Savage Worlds: Clockwork - Season 2 - Session 5

Savage Worlds: Clockwork - Season 2 - Session 5

The Daunting Excursion to Dread Island, Part Five

3/16/2014

Journal Date:  April 19th, 1898

Cast:  Lady Selene Eva Thana (Eternal Noble), Reginald Thistlethorpe (Psychic Medium), Nigel Loring (Hunter/Adventurer/Explorer), Fangzhi (Wudang Initiate), Captain Oswald Chance (Sky Baron)

Notable NPC’s:  Sister Evangeline

Plot Summary:  

It was early into the evening, and Lady Thana, Reginald, Nigel, Fang, and the Captain were perched on a cliffside, at least fifty feet above the jungle floor.  Below them was the neanderthal-ogre encampment, a collection of tents that formed a semi-circle around an entrance to a cave.  At the center was a large bonfire and patrolling the area were three male ogres.  The party had reconnoitered the area earlier in the day, and began their stakeout early in the morning, so they had a pretty good idea of what to expect below.  At least seven ogres lived in this camp, each one as large and dangerous as the to they fought the previous day.  The brave inquisitives promised Ka of the cat-men that they would return with “the book”, a tome of great importance to the feline humanoids, and when it was finally dark masque movement Fangzhi’s plan was put into effect.  

First the wudang initiate was lowered down to the cave entrance on a rope, held by Captain Chance and Nigel.  When he reached the entrance, Fang peered in and saw crudely made stone spears perched against a wall directly across from large barrels full of liquid.  These barrels were each marked “S.S. Stag”.  Fangzhi was pulled back up, shared his findings with the team, and then climbed back down and into the cave entrance.  When he reached the spears, Fang tied string to the spears and started unspooling it as he moved further and further into the cave.  His first expectation was that he would find a simple area possibly containing the book, however when Fang realized that natural walls of the cave soon led to the smooth stone of an underground temple structure, he realized that he may have gotten in over his head.  The path led to an intersection.  To his left were a pair of ogre women drying meat in an old temple chamber.  To his right was a path that forked southwest and southeast, and Fang heard laughter and other sounds emanating from the latter.  Directly across from Fangzhi an old and dusty passage remained, which looked as if it had not been used in quite some time, possibly due to it’s size restricting the access of the ogres.  Fang decided to dart quickly into the dusty and web-covered portal only to slip at the end of his run and fall down ten feet into a pool of water.  

Fang had been tightly holding on to the string that he unspooled as he moved throughout the chambers, and so his fall pulled the spears down in a loud clatter against the opposing cave wall.  This disturbed the ogres on the outside of the cave, so one came in to investigate, but didn’t find anything distressing.  While this happened, Lady Thana teleported into the jungle with some of the trash from the troupe’s excursion, rattled a few cans together, and then teleported back to the party’s cliffside hideout, leaving the trash behind.  This caused two of the ogres to investigate the trash pile, and occupy them long enough for vampiric noble, Captain Chance, and Nigel to each climb down into the tents below and begin looking for clues and evidence of the missing book.  Reginald Thistlethorpe decided to wait far above the encampment, where he could keep an eye on the events occurring.  Meanwhile inside the caves, Fangzhi had a heck of a time trying to keep from drowning in the fast moving water.  Rather than a single stagnant pool, the water was a quick moving underground stream that flowed from an opening in the south towards an opening in the north.  Although not adept at swimming, Fang’s doggy-paddling skills learned when the airship first crashed several days prior came back into use as the wudang initiate managed to make it back to the edge of the water and climb up towards the opening in the cobweb covered passage.  

In the tents, the party found very little that aided their quest for the book.  The first tent they searched contained crude bedding, and bits and pieces of assorted finery, jewelry, and other knick-knacks possibly salvaged from visitors to the island chain.  Nigel and Lady Thana were careful when they crawled under the canvas to each tent, and with good reason as the second tent contained a basic crib and a five foot long ogre-child who was fast asleep.  With nothing else in that particular tent the duo moved back outside meeting up with Captain Chance.  Needing a distraction, Nigel picked up a large stone and threw it to to the opposite side of the camp which drew the guard away from the cave entrance.  Quickly all three bolted into the cave so that they could meet hopefully meet up with Fang.  

Once they were all relatively close to each other, Captain Chance ran over to hide with Fangzhi while Lady Thana and Nigel explored the southwest passage.  They would uncover three chambers, each covered in a slightly fluorescent moss only detectable which they never would have seen without Lady Thana’s vampiric darkvision.  The long-dead ogre in the southernmost chamber was an indication that the moss was possibly dangerous, so Lady Thana and Nigel decided to leave the area well enough alone.  Captain Chance was having greater luck in his investigation of the underwater stream.  Since he was the only one in the team to have any skill in swimming, the Captain swam upstream until he reached another pocket of air.  Fortunately for Captain Chance this pocket actually extended ten feet above, but the walls of which were caked in foul materials such as trash, old decaying food, and excrement.  It appeared that the good captain found the ogre’s crapper!  But in a positive light, the noises above seemed to not just be of an ogre-ish nature.  The captain listened carefully and could hear a soft british accent and someone speaking the King’s.  Climbing up to the top of the trash chute, the Captain peered into a large common room, where four additional ogres, two male and two female were performing various tasks, but in the far corner there was a nun keeping watch over a figure lying down.  He swam back to Fang, reported his findings, and chose to try the underwater path to the south.  This almost became the last act of Captain Chance, as the path to the south extended underwater for miles.  When the captain finally realized this he remained calm, turned around, and swam against the current back to the opening from which he came.  

Despite nearly drowning, Captain Chance had no problem returning to the waste receptacle chamber so that he could sneak up and into the common room above.  Lady Thana and Fangzhi put their weapons away and decided to approach the ogres in the common room in a peaceful manner, hands outstretched to show that they weren’t armed.  When they entered the large chamber the ogres were immediately shocked, especially considering that they did not hear anyone skulking about the abandoned temple.  Lady Thana started speaking in a careful and polite tone to keep the ogres at bay but her words were not necessary for before the brutes could react Sister Evangeline ran towards the party and begged for their assistance.  Behind her, lying on the ground, was an injured martian!

Quotes:

“Who’s our sneaky person?  Oh, it’s me!” - Frank came to the realization that he was exactly what the party needed.

“Are they full of chili?” - Jen was listening in to the game and was wondering what the barrels from the S.S. Stag were filled with.  

“I see a giant spider, and I shoot!” - Craig joked, as his character Nigel was looking at some old webs that he knew Frank’s character Fang was hiding behind.

“I doubt you’d kill Dante.  It’s a risk I’m willing to take!” - Frank, just before the GM almost killed Dante’s character.