Act 6 Beginning of the End

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

[At this point in the gaming experience, 6 games in I had finally started to get my bearings with the Act and Scene system for the games. I started to name the Acts better and I also started keeping track of the days much better.]

Planning Council of the Storm Knights

The scene begins with our heroes already back at HQ, after defeating the T-Rex the Storm Knights had gathered the refugees back into their electric truck and had burned rubber on what was left of the Brooklyn streets and they had reached the pre-invasion Police Adjunct station and the block of houses around it. The signs of battle had been cleaned up, fresh barricades walled off the city from the jungle and electricity still lit all of the houses.

In a room on the third floor of the station is a large conference table and sitting at the head of the table is Dr. Garret, a mechanical genius who has been keeping the HQ up and running on his own for the past month. On the right side of the table are our 3 heroes; Carlisle, Sasha, and Kimiko, and the other storm knights Erik “Longshot”, Mal “Texas”, and Jack Random. [those of you who haven’t read since the beginning Jack was a 4^th Storm Knight that the party left behind when they first went into Manhattan.] On the other side of the table sit the five man go-team, soldiers trained to handle fighting in and out of the cosms. [they look like an SG team, right down to having p90s strapped to their chests].

TWO weeks:

The Storm Knights had only been gone for two weeks, today is day 103 Post Invasion [the Storm Knights had dropped into the Living Lands on the morning of day 90].

Garret goes first and reports that once he started cleaning up the place, helped by Jack and the Go-Team, some of the survivors of the battle at the HQ started to come back. The more people that returned to the place the stronger the Hardpoint seemed to become. The encroaching jungle stopped moving forward and the flickering electricity steadied and the water started to flow again. The better it got the more people arrived, and it just built on itself.

The current census had it at 80 people plus those in the room currently residing around or in the HQ. They also had 30 visitors (in the form of a group of gypsy style wagons that had arrived a few days ago) and the dozen extra people that our heroes had just returned with.

Garret’s Report:

The last 4 days had been the most exciting since the party had left;

4 days ago, they had reports of a massive column of smoke, more than a city block wide, burning into the sky across the East River. It roughly corresponds to the area believed to be held by Blunt.

3 days ago; a group of hunters came into the HQ and reported that a massive force of Edeinos had crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, they were led by a 9-foot-tall brute and a smaller cloaked and hooded figure and had armored triceratops in the front of marching troops. Garret had braced for an attack.

2 days ago, three gypsy wagons arrive at the HQ and name the Storm Knights as friends and seek a place to rest for a few days. Garret is surprised to see that they are led by an old Edeinos but lets them in. These travelers try to recruit people to move with them to a place of safety in upstate NY.

During all of this a massive storm has been rolling down from Long Island and the north. The change storm is huge and it has been forcing Dinos to flee past the HQ and more than just an army has crossed the bridge in the last few days.

Storm Knights’ Turn:

As Garret winds down, he states that they are still on alert looking for that force that had crossed the bridge but after three days nothing seemed to be coming their way, at least not specifically.

The storm knights gather their thoughts and then deliver a much-sanitized report. Mostly just bullet points and facts delivered with little emotion. As they check off the list of all the things, they have learned… and in just 13 days… they realize how fast they have been moving and how much they have thrown themselves into things.

The military presence in the room perks up with all the mentions of the high level of tech and weaponry in the Domes, but they really perk up when they hear about Cat Mountain and the Castle. Magic and tech retrieval have always been part of the tenants of the Delphi Council.

Sasha completes her report with:

“And so we returned to the Dome with the DNA of the King and as of right now he is being cloned in their machinery.”

Garret: “Clone of a king…and you say they intend to move this castle?”

Kimiko: “They plan to leave this REALITY.”

The table goes quiet.

The real head of the Table:

During these reports it has been Garret talking for the table and the PCs then giving their report of events [BTW if you really want to know all of the exploits of the Party, I strongly suggest going back to the first post, linked in the intro paragraph and reading the posts. They are pretty fun.] But finally, the leader of the Go-Team speaks up, Colonel Reynolds is the nominal head of the Delphi Mission, though Storm Knights are granted a LOT of leeway.

Col. Reynolds: “Ok, before we start to digress on magic castles and running away from our troubles lets get back on track. We were each given our missions and we have each reached levels of success.

“Team Storm, your main objective was to discover the fates of the lost Alpha and Beta teams, Recover the Relic, and make contact with allies. You have returned with the relic and two members of the lost teams. You have also learned the fate of the rests of the teams, and sadly most of them are dead. However, we have two men still alive and in the thick of the shit on Long Island.”

Long Island:

Reynolds continues; “We don’t have enough Intel on what’s happening on the Island but we know that it is a war. The change storms are two powerful for us to easily get past and we know that Baruk himself has taken an interest in the area and has pulled his Warlords out of Manhattan to battle there. As much as I don’t want to leave men behind, we have to put down their rescue to lower priority.”

Mal and Erik react to this statement but control themselves as the Col. stares them down.

“I said lower priority not forgotten or abandoned. The sat phones don’t work well, even in the hard point. I have received new orders from Sebastian Quinn, but I haven’t been able to reach him in over a week. We have new mission perimeters which I am augmenting based on your reports.”

New Missions:

The Col. and Dr. Garret have been assigned to the HQ as permanent staff. This base was going to be a deep strike point and would be reinforced once Quinn was done with his own mission in Philadelphia. Either way the Colonel was currently the man in charge of all Delphi missions in the area until he received new orders.

He was going to create two new teams. Erik, Mal, and Jack would be tasked with going into Blunt’s territory and seeing how much damage the fires had caused and what was exactly going on. The other team was the original three storm knights, who were tasked with keeping the relic safe and continuing making Allies. They were tasked with getting the clone of the king back to his people and then leveraging as much help from them as possible. After that was accomplished, they were tasked with taking the invitation to visit the Whitetail Tribe and making contact.

At this point Sasha then amended her report, and told the Col. about Cyrus and unleashing the biological agent on Blunt’s men. Most of the soldiers around the table stared at the Russian woman with looks of horror, but Reynolds was far more pragmatic. He accepted the tactics and simply turned to Mal. “Figure out a way to defend your team from possession by alien slime monster.”

Meeting Adjourned:

With that final statement the Colonel calls the meeting over. Before he can stand Sasha pauses him with one question:

“You said you’ve talked with Quinn, what’s going on? Why have you lost contact? Did something happen to him?”

Col. Reynolds: “He’s perfectly fine, just out in the field and when I can get the phone to work, he isn’t always available. He was in Philadelphia looking over the front line and keeping the troops morale up. Last I heard the US Government has offered him the use of the Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier, the George Washington, as a base of operations here on the East Coast. So, he will be traveling toward our area to move onto the ship and he should be off the coast of New York soon.”

“Now, I think everyone has earned a day or two of rest so let’s get some showers and some food.”

And with that the meeting breaks up and the party each goes to find some down time. Kimiko discovers she has a fan, a young college student who is both a fan of her pop star days and also a fan of her current kicking butt days. Before the invasion Nathan was considered a bit of a “weeaboo,” though his degree in Japanese history and his fluency in the language mark him as a more serious devotee to Japanese Culture and not merely as an anime fanboy.

Kimiko can’t shake off her admirer, and finally accepts that at least she can talk to someone in her native language.

Scene 2: Back Again:

The Storm Knights do take a whole day off and do enjoy things like electricity and hot showers (though they had access to hot showers in the Dome so it really isn’t that much of a luxury). After a full day and night’s rest the Storm Knights want to get right back into things.

Day 104, the storm knights and Nathan gather by the side of the truck. Carlisle raises an eyebrow and points at the young man tagging along behind Kimiko. The j-pop star manages to shrug in her power armor and no one says anything as they load up the truck and set out for Manhattan.

Only two paths are available to them, either the Williamsburg or the Queensboro Bridge still exist, one changed to stone and massive tree trunks and the other still stubbornly clinging to steel and concrete. They decide to take the Queensboro.

While it is still raining it is not the violent storms that are raging to the north. Our heroes set off with Kimiko driving and Carlisle in the passenger seat. Nathan and Sasha have the damp ride in the back of the truck.

All in all, it is a rather pleasant drive to the bridge and cross back into Manhattan… but first…

Hello Manhattan Knights!

Such a lovely rainy day… they go to cross the bridge and immediately drive into a charging Ankylosaur. Really it’s a fleeing ankylosaur but that doesn’t matter, the creature is double the size of their truck and ten times its weight.

Carlisle leans out the window and fumbles his gun, jamming the bolt action [Nat 1, auto FAIL on his roll]. Sasha stands in the back of the truck and yells, “Um… you’re stupid…and big… and slow… yeah slow!” [Also a NAT 1 FAIL on a Taunt roll]. This is a grim start to the fight. Kimiko turns the truck away from the dino.

The ankylosaur veers away from the truck and three raptors, hunting it, jump out of the jungle behind it, two of them jump on the back of the ankylosaur while the third charges the truck. The two raptors on the ankylosaur decapitate and start to eat the ankylosaur and the Storm Knights start screaming.

Raptor Attack

The third raptor ignores the fleshy humans in the back of the truck and shatters the rear window, swiping at Kimiko in the driving seat. Sasha punches the raptor with telekinesis and the beast ignores her. Carlisle unjams his gun, loads a new round, and places the barrel right against the Raptor and blows a hole thru the creature. The raptor is wounded but not dead.

Kimiko hits the brakes, shimmies the truck and then stomps the accelerator and throws the raptor from the back of the truck. She steers the truck out of a skid and then thunders across the bridge. They all laugh about the sudden action.

Stupid is FUN…

[Having just survived a battle that started with two auto failures our heroes decide that they really want to try it again, so one of them drops a Cosm Card “Dinos Attack” to start a new fight. In a completely unrelated side note the character of Nathan is a “follower” that Kimiko’s player bought with experience points…]

The truck thunders across the bridge, at high speed, and Kimiko just starts to pump the brakes as they enter Manhattan. And immediately a new ankylosaur charges out of the brush, for real… two-ton truck and 20-ton dino smash into each other head on, the truck folds up like tinfoil. It stands up on its nose, almost 90 degrees to the earth. This has the effect of staggering and stunning every one INSIDE the truck and the two people in the back of the truck are launched like catapult stones.

Sasha and Nathan fly over 30 meters through the air and into the brush. Sasha is slashed and battered by brush and vines and hurt badly, but Nathan hits a tree at over 50 kph and his back is shattered and his head explodes like a rotten watermelon.

Fight for Survival:

Carlisle is the first to come to his senses, he manages to push his door open and stagger to his feet. He raises his carbine and scores a hit on the unarmored neck of the ankylosaur. The creature rears back, gushing blood.

Kimiko’s powered armor took the brunt of the crash, she kicks the windshield out of the truck and rolls out under the belly of the dino. Her katana opens a deep cut across the beast. Surprisingly for such a large beast, the dino hops and moves away from Kimiko and then swings its armored tail in a wide arc. The tail smashes into Carlisle and tears the fenders off the side of the truck. Carlisle soaks the damage that would have killed him outright. The tail finishes its arc at Kimiko who drops to the ground underneath the tail and rolls under the beast, slicing across her previous belly cut in an X. The dino’s guts drop out and the beast drops to the ground, dead.

Aftermath:

Nathan is beyond dead but the rest of the party manage to stagger back to the truck. The electric truck is smashed up, has no glass, and is missing the fenders from a whole side… but there was no engine under the front hood, only extra battery space and storage. The truck is still operating.

They say a quiet prayer over Nathan and then climb into their shattered vehicle and drive on in sullen silence. The Manhattan Knights have returned to the Island and the Island has noticed and slapped them down.

They drive toward the domes.

End of Scene 2… more to come next week…

We’ll have clones, we’ll have advanced bio-science, more ripped off IP… Bio-Boosted Armor anyone? (yes a Guyver Unit)… Lots more to come as we rush toward the pausing point of the Living Land Campaign. (Yes the story took a massive turn and we had to pause it and start a new story in a different Cosm.)