4/11/2014
Journal Date: April 19th - 21st, 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, Klob the Ogre Chief, Cozric-Tigh the Martian Philosophe
Plot Summary:
Sister Evangeline’s story seemed obvious enough. She was not a native to this island, but had crashed along with everyone else on the Princess Alexandra as it entered Earth’s atmosphere. She had spent the last year or so on Mars doing mission work near Syrtis Major, but was very happy to return home. The injured martian’s name was Cozric-Tigh, and he had helped the sister escape the clutches of the men in black garb, Obscura. Cozric-Tigh was injured escaping the crash site, strafed by an Obscura ornithopter. Finding the ogres, the sister used her linguistic abilities to communicate and eventually made friends with their chief. Fangzhi tried to use his ch’i healing powers to do something about the martian’s festering wound, but it was to no avail. Neither his energy-work, nor the Captain’s basic healing experience could do anything to stop the infection from spreading. The party would need to come across some kind of healing salve to assist in treating the wounded philosophe.
The party was able to get quite a bit of information about the surrounding region from the ogres, through Sister Evangeline’s basic translations. They were a small tribe, and the Obscura force knocked out their northern brothers and sisters, taking over a small plateau. The Obscura force had a an airstrip, their own airship, and a rack that could launch rockets into the air. But they also had the pieces of the crashed Princess Alexandra, and it was decided that there could be leftover medical supplies on the vessel. Lady Thana asked for assistance in infiltrating the Obscura base, and the ogres agreed to send one of their scouts to guide the inquisitives through the jungle.
At the edge of the Obscura base the party got a full sense of what exactly they were dealing with. This was not some basic outpost for Obscura, it was a full-on base of operation. What poor luck befell the Princess Alexandra so that it would happen to enter the Earth’s atmosphere directly over this incredibly laid out facility! At the center of the base was a rocket-rack, a rotating launcher that still had a trio of twelve-foot long, high-explosive rockets ready to fire. There were several buildings in the outpost, each was well constructed and capable of housing the dozens of Obscura workers who were tirelessly reconstructing the Princess Alexandra for their own reasons. On the short airstrip was a very long (300’) zeppelin, with a well armed gondola compartment. A dozen and a half guards patrolled the area, each armed with a bolt-action rifle and donning sleek black armor. And smack dab in the middle of all of this was a giant, 25’ tall, steamtech enhanced, coal-fired tyrannosaurus rex acting as sentry. How Obscura ever gained the technological knowledge to pull off such a feat as that gargantuan lizard, the team of inquisitives could not fathom!
Knowing that they would not be able to take out all of the guards, the dinosaur, and the rocket launcher with just their small team of five plus one ogre, the party prioritized their objectives. The mission of this entire excursion was to return to Ravenswood College with as many of the martian philosophes as possible, and with one as gruesomely injured as Cozric-Tigh back at the ogre-lair, the team needed to care for the “bird in the hand.” Hoping that the medical supplies could be found inside the intact sections of the crashed Princess Alexandra. The party waited until nightfall. Once they were ready for action, Fang quickly darted out to the craft, careful to stay out of sight, and secured the rear hatch to the vessel. There was a single guard just around the corner, so the wudang initiate would wait at the ship’s rear while Lady Thana and Reginald Thistlethorpe entered to investigate.
Most of the crashed craft was in similar condition. The central portion of the interplanetary liner had heavily damaged floors, but remained in decent enough condition to move throughout. The first section contained space-suits, capable of traveling out into the aether were the ship still in space. The second section was a large and grand common quarters, with beautiful floors now destroyed, a bookshelf lacking any intact works, and a baby grand piano. While the rest of the team was looking to be as silent as possible, Reginald couldn’t hesitate but to play a few keys due to his curious nature. This caught the attention of the guard just outside of the craft, but with Fang ready for action the poor Obscura agent did not last long. As soon as he rounded the corner of the ship’s stern Fang looped a rope around his neck, put his foot to the back of the guard’s skull, and ripped the head of the poor soul from his shoulders. Reginald moved further into the craft but was careful to extinguish his lantern. Large sections of the vessel’s hull were missing, allowing light to enter these compartments from the outside as the base was well illuminated by spotlights, torches, and other various means. Reginald had to be careful not only of the broken pieces of the ship’s floor, but also that no guards would see him skulking about. Luckily for the party, it did not take long for the psychic medium to find his target: a surgeon’s kit in the room that once housed the ship’s doctor!
With the kit in tow, the inquisitives quickly escaped the base and headed back to the ogre lair. Captain Chance, now equipped with the proper tools, was able to somewhat heal Cozric-Tigh’s wounded hip, and administer medicines to sooth his infection. Bedding down for the evening, the party waited and hoped that the martian would come too. By the next morning the inquisitives were second guessing their mission, as the martian they had saved was sort of a jerk. Cozric-Tigh had little regard for humans, Earth, or even the team that saved him. He was definitely a philisophe, and so part of the mission was accomplished so long as they could get him off the island with some of his fellow martians. It was clear that there were at least another 4-5 philosophes held captive at the Obscura base, and the party needed to determine a way to infiltrate further and then get everyone off of the island. At first they thought about continuing their earlier plan of stealing the “book” (an apocryphal bible, according to Sister Evangeline) from the Ogres and returning it to the cat-people, in order to gain their feline skills for the fight against Obscura. But since the cat-people were a team of pragmatic traders, already willing to deal with Obscura, the inquisitives were worried that they would not be as helpful as the ogres. So Lady Thana, through Sister Evangeline and Reginald as interpreters, convinced the ogres to lend their services as a distraction for an upcoming raid on the Obscura base. But that still left the team with the hard task of spearheading the mission into the dangerous, steampunk T-rex infested Obscura base on their own.
Quotes:
Jim: “The men dressed in black.”
Brian: “... with the black sunglasses and the forget-ray.”
“Tell me all your Martian secrets!” - Reginald wanted desperately to interrogate the unconscious and dying Martian.
“Okay, you take the T-Rex.” - Fang was definitely not going after that steampunk monstrosity first, but he had no problem planning the attack.
“Frank, you can knock people out, can’t you?” - Craig questioned Frank’s characters’ abilities.
“If nothing else, I’ll start taking his clothes off.” - Frank knew how to paint a beautiful picture with words.
“Everyone knows ogres respect Martians, right?” - That’s at least what Reginald thought.
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