomed though, because their world was dead; there were no resources left except in the buildings... and the buildings were the lair of at least two species with a terrible, twisted intelligence. The Rode’s and the Sects. (evolved rodents and insects)

The Duke of Ruin, the last of the old Kings Own, ran to this system after the death warrants were issued on the Kings Own after the Starmist disaster. He then proceeded to kill everybody and everything the Kingdoms sent after him for the next two hundred years. He’s the most powerful known metahuman in the Kingdoms, by a huge margin.. He is reputed as telling the King and Queen to “come get some” if they wanted him dead.

The Duke explored one of the main buildings, cleared it out, and allied with the Peoples from the gardens. He has since built up a civilization on Ruin, which has served as a buffer between the Kingdoms and several other states as well as a refuge for the millions that have fled the Kingdoms because of it’s harsh laws regarding genetic engineering and AI’s.

Ruin has an absurdly large space fleet for it’s population; easily 5 percent of the population is in the Navy.

[Baelfyre]

The Story:

As we begin. Vicki has just announced to the Duke’s secretary that she was a King’s Own, and that she wished to see him, resulting in a sudden circle of silence falling throught the busy office as people turn to look at the group, whch has also fallen silent.

They are edcorted into a huge office, covered with a furlike white carpet and walls of marble with metallic veins running through it. Three or four small alcoves with chairs and tables in a dark wood are scattered around.

Sitting behind an enormous glass desk (with the glass tabletop and assorted shelving floating in midair), the Duke got up and greeted all of them in a polite, friendly manner. Conversation ensues, in which the Duke asks them to go rescue one of his exploration parties, who he has lost contact with. The group agrees to go.

The group launches to the rescue in their shuttle, right into an electromagnetic storm producing hundreds of thousands of air to ground lightning bolts, each of which lasts for several seconds. Crenshaw, in an amazing display of skill, get’s them safely through the storm.

Vicki and Kelly, when they arrive alive, say “You are a GOD”.

They find out right about that time that some one or some thing has altered their shuttle, making it faster, tougher, and more maneuverable. Whoever it was also added a sound system to the pilots chair, which started cranking out heavy metal as the shuttle hit the storm.

Looking around the landing port, they see the shuttle of the people they came to rescue. It looks to be in good shape except for one tiny little detail...

Somebody took the engine out of it.

There is, at this point, a general consensus that a) this is a bad thing and b) somebody needs to stay with the ship. Tawny, being the least combat capable, elects to stay behind (as usual).

They gear up, with weaponry ranging from Glocks to a couple of heavy fusion cannon (normally a power armor weapon, but Kelly modified hers to be able to fire it, and Vicki is borged from one end to the other). The rest are carrying a variety of grenades and pistold except for Tam, who has pulled out his own equipment.

They then boldly set out down the road/hallway where the team was supposed to set up camp. That’s when they notice the smell... burned and rotting corpses. Looking around, they found the site of a small skirmish, with the bodies of 4 rats (5’+) at one end. They also notices that the weapons used on the rats (standard Kingdom lasers/assault rifles/sonic weapons) did no damage at all to the wall, but whatever the rats used had cut a thin scorch mark. Searching, they found a curved silver tube. Handing it over to Crenshaw (who was the best engineer there), he proceeded to figure out how the weapon worked. After he was sure, he fired it... and blew his intestines out his butt.

Fortunately, the group has a limited number of quick regen nanites , so he’s functional again in a few minutes. However, side effects from the nanites include reduce physical abilities and having to a full meal every hour or two.

Once again, our intrepid band sets off. As they proceed down the tunnel, they pass dozens of empty “buses” floating quietly about a foot off the floor. After a mile or so with no encounters, they finally reach the base camp. Three large shelters set up a in a hemisperical room about 500m across with dozens of exits in the walls, ceiling, and floor. Each hole has a small device at it’s edge with a laser beam sweeping across it. (alarm grid).

Inside, they find lots more corpses. The site’s main computer has been looted, but there are several oddities. The permanent storage has not been taken, nor have any of the artifacts that the team had collected. Indeed, four rats with what looked like huge claw marks on their bodies were dead around a device that resembled nothing so much as an altar.

Reviewing the video records from the site, they find that two days ago, one of the scientists had just gotten up in the middle of the night and walked out of camp, almost like she was sleep walking. The rest of the records for the last two days were corrupted. The buildings night cycle was beginning, so they decided to pull their shuttle down the hallway, dodging the buses, and set it down next to the camp to sleep in.

Tawny stayed up on watch while the others slept. She violently woke the others when Fred, sleepwalking, tried to leave the shuttle. After a short struggle, they subdued him and woke him up. They realized that they had all had the same dream then, about going to the beautiful light.

The group decided that they needed to move quickly at that point. They immediately set of down the passage that the one wandering scientist had gone down. Vicki and Alan in the front, with Tam playing a very remote rear guard. The passage was an actual hole leading down; they actually had to climb down a ladder 400m.

Moving through the smaller passages they find beneath, the group is startled by the sudden sound of drums echoing through the corridor. Proceeding to move with more care, they disarm an ambush set by eight rats in a short, snarling firefight at point blank range which included Fred turning one of them into the Rodent Torch (this where they learned he was a pyrokinetic.). Mildly wounded, they press on with some of the weapons taken from the rat’s corpses. (specifically, two needlers and a golden mask).

As they sneak farther in, they reach a dark, smoky auditorium with hundreds of chanting rats, surrounding four masked rats who themselves stand at the four corners of an altar just like the one they found in the camp. There are eight captives tied to a set of columns around the altar, in various stages of being eaten alive. Above them and to the right, they saw a woman with armor and several strange weapons.

A nightmarish, half seen shape of claws and fangs starts to appear above the altar...

The woman (Allison Wold) throws a set of demolition charges tied together by a rope down towards the altar, and blows a path through the packed rats between her and the prisoners.

The thing from the altar begins moving towards Wold, and Vicki gets a good look at for the first time.

She goes totally apeshit and charges the “demon” while firing her fusion cannon on full auto at the “demon”, blowing away a couple dozen rats that were in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Fusion cannons in this game are aree of effect weapons with a 10m radius of damage) The “demon” scared her... but unfortunately for everybody involved her fear reaction is to charge, not run.

Her group, which had pretty much decided to try and be a bit sneakier, suddenly find that plans have changed. Crenshaw steps out with the two needlers they had looted off the rats, strafing the crowd to provide cover and distraction.

Kelly just strafes everybody except Vicki with the other fusion cannon. Total chaos ensues as the Rats shoot everything that moves, including each other. Most of them are armed only with hand crossbows incapable of penetrating the heavy armor the party is wearing. However, a few have Forerunner weapons and Kelly goes down with her leg cut off just below the hip.

Fred sneaks down the path Allison blew and rescues the captives, helping them over to the entrance that the other are covering.

Tam is notable only for his total absence.

[Baelfyre]

Right about then the smoke and haze clears enough for Vicki to realize that the monster she has just hosed with plasma fire doesn’t have a scratch on it. The “oh sh!t” reaction sets in, and her mind starts working again. In a stunning display of speed and accuracy, she drops the overheating fusion rifle, draws her glock, puts a pistol grenade on it, and manages to fire over the “demon” at the altar, destroying it. To her dismay, the monster doesn’t fade away... for some reason it’s shape changes to something resembling a cross between a lizard and an preying mantis. It attackes her and misses, gouging clawmarks in the strange metal next to her.

The drums change about then and the Rats scatter like roaches with lights on.

The party continues covering her and the captives as they retreat with Crenshaw carrying Kelly. An intense close quarters battle begins in the corridors as they try moving down the corridor back to their ship.

Tam saves the day here. He has planted mines and sensors throught their route back; he talks them through and around the Rats. For example, he tells them that there is a group waiting to ambush them around the next corridor. One throws a grenade high around the corner while the other one throws it low. End of ambush.

Right about the time they are approaching the shaft up, they realize that there is no way the wounded are going to get up a 400m ladder. They have no time; the Rats are swarming in on them rapidly. They are between a rock and a land shark.

They call Tawny and have her fly the shuttle down the shaft. The shaft is barely big enough, so it takes a couple of tries and their brand new shuttle is somewhat the worse for wear.

The team charges for the shuttle like their last hope for salvation... and the “demon” appears in front of them.

“You BASTARD!” my group says.

Vicki draws the Dead Man’s Gun, loaded with a blessed bullet, and puts one right through the “demons” head. Thus accepting both the power and the curse of the weapon.

Demon boy goes down like a bad habit.

(not that it was really a demon. It was the psychic projection of the nightmares of the original inhabitants made real. One of the things that killed said original inhabitants. It also wasn’t supposed to be killable. The idea for the gun came from the show Supernatural; a gun with a few shots that can kill immortals.)

The team continues the charge for salvation, and Crenshaw, though wounded, takes the controls. Even with the best treatment they can give the freed captives, most will die within the hour without intensive trauma care.

Crenshaw, in another godlike display of piloting prowess, flies up the shaft and out the tunnel littered with buses, accelerating at 10g’s the whole way (compensated so the people inside didn’t feel any more gravity than normal), and then through the storm again. The whole time, I’d like to say, wounded so badly he has lost A THIRD of his dice pool

Fred is on the radio the second they clear the storm, asking for emergency medical and repair teams to meet them. The episode cuts out as they are landing and EMT teams are charging the smoking shuttle.

[Baelfyre]

This came about as a result of suggestions for improving my games by the use of new techniques. How do you guys like it?