(no subject)
The group has assembled in a new land, by which we mean that the old basement has been
abandoned and a new home found. Let us all pause for a moment in remembrance of that basement and the years of fond memories it brought us.
Now, on with the game!
Glass: (from the kitchen) Where are the Cheetos?!
The goldfish is roundly mocked for its crime of being a goldfish. Because the group is not gathered about a table, but spread out, the audio is iffy on this transcription, but your loyal transcriber will make his best effort. Niobhe cheerfully does her Space Core impression.
Sayid: I will sit by the mic. (begins laughing into the mic evilly)
Glass: Could you reach into that top drawer and grab us some pencils?
Sayid: Drawer. Ghoere. The Drawer of Ghoere!
Glass: What’s it fueled by? The power core.
DM: Your made-up hunt ended with a blast.
Sayid: There’s one… form of experience that we spend, and another than we get…
Glass: You’re thinking Shadowrun.
Sayid: Renown, is what I’m thinking.
The DM hasn’t got a character sheet for quick skills references, so he digs for a blank one.
DM: Will Mage work?
Glass: It worked last time, except you kept calling for Awareness rolls.
DM: Yeah, you guys knew what I was talking about.
Glass: And you’d think after the fifth time we corrected you, so would you.
Sayid: It’s kind of White Wolf’s fault for arbitrarily changing it for each game…
For the unitiated, Alertness is noticing things, while Awareness (a Mage-only skill) is sensing magic and the supernatural. The transcriber is cheerfully mocked again. People yell into the microphone because they can.
DM: Last time you cleared out the mage and his werewolf associates -
Sayid: And his SHARK!
John: (singing) With the greatest of eaaaaase!
DM: Circus of freaks. Many of the creatures have now run off, being free, either their cage being destroyed or let out during the confusion.
Sayid: So we call you Glass, right?
Glass: “I’ve got a freaking sweet new hat!”
DM: Did you get the people that were running the organization?
Glass; We got the mage guy, I assume he was the leader.
Sayid: Wait, Wesker got away.
DM: Yeah. The ringleader of it all got away. You’ll see what happened when you get back to town. But for now, out of the woods, fashionably late as usual, your supposed ally. Jack Burton.
Glass: Kurt Burton.
Sayid: That’s right. Thinly veiled Kurt Russell appearance. Just turn him to Golbez Burton.
DM: “You managed to clear that out in quite a sensational manner.”
John: …am I still a bear?
Sayid: Don’t leave it to me, because I have a jape in mind, and that’s not like Sayid.
Glass: “I was so scared I hid behind a tree the entire fight.”
Sayid: “What?”
Glass: “I was whizzin’. I had to go really bad, remember?”
Sayid: “I don’t remember anything but a shark!”
Glass: “Oh. I’m sorry. You’re probably traumatized for life then.”
Sayid: Oh, my Flaws are on the other sheet too, I just know I didn’t like it! Aaaaah - wait, I know you did shit during the fight. It wasn’t just John like, werebear stare.
Glass: Sure, I did tons of stuff, but I’m trying the whole Superman excuse, I was just out of sight, behind a tree taking a whize, while this dragon was like…
Sayid: Right, because we totally don’t know you’re a,,,
DM: Wait, you don’t know
Janelle: We know!
John: We put it together, he’s just being a…
Janelle: A bastard.
Glass: Like at first I claimed it was just paper mache.
DM: “Since you all now know about your… special attributes-“
Glass: Except for her. (pointing at Janelle)
DM: “We can start at the real mission at hand. With their operation disrupted in this area, my original target should make its way here now. Probably trying to regain control.”
Sayid: “Original target?”
DM: “Quite. Originally, another person was supposed to come here, a Shadow Lord on the inside. Sadly something happened to her.”
Sayid: She had to stay home!
DM: No, she was killed.
Sayid: …that’s terrible! Why didn’t you tell me?!
Glass: “I didn’t think it was important!”
DM: “I only recently found out about it. It’s why I wasn’t here for the battle. But I see you had no trouble whatsoever.”
Glass: “I was very afraid. And I hid. But yeah! Everybody else kicked ass!”
John: “How would you know we kicked ass if you hid?”
Glass: “I can look over my shoulder while I’m whizzing, and whiz at the same time, thank you very much.”
Sayid: “So you’re an overly curious Scooby Doo.”
Glass: “That sounds like a challenge!”
Janelle: “Oh god, I don’t need to watch this crap.”
Sayid: “Shall it be a hiding behind a tree challenge, and pissing?”
Glass: I’m gonna roll me some Primal Urge.
DM: “I bid you to come with me back to town.” He pulls out a watch.
Glass: “Ooh! Ooh! We’re gonna do this again, are we?! Do it do it do it do it!”
DM: Flipping the watch open, a few simple gestures, you find yourselves just outside of town.
Glass: “SWEET! How far can you go with that thing?”
Sayid: (heaving an immense sigh) “Far enough to get you some medication, I hope.”
DM: “If you look around, there are particular marks I can go to. Normally I can only go so far. They’re hard to find.” If you want to actually look for it, roll.
Glass: I have no Investigation, man.
DM: Investigation + Perception.
Glass: That’s three dice.
John: Three 10s, three 10s, three 10s!
Glass: Aaaand one success.
DM: You can kinda see something, where he’s talking about there’s a few areas, seems kinda like there might be a mark there… but you can’t really make it out.
Glass pokes it with a stick before realizing his stick is destroyed. Kurt tells them he’s arranged for a few rooms at another place, so they need not stay at the hunting-hotel.
Glass: I go to the alley where I found the original stick.
A long pause punctuated by the DM’s face, which rests somewhere between fury and horror. The group bursts into laughter.
DM: You know what? I’m rolling for it.
Glass: Is there a giant stick there or not? It’s not a rolling thing, I would think!
DM: Hold on, I’m gonna roll something for ya, we’ll see what you get.
Glass: If I found, like, a giant piece of metal rebar, that would also work.
DM: Besides the normal trash, you find a metal pipe about four feet, probably used for plumbing.
Glass: KICKASS!
Sayid: Or clearing the streets of gangster trash.
DM: You did make quite a mess searching through this.
Glass: Eh. I made trash into trash. At the end of the day I’m okay with that.
The town seems active today, to the group’s concern. Sayid carefully eyes the bar-slash-boarding house. Glass cheerfully waves around his pipe.
DM: The main tavern area actually has a fairly large bar, a fairly large eating area, tables and so forth, and it looks like it has a stage for some entertainment -
Sayid: (Cantina theme)
DM: One of the signs on the wall is “Karaoke Wednesday.”
Sayid: Is it Wednesday?
DM: No.
Glass: “You know what’d be great?”
John: Us not singing karaoke.
DM: This is Saturday.
Glass: Oh god, open mic night.
Sayid: That must be DJ night or something. That means there’s gonna be a cover charge - I’m not paying to get in.
Glass: “You know what’d be great right about now, after all the hustle and bustle of earlier?”
Sayid: “If you were to-“ Yeah, you’re always hungry. Sorry, your dinosaur thing is already hungry.
Glass zips over to a seat, and the rest of the group wearily trudges after him. Sayid fills in the final field on his character sheet by giving the chronicle its name: Facepalm. The young waitress comes to take their order, prompting a brief discussion on when exactly people leave this town, and where exactly Sayid should put his budding harem.
Glass: “That’s why we have rooms!”
Sayid: “They don’t belong to us!”
Glass: Inappropriate response: “You’re a werewolf, mark your territory!”
DM: “Welcome to the Longhorn. Steaks, vegetables of many kinds… just look at the menus and call me when you’re ready.”
John: “STEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!”
Sayid: “Rare, if possible.”
Glass: “Shouldn’t you be going for nuts and berries?”
Sayid: “And some fish.”
John: “I need a salmon. Large one. In fact, bring me two.”
Janelle: “I’ll have what he’s having.”
DM: Are you serious?
John: Yeah!
DM: Would you like that cooked…?
John: I AM a homid…
DM: “Two salmon for the man… for you, young lady?”
Janelle: “I’ll have what he’s having but only one.”
DM: “Would you like anything with that? It does come with a side…”
Janelle: “Baked potato? With lots of sour cream?”
DM: “And you, sir? You get two sides, you did order two salmon.”
John: “Taters for both of ‘em.”
Glass: (on Wikipedia) According to this, a Gila monster only eats five to ten times a year in the wild, but may eat up to 1/3rd of its body mass when doing so.
John: “So how many salmon are YOU ordering?”
Sayid: (groaning)
Glass: “I’m an egg-eater, thanks.”
Janelle: “He likes omelets.”
Glass: “Omelets? What’s an omelet?”
Janelle: “You crack the egg open and you cook it.”
Glass: “Sounds good. Omelets!”
DM: “Excellent, sir. And you.”
Sayid: “A steak’ll do. Eight ounces. Rare.”
DM: “How rare, sir?”
Sayid: “…. …. Bloody rare? I didn’t know there was more than one kind of rare.”
John: Show it to the fire, then bring it out to the plate.
Sayid: “Yes, introduce it to the fire, then introduce it to me!”
DM: “Quite. I’ll be back in a few.” She wanders off.
Sayid: Noo, our waitress is gone!
DM: Perception check.
John: Do I really need that to notice that she didn’t take our drink orders?
DM: She’ll be back. You see a cloaked sort of stranger sitting toward the back of the bar, watching you. Kinda not too intently but you can see he’s peering in your direction,
Janelle: Curiosity ranger!
Sayid: “You draw too much attention to ourselves, Mr. Underhill.”
DM: You can tell from what you can see, he seems very bulky, like he’s wearing something underneath this cloak,
Janelle: Combat armor, oh shit.
Sayid: Like that did them any good before.
DM: The waitress sort of stumbles back.
Sayid: “Are you all right? You appear intoxicated.”
DM “I asked for drinks, and you all ordered food, what would you like to drink?”
Sayid: “It didn’t seem to bother you at the time!”
DM: “I’m new at this job, come on. Anyway, what would you like to drink?”
John: “Beer.”
DM: “We have quite a selection of beer here--”
Glass: “BEER.”
John: “So long as it’s wet and made with hops… and is alcoholic.”
DM: “I’ll give you what’s on the tap then.”
Janelle: “Milk.”
Glass: “Milk’s good!”
Sayid: “Wine.”
Sayid and the DM BS about what kind of wine to get for a while, which is the most roleplaying the group has voluntarily engaged in ever. Sayid attempted to charge it to his Theurge Platinum, before remembering he has none.
Glass: I’m holding up a napkin with “Hello, I see you” towards that guy who’s watching us.
Janelle: (whimpers) I need my pen back!
DM: Looking at you directly, he just sort of shrugs and goes back to what he’s doing.
Sayid: It’s a different sort of door-kicking. You’re like Baby Iglar! You just instigate all this shit with the best of intentions.
DM: He pulls out a small, familiar-looking crystal of sort. I’m sorry, it was a coin. He sort of holds it between his two fingers and looks at you, passing over each of you. As it gets in front of you it starts to spin, in the break it slows down. Spins in a different direction.
John: Meanwhile, we’re all staring at him.
Sayid: Meanwhile, I’m pulling my Han Solo under the table. Keep spinning that coin, Greedo,
DM: It spins to the right. It spins in the opposite direction. It stops but if you rolled four or more on your last check you’ll see it’s actually spinning in this direction, (gesturing improbably) He goes back to another, sort of tilts to the side, and it spins this way. Tilts his head to the side, puts the coin in his pocket, then goes back to his food.
John: And he slowly shits himself.
Glass: I’m three years old, I’m not like Iglar. I have an excuse.
Sayid: No, BABY Iglar.
Glass: I stand by what I said.
Sayid: Iglar’s faults and blunders can be attributed to alcohol, you don’t have that excuse.
Doc Barnes, the tavern owner, wanders up and introduces himself, inquiring about their experience with their waitress and curious at their reasons to be here. The group fumbles.
Glass: “Please give us a moment to get our stories straight!”
Sayid: Were we supposed to be incognito, I forget.
Glass: Kurt got us rooms here, remember?
John: Yeah, he got us rooms here, that’s fine, but I’m not gonna be like, “Ah yes, I’m John, I’m a Gurahl, so this is your establishment?”
Glass: (miming the presence of a nametag on his shirt) “Hello, my name is: Glass. Hello, my Changing Breed is: Mokole. Hello, my actual birth breed is:”
Janelle: Suchid!
Glass: “Hello, my name is: I’m a lizard!”
Sayid: “I’m a lizard, I’ve got a pipe!”
John: (accusingly) What did you do with your pipe when we came in?
Glass: I hung it on the coat rack.
John: Oh, okay.
A long pause, as no one wants to question this too badly.
Glass: In the background, you hear: Bonk! “Ow! Why is there a pipe sticking out of this thing?!”
John: “Did you have to put it right in front of the door?”
Glass: “It was the only way it fit! I mean I COULD have thrust it through the wall, but I thought you’d complain.”
John: “You… eh, you got that right.”
Glass: You made the technically-right answer.
Sayid: “I suppose this is progress, if he’s actually thinking about things before he does them… even if they are the wrong things…”
Glass: I think about everything before I do it. It just doesn’t necessarily resemble any thought process you understand.
Their drinks arrive, luckily. Glass eats ice out of Sayid’s wine bucket. The DM mutters about looking up poisoning rules. People continue to come into the bar, as perception checks are rolled. Many of them are local hunters coming in after a day’s work.
Glass: (still on Wikipedia) Guys, I’d like to point out it is illegal to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect the Gila monster.
A long pause.
Sayid: Go - go through the list again? I can’t collect a Gila monster… or trap one.
DM: But you can be GIVEN a Gila monster.
Sayid: I have acquired a Gila monster.
John: The person who gave it to you is breaking the law, but not you.
Sayid: Just like file sharing!
The waitress interrupts this discussion by showing up with their food. The group makes dramatic eating noises for no reasons other than the gratuitous. Glass consults Wikipedia again.
Glass: Small birds, mammals, frogs, lizards, insects, and carrion.
DM: I’d love if you were saying that out loud. “You have quite the unusual eating habits, sir.”
Sayid: “You’re the ones that have frog on the menu!”
Glass: “And carrion. What the--?!”
DM: “It’s not usual for someone to eat frogs, it’s unusual for someone to ONLY eat frogs.
After an impromptu and terrible rendition of “Ragtime Gal”, the characters roll to observe the hunters who entered. Those who succeed see them trading a small sheet of paper to the first individual, who trades back a mysterious bag. Occult rolls ensue. John botches and believes he’s witnessing a drug deal, but others believe they’re trading raw gold and gems. Janelle believes the scrolls are normally used by occult groups, or mages, like arcane flash drives.
Glass: “This is the thing you sing into, right?” I have the microphone from the karaoke machine.
Janelle: “Why do you have that?”
Sayid: “Where did you GET it?”
Glass: “The karaoke machine.”
DM: That’s why you didn’t see what’s wrong.
Glass: EXACTLY!
John attempts to provoke Glass into singing karaoke, undoubtedly due to insane sadomasochism. The group has dessert: fruit, ice cream, and Skittlebrau. (Which is horrible in real life, according to secondhand reports relayed at this time.) Sayid attempts to prod Glass into singing “Master Exploder”. John spies the guy who spied on them sneaking around their booth.
John: Someone’s taking naughty pictures of us!
DM: He actually sat - the moment you look over he’s actually next to you, pulling up a chair. He wanted to sort of be sneaky and surprise you, but he failed.
John: I put an arm around him. “How’s it going?”
Someone use’s Glass’s written-on napkin. John discovers that whatever he’s wearing under his coat is metallic, while Sayid covers him with his gun. The man produces a scroll.
DM: “There’s a task you might be interested in.”
Glass: “This is like when you have adventurers, and they’re meeting in a tavern, and a mysterious cloaked figure gives them a quest! How many gold pieces do we get?!”
DM: “…is your friend okay?”
John: (bitterly) “He’s perfectly fine.”
Sayid: “He is somewhat meta, however.”
DM: “Quite.”
Glass: “That’s right. I’m meta.” (throwing up the horns)
John: “You forgot the ‘L’.”
DM: (evil and suspicious voice) “I know you’re working for Mr. Burton, but as I’ve already found out, his target won’t be here for a few weeks.”
John: “What a sinister way of putting it.”
Glass: “Burton kept going real evil on us too.”
John: “Must be a Mage thing.”
DM: “That’s a problem because I’m not. As you say. A Mage.”
The NPC explains that his coin just spins around and does nothing else. He wants them to remove a certain ‘operation’ and is willing to share the profits in doing so. The DM realizes his name for the NPC is awful and hurriedly comes up with a new one.
Sayid: “You haven’t introduced yourself, it’s very rude.”
DM: “John. John Spartan.”
Glass: (furiously pointing at John) “HE’S NAMED LIKE YOUR NAME!”
John: “Except my last name isn’t Spartan.”
Glass: “It SHOULD be.”
The DM refuses to do a Stallone voice, which means everyone spends the next few minutes doing Stallone impressions. John S. explains that he uses the scrolls also just to throw people off. He removes his glove to reveal he’s wearing a green/silver armor glove with a little red circle at the bottom.
Janelle: He’s a Lensman?
Glass runs off, grabs his pipe, and comes back to poke the gauntlet. The metal dents his pipe.
DM: “You’ll be meeting one of my contacts on the inside. If something happens, I might be able to give you a distraction to escape. Take this communication device. It’s a small earplug.”
John: Ah, a suppository.
DM: “Give it a buzz. I hope you do accept. This needs to be done by the third day… of this week.”
Glass: By the third day of the third week…
Glass and Sayid: Of the third month…
Glass: Of the third year.
DM: It just sounds cool when you say stuff like that as opposed to saying “Wednesday, the fifth”.
John Spartan heads off, then moments later, Kurt Burton returns!
DM: “Sounds like you all made yourselves quite comfortable. I’ve gotten the information I need. Seems my target will not be here for another…”
John: “Week, yes, we know.”
Sayid: “Three weeks.”
John: “Three weeks, really?”
DM: “TWO weeks. How did you know? Quite odd, in fact. I only just found out.”
Janelle: (belches)
John: “What she said.”
Sayid: “Um.”
Glass: “Everybody look at Sayid expectantly!”
Sayid: “So th-I mean… um..”
Glass: “If I tried to explain it, you’d all just get mad.”
Sayid: “Have you ever met someone by the name of -“ (cracking up) “John… Spartan…”
DM: (totally serious voice) “Mr. Spartan.”
The group loses it. They struggle on through their laughter and tears as they try to ask Burton about the man. Spartan seems to have contacts in the Shadow Lord system.
DM: “I’m sure he wanted to tell you about the nasty little base that’s just annoying all the locals…”
Sayid: “And must be destroyed. By the third day.”
Sayid and Glass: “Of the third week. Of the third month. Of the third year.”
DM: “That would be quite late…”
Sayid: “Or just Wednesday.”
The DM threatens to bring out John Matrix and many more Johns, as well as multiple Arnie characters. The group now has to consider whether they should do as Spartan asks.
Glass: “I say we should do it, because it sounds like the right thing to do.”
Sayid: “Since when did you care about doing the right thing?”
Glass: “I have a vested interest in the greater well-being of the cosmos.”
Sayid: “How vested?”
Glass: “I hope to get a vest out of it someday.”
Sayid: “I thought as much.”
DM: “This particular Shadow Lord base contains a research base underneath. They’re studying a particular… object of my interest.”
Glass: Boobies.
DM: “If you can get that object out, I will also pay you.”
Sayid: “Knowing something more about this object will probably increase our chances of success.”
DM: “Fear not. It’s particularly unique in this facility, once you get there it’ll be pretty obvious what I’m looking for.”
Sayid: “If it’s so obvious why can’t you just tell us what it is?”
Glass: “Yeah, what’s with the mystery?”
Sayid: “Who are we going to tell?!”
DM: “Where would the fun be in that? Also I’m not entirely certain what it is.”
Sayid: “But you know you need it.”
Glass: I just know they’re on women’s chest, but I’ve never actually seen them.
Glass and John return to the karaoke stage to sing Journey for no good reason. They do terribly. Then frenzy and start attacking each other (not really). The group goes to their rooms, sleeping with music and various sound effects.
DM: A text box appears. Sometime in the middle of the night your wallet was stolen.
Glass: Ha! I had that thing on a string, now show me Chun Li!
Sayid: That thing on a string?
DM: It’s more than that to find Chun Li, you have to go downstairs and push that crate.
The DM and Glass explain that little easter egg in the original Breath of Fire. The group plans to sneak onto a truck heading to the compound, and head to the train yard to do just that. John comes up with a brilliant plan (after rejecting the idea of riding by on a tiny tricycle.
John: I walk back towards town… AND QUICKLY DUCK INTO THE WOODS!
Glass: And poop.
John: “I DO POOP IN THE WOODS! AH HA HA HA!”
Glass: We wait nearby for opportunity.
John: I change into my Ursus form and I amble out towards the dock area.
The tran station immediately dissolves into chaos as people run everywhere in panic. As the rest of the group ducks into the truck, John manages to shift back into his large-human form and unsubtly enters the truck. Luckily no one is observing them. The outside storm threatens the power (in real life, you know), so the group takes a moment to prepare. The characters hide behind crates.
John: I pick up Glass and put him in my pocket.
Glass: “Hey!” ….I mean… (long pause) “Gila monster noise!”
They wait patiently, hearing truck doors open and whatnot. Finally the truck starts up and begins to move. At last the truck docks at the base’s loading dock and the doors open.
DM: You hear a sort of mumbling outside, then the door opens up. “And then she says, NOT IN THAT HOLE! OH MY GOD! Whew!” The other guy’s like, “What are you talking about? All you said was, ‘and then she said not in that hole’. Where did you start this conversation?” “Oh-uh - whatever man, you know what I was talking about.” “No!” They start moving boxes and they’re arguing about this conversation he had with nobody.
Glass: I’m two feet long!
John: Two feet long? All right, you’re sticking out of my pocket. And I’m back in bear form.
DM: “And then she says - look. There’s a bear.” “Once again, you - oh, there’s actually a bear.
One worker runs like hell. The other faints. They move on ahead to find out that the guard had slammed face-first into a pillar and collapsed. Glass searches him. They find his access card!
John: Ah ha, we’re going back to THIS, are we?
The group rolls Occult tests to determine that most of the people they ought to encounter in this place will be humans, not Shadow Lords. Sayid notices a fire door with an alarm, and ponders how to keep, well, everyone else out of it.
Sayid: “Whatever you do, definitely go through that door.”
DM: They just pile through it.
Sayid: I’m hoping reverse psychology will work. “There’s definitely nothing interesting through that door, except maybe a pile of poop.”
Glass: “From who?”
Sayid: Uh… “Poo! From who? Auntie Roo! ….” I don’t…
Glass: “A WERE-KANGAROO?!”
The group enters the guard’s office to open the door they’re trying to get through. John threatens to chloroform Glass, who warns that he sleep-bites. He reaches around to press the button to unlock the door.
DM: You hear a chunk as the door unlocks.
Glass: “DOOR OPENING! DOOR OPENING!”
DM: No, it’s just an ordinary swing door. That button just unlocked it.
The door opens to a large, quiet hallway with several doors on each side, dimly lit. They move forward, checking out the side doors - a medical bay, a locker room, bathrooms, a cafeteria… Then they hit an intersection. A suspicious cardboard box leads to inevitable Metal Gear jokes. Sayid suggests the elevator, then spends entirely too long explaining this to Glass, who pushes every button on the elevator. John injures him, then uses a security trick to bypass the lit floors to their final destination.
Glass: “Hey, what’s the big red one do?”
John: (slapping Glass aside) “Stop pressing buttons!”
Glass: “But why would they be here if they weren’t meant to be pressed?!”
John: “They’re only pressed in certain situations!”
Glass: “Like what?!”
John: “Emergencies.”
Janelle: “Are you on fire?”
Glass: “I don’t know, the way John keeps doing things to me!”
Sayid: “That’s the button we press if we want to get caught.”
Glass: “Oh.”
The players begins arbitrarily assigning Muzak to the elevator speakers. It goes exactly where you’d expect it to.
DM: “This is Porn Classics, all the music from the porn from your teenage years.”
The group arrives at their destination, to find it lit in red.
Sayid: My gun is drawn.
Glass: I kick open a door.
Sayid: Wrong!
John: Wrong character!
Sayid: Aliarra is not here. Iglar - you may be channeling Iglar, but you are not Iglar.
DM: The elevator area, before it actually leads to the hallway, above, it says “Main Containment Area.”
Janelle: Oh god.
Sayid: “Perhaps we should avoid that one.”
DM: This is the main hallway going in. All you see is a bunch of glass windows going through. It actually goes all the way to the end of the hallways. Throughout there’s doors going through the area.
Sayid: (to Glass) “This must look like home.”
Glass: “Maybe there’s another one of those sharks here.”
Sayid: “Why don’t you go check for me?”
The group goes into the first door, to find a room full of empty cylinders. Glass lampshades the DM’s fondness for this particular sort of scene. They turn to the next room, where the cylinders are NOT empty - they are full of every sort of shifter, some of them alive and squirming. Glass barely avoids frenzy.
Glass: Okay, first things first, I’m starting a one-Mokole freedom train.
DM: Um, you‘re able to find one Mokole alive and three-
Glass: I mean I’m ripping out every single specimen I can find that still has a chance of being alive. The one-Mokole freedom train is ME. I’m the engine, I’m the conductor!
Glass starts trying to make good on his effort, but promptly botches his check to rip open a cylinder, destroying his pipe. He promptly shifts to Archid.
Sayid: “Oh look, a dragon has showed up in the same spot as our Gila..”
Glass: “Yeah, what a coincidence, you gonna help me or what here?”
John: “How can you speak?”
Sayid: “I’ll be glad to help you once we have found what we came for.”
DM: The moment you shift to your dragon form, you see a bunch of red lights in this particular room.
Glass’s dragon form has set off all the alarms! Metal shields crash down over cylinders and windows… heading for the door. The group stares dully. The DM adds that nothing is happening in the other chambers. Glass stubbornly refuses to leave, continuing to try to rip open a tank. His efforts are utterly futile, as he is unable to penetrate the steel. Instead, he smacks one with his tail blade, slicing through it.
Glass: I don’t wanna hit the guy inside.
Sayid: You’ve KILLED -
DM: You’ve gone low enough that you’re not gonna hit the guy inside.
Sayid: Ah ha ha! You killed him!
DM: You see the blades going through the whole thing. You hear glass shattering, liquid pouring out…
Glass: Now I’ll be ripping off the steel. It’ll be a lot easier!
DM: At this point you manage to work off the metal. On the inside you see the creature just bashing it and he sort of stops. That particular one was on life support. He was probably gonna die a long time ago if it wasn’t for the systems keeping him alive.
Glass: I don’t know why that happened but it was clear he was weak.
DM: And the nutritional liquid that was sustaining him. You have just killed the last of his kind. His race is no more.
Glass: It was necessary.
Sayid: “Congratulations!” You’ve exterminated extinct plant life in my game…
John continues to hold the door open. He and Glass argue for a rather long period of time, but the tubes begin retracting into the floor and gas begins pouring into the room.
John: All right, I smell almonds, would you get out of there?!
Glass reluctantly trudges out. The door seals behind him as John releases it, luckily cutting off the flow of gas. Glass ponders.
Glass: “All right, we need to handle these other rooms more carefully.”
John: “Wait. Wait. Wait. What?”
Glass: “Well, there are other rooms, there probably have -“
John: “Says-says the person who just! …mm. Never mind. And for the record, yes, if you were in there, I would try to rescue you.”
Glass: “Yes, and vice versa! You wouldn’t want to be stuck in there! This is a horrible thing they’re doing!”
DM: If only they knew those people were in heaven right now, in their virtual reality world of perfection.
Glass: That’s still horrible in Werewolf terms!
DM: He was having a perfect life where the Apocalypse wasn’t happening.
Glass: That’s still horrible in Werewolf terms!
DM: He was able to eat people all he wanted to.
Glass: Then I’ve done a favor to the world!
Sayid: There’s nothing you can’t put a good spin on, is there?
Glass: When it comes to people being trapped in fucking columns of fluid, then YES, it’s VERY EASY to put a bad spin on that!
The group advances ahead to find a room with only one massive tube inside it, filled with an eight-foot-tall creature carrying unusual armor. Janelle guesses it’s a Predator. The group begins fooling with the computers, pushing the DM to absolute rage over Jurassic Park’s 3D Unix. The logs reveal that this creature’s kind had come to Earth many time, and that the creatures in the other world had been found on this creature’s ship. John studies the manual, which is right there for some reason, which tells him how to release the creature. Glass starts working on a new character.
Glass: I don’t know if my next character is gonna be a Nagah or a Ratkin, but either way I know his mission is going to be to kill you all.
DM: “You… have freed me… little one.”
Glass: “John, are you gonna take that from him?”
John: I choose to take the 5th on this one.
DM: “Why are you here?”
John: “To destroy this facility.”
DM: “Then why did you waste your time freeing me?’
Glass: “You seemed to have an interest in doing it too.”
John: (a very long pause) “Yes… yes, that’s our story!”
Glass: And that’s how John rolled a natural 1 on his bluff check.
The creature begins to armor up. Glass sidles over to John.
Glass: “You should challenge him to an armwrestling contest!”
John: “Why.”
Glass: “To see who’s stronger!”
John: “He probably is.”
Glass: “You can’t just let him get away with that title!”
John: “He doesn’t actually HAVE the title. And I don’t have it to give it to him!”
Glass: “You just gave it to him by PROXY!”
John: “No I didn’t.”
Glass “…ARMWRESTLE HIM!”
John: “This isn’t the time! Would you please just continue on!”
The Predator wants his ship! He promises not to kill them if they later tell the truth about their reasons for being here. The group piles into the elevator, heading up to sublevel 3.
Glass: Please be a guard on the other side of the doors. Please be a guard on the other side of the doors.
John: Should we shift just in case?
Glass: The guard just explodes.
John: Too much Delirium.
There is a guard, who begins to shift to Crinos. The group rolls initiative! Janelle FINALLY TRANSFORMS.
Janelle: Yes, the cat’s out of the bag.
The Predator (Broken-tooth) kicks the werewolf across the room. Glass holds his actions, believing that Broken-tooth has this covered, but Sayid elects to shoot the werewolf. As he does this, a much larger werewolf smashes out of the door! Janelle slams head-long into him, while an entire pack of werewolves charges out to start pack-mauling Broken-tooth. Glass bites the hell out of the boss werewolf.
Glass: (to John) I have sixteen raw damage dice. SUCK IT.
He only pulls six successes out of the roll, though. John slams the werewolf’s face into the floor. Sayid lazily shoots at a werewolf, uselessly. The opposing werewolves split up to attack the party. Glass, having spent a Rage earlier, interrupts his foe to bite him.
DM: How does that work?
Glass: Well, I have superior initiative, so I already declared that I spent a Rage earlier in this round for another action, so when he runs up… omp.
DM: Does that stop him from acting.
Glass: If he - if he’s dead.
DM: Then ROLL YOUR DAMAGE! You’re making it sound like some special thing!
Janelle also bites her foe. Glass’s foe is hurt but not dropped, and Janelle and her foe exchange some damage. Init rolls around
Glass: The one that was biting Janelle? I’m gonna have a word with him about his career prospects.
DM: All right you’re having a word with him. That means you’re not attacking.
Glass: That’s WRONG, because my words take the form of BITING!
Glass rolls terribly and the werewolf dodges easily by flipping over Janelle. John lazily swats a werewolf to incap. Sayid starts shooting, then remembers to pick a target. Janelle and Glass team up to finish off the final werewolf standing… except Glass fails his damage roll AGAIN, leaving John to again bat it aside effortlessly. The battlefield is theirs.
Glass: (weakly) “Mother’s Touch…”
DM: “You all are useful. There’ll be more coming soon. You wanna destroy this facility, you’ll need to take out the main reactor.”
A long pause.
Glass: (weakly) “Mother’s Touch…”
John: How bad are you hurt?
Glass: Actually I’m only at two, but she’s at three.
John: Oh, then I start licking her.
DM: He stomps over and start licking her.
John: I don’t think it’s literally.
DM: NO! This is my game, that’s the way it is! You will go over here and lick her wounds!
John: Damn you, Gurahl and your weird-named things! Healing Tongue.
DM: No, I’ve converted it, it’s Healing Teabag. Get to work.
John: I’m so sorry. If you were Glass I wouldn’t mind as much.
The group plans to move on to Broken-tooth’s ship. Will they make it, or all die horrible deaths? Find out… NEXT TIME! DUNH DUNH DUNH