Thursday, February 27, 2014

Numenera: Disenchanted Tales - Session 9

Numenera: Disenchanted Tales - Session 9

The One Where Merida Had to do Everything

Elsa, a Graceful Nano who Wears a Sheen of Ice
Anna, a Swift Jack who Entertains
Merida, a Rugged Glaive who Carries a Quiver

Summary

A billion years beyond "once upon a time" Merida was realizing that she got an extremely raw deal.  With the two sisters Anna and Elsa still suffering from a bit of post-traumatic stress disorder following their encounter with the war moths just a few days earlier, the fire-maned archer was coming to the realization that she'd pretty much have to do everything in her power to save the lives of both of her associates, as well as the daring Commodore Jek Sperro.  The princesses had rescued the commodore from the clutches of Mayor Randall in the small coastal town of Pike's Head, but just before they could escape in the pirate's submersible craft, they realized that it had sunk to the bottom of the harbor!  Now standing face to face with the major and his four most trusted guards, the party needed to do something to get Commodore Jek, and themselves, to safety.

And by "party", this narrator pretty much means Merida.  

The rugged glaive Merida knew that the party probably couldn't hold off the entire town guard so she quickly turned around and dove into the harbor head first, using her targeting oculus cypher to help see more clearly in the murky depths close to shore.  Anna and Elsa were too busy arguing about how to best handle the situation, and so they (along with Commodore Sperro) just stood around until the devilish Mayor Randall fired off an explosively sticky web at the princesses and their ward, entrapping them until they could pull themselves free.  Anna would be able to get her hands and body free, but her feet stayed entangled, while Elsa was the complete opposite.  Commodore Sperro would be covered in terrible amounts of the sticky webbing, so much so that he'd need assistance, which Anna tried her best in giving.  To hold off the guards, the swift jack fired her crossbow with an attached disruption nodule at the Mayor, with a critical success!  The disruption warped the electrical impulses in the Mayor's body, which caused him to convulse rapidly, allowing the princesses to continue working towards freeing Sperro.  But they would have to work faster, because the other four guards were lining up like a firing squad, and they began peppering the trio with pointy darts.  

Beneath the waves, Merida was making some progress with Commodore Jek Sperro's submersible craft.  Using her rudimentary skills in numenera, the glaive was eventually able to gain access to the craft.  It took a bit longer for her to realize how to bring the vessel to the surface, but the small metal and synth sphere was quite nimble, and relatively easy to operate even for a first time pilot.  Anna was having a hard time resorting to so much violence, so she used her wits and some very pointed conversation to convince two of the town guards to just leave the party alone.  This worked on two of the guards, who immediately turned in their pink slips, but the other two were standing next to the Mayor in solidarity.  The Mayor would attempt a careful shot at Elsa with his crossbow to no avail, she was just too quick for him.  Suddenly Merida surfaced the boat just as Elsa would finish spraying an icy blast at Mayor Randall, which was so successful that it froze him solid.  Quickly Anna and Elsa finished helping Sperro out of his webbing and the trio dove into the water to get while the gettin' was good.  The crew wasn't out of the woods just yet, as a trio of raster riders started dropping bomblets in the water causing a scene reminiscent of that ancient movie "Das Boot".  But with his new and exceptionally skilled crew, the Commodore was able to get out of the harbor quickly, and out into open waters.

Commodore Jek Sperro explained to the party that he was looking for a certain oracle named Jruve, who was located along the Ancuan coast.  But since the Commodore was a wanted man all throughout Ancuan, and he didn't know exactly where Jruve was hidden, he thought he'd return to his favorite city, the City of Bridges, so that he could contemplate his next move and quite possibly get a map to wherever the Oracle was located.  He promised the princesses that they would love the City of Bridges.

En route to the City of Bridges, the Commodore noticed that there was a crashed craft on the bottom of the sea floor, not far off the south-western coast of the Sea Kingdom of Ghan.  Jek offered to maneuver his craft closer to the crashed vehicle, so long as it was one of the princesses who went out in the deep waters and explored.  Both Anna and Elsa quickly pointed to Merida to go out and bring back any good gear and loot for the party, which the red-headed glaive begrudgingly agreed to do, knowing that she'd get first pick of any awesome bits of numenera in the process.  So the glaive took a deep breath and swam out towards the sunken craft.  Twenty feet across, the saucer-shaped ship was split in two, right down the middle.  Although Merida could see some neat technology on the outside, it was clear she'd have to swim in deeper to find anything of use.  So she moved closer, eventually entering the ship, and found two cyphers, an amazing artifact, and some interesting oddities.  But when Merida went to flee the vessel it started to close up around her, with stringy tendrils working to close the craft.  It appeared that the cyphers and artifact that Merida pulled from the wreckage had allowed the ship to start fixing itself.  Merida pulled her greatsword and slashed at the tendrils, severing nearly all of them.  She started to swim away and towards the submersible, but the tendrils were still coming after her, so she had to drop her greatsword to outrun the defensive system of the craft.  Once back on board the White Onyx, the glaive split her findings with her teammates, but kept the juicy artifact for herself, even if she didn't know what it did!

Quotes

"There's no accent tonight." - Mommy was still tired from her day and didn't feel like pulling off Merida's Scottish brogue.  

"I always roll bad on initiative!" - Carrie exclaimed quite loudly.  All I have to say is "get used to it kid, that's life as a gamer!"

"I am certain that you shouldn't fight us because we are trying to help our friend… wait…. what are we doing again?" - Anna started trying to persuade a guard until her player had to ask for GM guidance.  

"That's chocolate pudding!" - Cooper (not playing) was insistent that Elsa shoot's dessert out of her hands, not ice.  

"As Admiral Ackbar once said: 'it's a trap!'" - Carrie made her daddy tear up tonight.  

No comments:

Post a Comment