Zip. Whhiiiiiiiir.
"Nammit."
Viola mutters a near-curse as the line she attached to the strut's break malfunctions... she shifts towards the edge, her brake snagging hold just before she hits... which turns into horizontal (vertical?) motion, slamming her side against the ground, but most of the impact is distributed by her armor. "Ow." She taps her pinlight on... which is only really useful for what's -directly- in front of her. Which would probably help her focus, if she wasn't just going to turn her head to look at things instead of using her eyes alone.
"'M-okay. You guys?"
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Borak had forseen the coming tumult, and his iron grip on the bulkhead secured him from further harm. Standing up and gazing about, ever wary for threats, he questions their pilot. "Exactly as you praticed it, no doubt. Are we far off course? Or is their some settlement nearby to which we can secure supplies to complete some no-doubt long-overdue repairs on this tempermental craft?"
If Olivius had strapped himself down he'd be fine.
His strut served him well when the world went sideways and all. It even served him well when the lights went out. It didn't serve him so well when the world actually Tipped Over. Olivius would have been crushed without some quick acrobatics and an emergency pulse from his rocket boots. He flies across the cabin, over the rail, and lands under the main deck in a mass of ropes made from the same material as some of the ropes, no, Cables, in Hardworthy's lab. It takes a few grunts and some wiggling, but he is able to free himself with only a few bruises to show for it.
Viola gets a grumpy grumble of an OK from Olivius as he struggles with the web of cables.
Yala groans in pain somewhere just outside your vision, Olivius. Off to your right, you see the nameless prisoner digging through some ship debris and helping to pull her out and to her feet. She looks shaky, but there's little serious injury - just a nasty-looking cut bleeding down the side of her temple, that she appears to be unaware of. You can faintly see her confused-looking face in the darkness, glancing around.
Meanwhile, Vallarco falls from where she was gripping an instrument panel on what is now the ceiling, but was formerly a wall. She drops a good ten feet, and lands awkwardly in the darkness, falling to her knees with a bang and a quiet, groaned curse.
All around you, you can hear the TARDIS' systems grinding, and the ship's struggles to right itself can almost be compared to a living thing. All around you in the darkness, the ship vibrates and shakes.
The Doctor emerges from the far side of the central instrument panel, looking disheveled and disoriented but not seriously hurt. "We're here," he says, shakily. Immediately, his gaze returns to the display panels of the TARDIS, but they're darkened, showing nothing. In frustration, the stranger slaps the side of the monitor a few times, but it has no effect. Growling under his breath, the Doctor aims his strange wand device at the console and you hear the faint whirr sound emanating from it again; he consults the wand and his lips tighten against one another.
"There was a barrier, a temporal wall of some kind, around the Headquarters of the Hand," he says, raising his voice slightly but not turning his attention away from the instruments. "That explains the...turbulence..." Seemingly as an afterthought, the Doctor glances around at all of you. "Is everyone alright? We're on the station, but the TARDIS isn't going anywhere for awhile until its systems repair itself...we have to proceed on foot."
"So... wait. The Hand People like... locked you out? Or tried to?" Viola asked as she twisted a few things to disconnect herself from the pillar on the other side of the ship.
Seeing the injury on Yala as she comes back into range, Viola focuses her healing magics on the woman, tapping out a beat that's slightly offset by the organism they were inside messing with her biorhythm.
"Anybody else need a little help?"
Bolus' armor cushions the majority of the damage he might have otherwise taken. Vallacro and Yala look a little banged up Viola
Afoot, thank the gods. Olivius moves to help people get upright and checks his gear. Thankfully, none of the explosive flasks had been smashed. That would have been unfortunate.
At Bolus's suggestion, Viola provided the healing he requested for his new companion... but it didn't seem to be very... thorough. But hey, at least it didn't reverberate...
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Borak sighed heavily. For what amounted to an amphibious assault, the crash-landing of their hyper-advanced craft was...a poor omen. Well, there didn't seem to be aught for it, and inaction in the face of the enemy was the worst thing you could do, since even a bad plan or action was better than none at all.
Still, as they say, amateurs study tactics, but professionals....
"Doctor, If we're to be hoofing it an unknown distance toward an enemy that can put up a wall in Time itself, might it be too much to ask this reality-defying god-machine of yours, to see if you've anything to eat around here? I've been quite famished since I got captured, and a prolonged march becomes even more bothersome on an empty stomach."
Dambreth braces himself as the illogical sized craft tumbles to a stop. "Well, that was unpleasant"
Dambreth finds himself nodding along with the unknown hobgoblin, "I too could use a brief rest to allow me to commune with the goddess."
The Doctor runs a hand backward through his longish hair, thinking hard. "Well, before we can determine if we can rest, we need to establish where we are. The TARDIS' systems are offline...I should be able to repair the damage, but first I need to see how bad she was hurt." so saying, he begins to climb under the walkway to one side, his screwdriver whirring.
After a few moments of tinkering, he waves a hand absently. "Go see what's out there," he says, dismissing you with a distracted tone, his attention focused on his miraculous and damaged machine. With a snap of his fingers, the door to the TARDIS swings open.
Looking through it, you find yourselves in a large docking hangar of some kind, and your ship is lying on its side against one of its walls. From the rubble in your immediate area, your landing was pretty rough on the station as well as the craft.
In front of you are more docking bays where ships might rest. To your left, there is a large archway with a closed set of blast doors and a small series of panels and instrumentation, all abandoned. To your right, an oval opening in the wall...with Gaia, your planet, below. What do you do?
Viola grimaces slightly, "You know, there might not even be breathable air, right?" she asks as she moves to look through the door, completely ignoring her own warned suggestion, as she slips the rebreather back over her mouth.
Rather than venturing out, though, she simply listens intently to what's going on outside their little blue box. Being genre savvy, she knows that one doesn't simply land on a space station and not expect things to go wrong quickly.
Don't see why I should be taking orders from you Bolus growls. The Doctor reminds himself far too much of Mimics right now for his comfort. Still he complies. Vallarco. Stick close to Damberth. Man's not a warrior he orders and steps outside with his baton at the ready. Viola. I'm guessing you might be good at knowing what the hell this place is and what it does
As Olivius follows Bolus out he his struck dumb once again at the sight of the planet before him . It was ROUND!. In spite of this being his second time seeing it, he still struggles wrapping his mind around it. Why don't we fall off?
After a long moment, he pulls himself to the task at hand and instinctively starts looking for the exits.
What here is useful or valuable to me, specifically the exits.
Viola: it's quiet outside the TARDIS. Listening intently only brings the quiet susurrus of what sounds like some kind of air conditioning system, as well as the sounds of falling debris of some kind or another. It appears as if the TARDIS caused some damage to the hangar's superstructure when it landed; you should keep an eye overhead when you're stepping outside.
As you look to your left, concentrating on your hearing, you're distracted by Lord Borak stepping boldly outside of the TARDIS first. He breathes in a deep breath, the air filling his lungs and causing his chest to expand; breathable air, a mercy. You consider to yourself (from your timeline's magically-enhanced understanding of vacuum) to be lucky that the air wasn't all sucked out of the TARDIS when the door opened, if you are on a space station as it seems.
Borak's tactician mind immediately sets about himself for possible strategic advantages. Sadly, though perhaps luckily for his own personal safety, there were no other craft inhabiting this hangar - despite there being room for several other ships besides the blue box.
Meanwhile, Olivius and Bolus step out of the craft and look about themselves in amazement. Olivius in particular is fortunate to have an open-minded personality; he has been exposed to numerous world-shaking new truths in his time spent as a time traveler, and this may be one of the most momentous. The view reminds him of the view that he saw when he was atop Mount Haujobb, communing with the ancient dwarf spirit of the stars. Unfortunately, the view of the planet shows how extensive the loss of control over magic has been to Gaia. Truly, you are champions of a wounded spirit.
As mentioned, Olivius, there is a large set of blast doors under an archway that appears to lead further into the body of whatever space station you happen to be in. You don't have any knowledge of vacuum, so it's not surprising to you that the window leading to Earth hasn't sucked you all out into space; to you, it's simply a window that's extremely extremely high up.
As you're glancing around, you see strange square coverings in the wall that have slats in them, and you can tell that the air is coming from between these slats. There are a handful scattered around the hangar, both above and at ground level, that might be accessible as alternate exits.
"Roit..." she says, then looks around to see if anyone caught the accent, before moving back to affecting a more traditional one.
"It... kinda flies around something, I think. Nobody around, at least no one that's walking. Though it'd be hard to tell if anything weren't exceptionally close. Climate control is making its own bit of noise. Probably best to be cautious of the place, we've no idea what sort of damage we caused when we landed." Viola explains as she heads out. "I'd mostly watch the ceiling, though... since we seem to have crashed into some supports. Stay near something sturdy to latch on to, in case of emergency."
How do you make Viola stop asking questions? You ask her a question.
What here is evil? Bolus thinks to himself.
Just for fun, and maybe because he's having a slight mental break after the last few days, Tolus feels the ping of paladin magic and decides, You know what, I'm totally evil right now. Ping me, big man. And ping he does. Like a bonfire at a festival.
Bolus, you sense the presence of a great many lesser evils, somewhere on the station. You can only feel it faintly, like being in a really old house that you know is infested with cockroaches, even if you can't see them.
You're also offered a surprise from Olivius; unlike before, when his aura was mostly neutral or positive, he now seems to radiate as an evil being.
He's standing quite near to Yala, or she's standing quite near to him. Perhaps, you reason, he's thinking particularly impure thoughts. That might be causing a false read...
I feel a bunch of small... Bolus beings but then squints at Olivius. Olivius, you feeling alright?
Olivius winks and his aura returns to normal. Just messing with ya, big guy.
Olivius narrows his eyes for a second before shrugging. You deal with rough stuff Olivius, be careful, yeah?
Then resuming what he was saying Seems like there are things here we need to watch out for but not too many and not too big. Let's get exploring
Olivius waits until Bolus is turned away to make a face at the paladin.
Sounds good. Olivius takes the lead and strides over to the huge door. One tap with his knuckles confirms his fear. These doors are think. How they got up here I'll never know, but we probably aren't opening them without magic.
He looks around for a magic activator.
A small smirk begins to form as she watches the interaction between Olivius... Bolus... and now the environment. This was either going to be fun, hilarious, deadly... or some combination of all three. She stayed back to watch the anachronistic man work his way through all of this.
Seriously Atlas? You're bouncing a dead game for your dice roll purposes? I was hoping DM Frogfoot was okay when this popped up again.
My heart skipped a beat too...
Sigh...
Oh well, it's a perfect opportunity to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving!
Happy thanksgiving US folks. And good thoughts to our absent DM. It was a blast playing with you guys!
Here here!
Hey guys, Archepex (aka Olivius) let me know about the game being bounced back to the top. I'll go ahead and cancel this one (regretfully) - as I've moved on from this account. I'll give everyone a couple of days to check this message before moving the campaign to inactive.
In the meantime, I have come back to these boards, under a new alias - DM Mooshybooshy, "the Foolish". Here's a link to my current profile's campaign page. I'm currently running:
An all-kobold campaign centered around revenge on a group of adventurers
A campaign about a group of mercenaries hunting Skaven (rat-folk).
I'm sorry again, for leaving you all in a lurch when I left. I still think fondly on this campaign; it lasted a really long time.
Glad to see you're alright Mooshybooshy. Can I bother you to write a quick coda for this campaign and give everyone a right rousing heroic sendoff? Just a line or so each would be good. Need CLOSURE!
*grins* I can do that.
With some help from the Time Lord known as the Doctor, the Hand of Gaia was able to ensure that their planet was spared being eaten by the world-devourer. The beacons that were lit on the planet across time and space were extinguished, one by one, despite the best efforts of those who would sell out their world for a pay day.
Temellen was only a pawn in a much larger scheme that spanned across thousands of worlds, of which Gaia was only one small backwater. As the Hand of Gaia cleansed the Moonbase of evil, they found technology that would ensure that their planet vanished from interplanetary scans, both biological (from planet-devouring void beasts) and technological (interstellar empires). Although the planet was still ravaged by entropy and the release of magic from the control of mortals in its later days, its destiny was its own, and the lifecycle of the planet went on as it should have.
Some members of the Hand of Gaia did not return to a quiet life after their adventures on the Moonbase were concluded.
Olivius the Thief continued his time-traveling adventures with Yala the Shell Diver using stolen technology that he took from the Moonbase.
Dambreth the Cleric always remembered his animal friend Scram, and when Gaia was safe from annihilation he moved back to the planet, spending the rest of his long Elven life fighting back the forces of entropy and decay.
Sinathel the Druid lived with her cousin on Gaia and through her efforts, managed to spread the ideology of Druidism to others. She became a grand teacher, stewarding her planet back to health as was her sacred charge. She started her own Circle of Druids after the Druids that helped to build the Moonbase (and were part of Gaia's Hand) were destroyed in the conflict. Eventually, she attained the rank of Arch-Druid, when she singlehandedly saved an entire continent from an arcane maelstrom.
Bolus returned to Terminus City a fugitive, but worked hard using evidence discovered at the Moonbase and cleared his name of Temellen's treachery - with a little help from the Doctor. He was eventually lauded as a hero and given a leadership role within the city, shepherding it during some of its most successful and inclusive years. He resisted being a political leader for years, until popular demand elevated him to the title of Provincial Governor. Under his watch, new cities were established in the Wastelands for the first time in hundreds of years.
Lord Borak had little to concern himself with planetside, and was filled with curiosity about the new realms that he was exposed to, and continued traveling the stars with the Doctor aboard the TARDIS as the Doctor's companion.
Viola returned to Gaia having learned more about the world beyond her acrobatic performance arts lifestyle of before. She continued to adventure for years afterward, accumulating the greatest treasure trove of magical artifacts the world has ever seen in one place.
*thumbs up* Awesome and thanks for the game.
I approve. Olivius would totally do that.
Thanks Froggy - nice wrap-up :-)