ACT 4 Central Park Plains

Welcome to the continuing story of Three Storm Knights in the game of Torg Eternity, the backgrounds of the heroes can be found HERE, and the very first post in the Series and be found HERE. More information about the game can be found HERE.

Intro to Act 4

In the past two months I have brought you the first three Acts of my Torg Eternity game. Both myself and my players are completely new to the game and the world so I have taken the ball and run with it. Purists who remember the game from the 90’s will probably be rolling their eyes with how I have events unfolding and also how I have jammed some other companies IP’s into my game.

From this point I will be adding in some rather silly elements into the story and also dipping into 80’s cartoons. I will freely admit that I don’t rightly know how to mention these IP’s in this blog without having some people roll their eyes and also without worrying that I might be asked to remove content… so I plan on employing silly terms like Stormy Cats to describe one of the races I have introduced to the Living Lands.

Ok, so in the last 9 weeks I have only covered the first three game sessions, this narrative is the first game of 2019, it was played on January 5^th

Act 4: Trouble Among Friends:

With the return of the Domes to their control the Servitors have become almost like giddy children. They are running around the labs and bringing the city back under proper control. Our heroes awake from their fitful sleep… fitful not because of a lack of comfort but due to the strain within the group over Sasha’s plans.

For the most parts the Servitors are preoccupied with their new freedom and they leave the party to their own devices. However, one of the doctors, whose name escapes the party, does interrupt their breakfast to ask if they wish to contribute genetic samples to the collective. The servitors plan on cloning new bodies for themselves and also cloning their race back into existence.

Carlisle, who is 70 and also still mad with Sasha, responds with a grunt and several uncouth words.

Sasha yanks a few hairs from her head and hands them over and the mollified scientist leaves the rest of the group alone.  

Flashback to the Final Argument:

Last night in their suite of rooms. Carlisle still holds out that the sludge creature, Cyrus, will more than likely try to attach to them and he doesn’t want a “parasite” controlling his brain.

Kimiko doesn’t really help by accessing a file on her phone and reading that the last person Cyrus bonded to went made and became a homicidal maniac.

Realizing that she needs more information Kimiko accesses the terminal in their rooms and pulls up the origin of the creatures, her hacking skills are just getting better and better. That or the telepathic nature of the technology has just melded with her mind.

Origin of the Symbiotes:

The sludge creatures were found as a byproduct of an experiment in teleportation. They exist in a dimension between spaces. The sludge came through the teleport gate as a singular massive blob creature that devoured all in its path. With the use of electricity and cold them managed to reduce the creature and finally to freeze a smaller bundle of it. Later this smaller bundle broke into a dozen lesser sludges that moved independently.

It was discovered, due to both creatures being telepathic, that the sludges were intelligent and that their combined state had lowered their intelligence to a pure state of survival. The whole was not the greater of the sum of the parts.

No Attention Span:

At this point Kimiko starts to only scan the data, and points out that several of these creatures proved to be intelligent and thoughtful. But several of them were aggressive and angry from their time as a gestalt. Flipping through hundreds of files she finds two that are flagged. One of which is about a scientist accidently binding his body to one of the creatures and how they both seemed to function better.

However, after a month there were marked personality disorders in the scientist, who was constantly arguing with the creature hiding in his body. Eventually he had a psychotic break and became murderous. Both the scientist and his symbiote were destroyed.

There are tons of arguments over whether the creatures were aggressive or if the brain just couldn’t handle the stimulus. The next flagged file mentions later testing and creation of a generation 2 of creatures, at the expense of the deaths of most of the original slimes.

The four symbiotes from the lab are labeled as Generation 4 and also labeled as highly dangerous.

Doesn’t solve the Argument:

Kimiko reads the final file about Cyrus being extremely violent, he bonded with a doctor by accident and the doctor immediately went into a psychotic rage, killing all of the people around him before Cyrus simply abandoned him to die at the hands of the guards. Cyrus lacks finesse or self-control.

Carlisle rests his case, firmly on the words of Kimiko.

C: Even if that thing doesn’t try to attach to one of us, whatever it attaches to will become a murderous monster!

Sasha: That’s why I call it a Cyrus-bomb. I’ll launch it among the Edeinos in Tusk’s camp and while they are dealing with the bedlam and carnage, we’ll be able to move around freely. Also, you are forgetting the fundamental nature of Cosm’s. This thing is as alien to the Living Lands as we are. It is not a storm knight, despite its powers and abilities it is an Ord. Within a week or two this creature will be changed by the Living Lands into a mold or slime. If the creature keeps using psionic powers it might happen even faster.

Final Point:

Carlisle has no answer to that and Kimiko has to agree, Cyrus won’t last long once he’s freed in the living lands.

Carlisle has to concede the point, but does mention that there are human slaves in both Edeinos camps and any of them could end up infected, also what if within a week Cyrus finds a body strong enough to get out of the Living Land and into Core Earth?

Sasha has no answer to that but presses that there are a whole lot of What Ifs… carnage among the enemy will help in the long wrong.

They each go to their troubled sleep.

Back to Breakfast

Carlisle had awoken this morning and was willing to concede that more than likely Cyrus wouldn’t “live” long without disconnecting and turning into something Cosm specific. He was fine and accepting… and then Sasha joked that Cyrus had gotten out of his jar…

Their breakfast was a porridge like sludge that was created from protein chains in a vat. The servitors had been harassing them all for genetic samples and talking about advanced cloning, none of it made any sense to the old monster hunter. Carlisle is not happy this morning.

Time to move on and get back on mission. They have lost storm knights to find.

Scene 2 Crossing the Plains:

The party makes the goodbyes, they will be coming back soon, they promise, and then they head out of the north-side of the Dome.

There is about 20 meters of gravelly dead land that ends in a copse of trees and then past the trees is the vast grassy plans that have replaced Central Park and pretty much all of Central Manhattan. There are no buildings for miles in any direction.

Cutting through the copse of trees they step into vast plain. The grass hits the women mid-chest and, in the breeze, coming from the north east the grass waves and moves like a vast green sea. If it weren’t the massive storm clouds also coming in from the north east and darkening the horizon it would be an idyllic scene. Also knowing that massive skyscrapers are gone and that over 1.6 million people had once lived in this spot takes any joy from the scene.

The wall of shadow moving toward them across the plain is a perfect symbol for how they feel.

Scanning the Area and Testing new toys.

Back in the living lands after the relative safety of the Domes has reignited their paranoia. The team works on their group tactics again.

Carlisle who shuns advance tech, pulls out the digital camo poncho. He has Kimiko attach the solar panel to the back and flick on the switch for him. The poncho immediately changes from a dark grey to a myriad of pixelated squares.

The old monster hunter moves forward and lowers himself into the grass and promptly disappears so thoroughly that even the two women who watched him go have trouble spotting him.

Sasha scans the horizon and makes notes in her notebook, the line of the storm seems a full 20-30 miles away, right in the path they need to head toward. That would place the storm in Long Island and headed into Manhattan. She can see a score of the lakten, the giant winged dinosaurs, in the air. She marks it on her map as the possible location of Tusk’s camp. One of the two warlords of Manhattan, and the only one who likes to keep live humans for slave labor. The other prefers to do things with dead bodies. The only other landmark that stands out is a large plinth with a Bronze Lion on it, just a few miles due north of them.

Kimiko activates her Mind Sense and other than small animals in the grasses she can only sense the limited mind that operates the gun emplacement on the north gate of the Dome behind them.

Heading out:

The vast plain of grass bothers them with its wide openness, their aim is to head toward what was once East Harlem. The upper East Side has large clumps of jungle trees and gives way towards swamp lands the closer you get to the East River.

Deciding they like to be closer to trees and other cover they decide to cut due east to start their journey instead of taking a diagonal across the grasslands toward Tusk’s camp. This will add extra miles and time to their journey but the relative safety of trees lures them.

After nearly an hour of travel they have noticed that some of the plain is broken up with the remains of the paved streets from the east side. While all the buildings are gone some of the streets are holding out. A mere 100 days after the invasion and only the southern parts of Manhattan still had “New York.”

Walking down one of these streets, which both exposed them even more than the grass and made them feel a connection to the “real” world. Kimiko suddenly gets a feeling that she is missing something.

A Friend?

Kimiko stops, “I missed something.”

The rest of the party takes these words as a grave warning. Afterall Kimiko normally travels with a constant scan of the area around her. But that is part of the problem, she has let her concentration lull.

Carlisle scans the trees off to their right and notices a massive figure standing at the edge of the trees. This figure waves his hand in the air and makes a few gestures, thrusting his hands in the air in an odd pattern. His mass and his cloaked outline remind Carlisle of the edeinos who had been tracking them before they went into the Domes. The one who seemed to merely observe.

Carlisle comments on sighting the figure but before anyone else can offer their own thoughts Carlisle understands the gestures. The figure is trying to get their attention and make them look south, behind them.

The Hunting Party:

Carlisle whirls around, pulling out his rifle scope and scanning the jungle to the south. A few hundred meters away he can just make out a pack of Edeinos coming out of the jungle and about to step unto the same broken road as the party.

The 8 creatures are holding chains that lead to something hidden by the four-foot-tall grass. They have seconds to react. The party dives to the grass at the side of the road, rolling along the ground and hoping that the rapid movement wouldn’t betray them.

Kimiko sends out her mind sense, but her maximum reach is a mere 100 meters and it will be a short while before the creatures hit that, far less time if they noticed the party diving away from the road.

Sasha uses her telepathy to link the party and quickly whispers for all to still their breaths and think calm thoughts.

Then Carlisle mentions that they might be leading hunting dogs and that hiding wouldn’t be any good once they got the scent of the party.

S: Everything is lizards? We haven’t seen any mammals?

C: We saw the tracks of giant cat, so tigers?

S: Thanks for making it worse.

The Plan.

After a few minutes the hunting party does hit the edge of Kimiko’s mind sense and she does let the group know that the animals are large hunting dogs, who do indeed smell humans. But they smell humans all over, there are many rotting in the swamps to the east. But the hounds don’t matter, as the men holding their tethers are under strict orders to keep them bound and in control.

This party is lead by three shaman casters, who each argue over who is the one above all in charge of the group. The entire party is uneasy as they are minions of Warlord Blunt and they are trespassing on Tusk’s territory. If found their deaths will be slow.

Baruk Kaah himself as demanded that Tusk and Blunt stop their scabbling and has demanded that they prepare warriors for his levies. The Saar or Saars has never asked for more troops so soon after taking his normal tithe. Nor does he normally concern himself with the fighting amongst his warlords.

The Priests think the storm in Long Island is an ill omen.

Kimiko shares all of these thoughts along Sasha’s telepathic link.

Sasha: I have a plan.

Cyrus the Virus

Ignoring the groans from Kimiko and Carlisle, Sasha pulls the psionically shielded jar out of her back pack. The glob of slime within thrashes against the container. Sasha thumbs off the shield and immediately Cyrus enters the telepathic field she has created.

He is eager and excited with thoughts of violence and drinking blood.

Sasha spikes him with her telepathy, mentally grabbing him by the shoulders and she glares into what would be his face.

S: I will free you and you will join my enemies and you will hunt them. You will show restraint and intelligence. Are you an animal? No, you are a predator! You will hunt them and destroy them. Any and every lizard you encounter is yours to kill at will. Any human shall go free. Slake your lust on the edeinos and we shall never be enemies.

Cyrus: DEAL.

Sasha then weakens the lid of the cannister and then using telekinesis she pushes the jar 50 meters toward the hunting party and waits.

Carlisle groans.

Cyrus Bomb:

The hunting pack notices the grass moving and the hounds strain at their leads.

The lid cracks on cannister and Cyrus keeps his word. He heads through the grass toward the edeinos instead of turning back on the storm knights.

The hounds go berserk, Kimiko continues to ride their minds. The hound masters want to release the leads but they await orders. The Gotaks sense nothing in the brush and tell them it is merely an animal.

Edeinos bodyguard: Moving toward us? He shakes his head, upset that the priests are in charge of the mission.

Suddenly the hounds howl and they turn into the hunting party, turning their handlers around, the hound lunge at the gotaks at the centre of the group. The priests draw back and the handlers curse. In the confusion Cyrus slips inside one of the gotaks and in seconds the gotak is gone and Cyrus has dominated the body.

Dark Future:

Cyrus Gotak: Silence those damn hounds! This mission is ruined. Any more noise and all of Tusk’s forces will be on us, he already has damned Lakten in the air.

Another of the gotaks bridles at this move to power and the Cyrus Gotak glares down any rebuke. Cyrus has taken the body and taken charge of the group. The hounds are quickly muzzled and the group turns back south and beats a retreat to the treeline.

Before leaving the 100 meters of Kimiko’s senses Cyrus pauses and sends back along the link. “Thank you. These simple creatures are weak, but this body knows something of our arts. This Blunt knows about Psionics. I will find out what he knows before I make his life hell.”

Sasha laughs.

Carlisle groans again.

C: Doesn’t make it better that you were right.

The party stays laying in the grass for a while before they decide to get back on track and head north again.

They forget about the stranger who gave them the warning.

End of Scene 2 and this week’s post, next week we’ll have a massive fight, and also the party doing the greatest POW escape ever!