Dramatis Personae
+Adventures of the Mind as Don Harper of Mars (Specialist)
+Linlin Kins as Umquat (Specialist)
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina (Magic User)
Hirelings:
Klaus the Slave
Albert the Greta
Henry Leichester
Loot:
NOTHING AT ALL, HAHAHA.
NPC Relationships
Klaus & Henry both received some bonus compensation from Umquat. They were happy about this.
Albert continues to revel in Don Harper’s generous praise of his abilities.
The players met the Internet high council. This marks the first time they’ve encountered any of these Techno Wizards aside from The Hangman herself.
ASCII. The party has been ordered either to rescue, or kill this 9 year old agent of The Internet.
Highlights Recap
July 2516 C.E.:
After a pleasant few weeks of rest and relaxation pursing their individual goals, each member of the party received an urgent text. Even if their phones were on silent, they began to blare with the sounds of a passing train. The text was terse:
Go to this location. Download this app. Turn on the app before you enter the building. Go to the 37th floor.
A map and an appstore link were included. The app, called “Don’tDi 4,” was unlisted, and the location was the Eastmost of the 4 pillars. A building that, as far as anyone knew, was left completely unused, unlike the other 3 pillars.
The trip to the building was uneventful, despite being within the territory of the dreaded Comet Callers. Within, the party found a cavernous floor without any illumination, and only a red arrow painted on the floor to give them any clue about how to proceed. As instructed they turned on their apps, and entered the building.
The party tried to explore thoroughly at first, but as it turned out the only path forward was the one indicated by the arrow. A stairwell leading up. After rising one floor, the path upward was bricked up, and the party had to walk all the way across the next floor to reach the stairwell on the other side. This continued floor after floor, requiring them to move up only one at a time before crossing to the opposite stairwell. All the while, they heard sounds coming from the darkness. Inhuman sounds. They saw monstrous shapes hinted at, just at the edge of their dim light, but nothing approached them.
Finally on the 37th floor they encountered a room that bisected the floor. They entered it, and were greeted by a ceiling of bright lights. The tiles on the floor rose on 7′ arms, and flipped to reveal LCD monitors displaying the faces of a number of individuals, including The Hangman. This was the Internet high council.
The party was informed that of all unassigned units, they had the highest success rating. (All units with higher success rates were already active). Thereby, it would fall to them to complete an essential mission. ASCII, a senior agent which the party had worked with previously, had been captured by a group of Techno Priests. It was essential that she either be retrieved, or destroyed, before any information about The Internet leaked into Techno Priest hands.
The party accepted their mission, and were given a censored dossier on ASCII, as well as information regarding where she was being held. At the party’s request, they were also given information on a safehouse within Technotopia. The party took their leave to begin their mission.
They determined that the easiest way to proceed would be to disguise themselves as Techno Priest acolytes, and so returned to Fighting Mongoose territory to look for suitable robes. As it happened, they encountered an upscale clothing shop on their way back where Umquat purchased a complete set of snazzy duds (including a top hat), and Ronnina commissioned a blue trench coat with stars and moons on it. The shop didn’t have Techno Priest robes, though, so they continued on their way.
The group’s street cred in their native territory has suffered greatly in recent months, since it has been ages since they’ve actually done any jobs. Despite that, they were able to meet up with an old contact who supplied them with what they needed for a deposit of 50 credits per robe.
Just as the party was getting on their way, they noticed a persistent clicking sound that they had all been half-noticing for a few hours now. They looked around to see if they were being followed. They were surrounded by crowds of people of all sorts: mutants, a woman in a wheelchair, a trio of kids in a trenchcoat. The party skirted into an alley to see if anyone followed them, but no one did and the clicks stopped. They continued on their way, mindful that they might be being followed, but they only heard the clicks when they were in a crowd of people. Never when they were completely alone.
Pushing onward, the party passed through Dukes of the Dome territory to reach Technotopia. On their way they passed an open manhole cover with flashing lights of various colors coming out of it. They wanted to investigate, but chose instead to mark the location on their map, and remain focused on their primary goal.
In the no-man’s land between Technotopia and Dukes of the Dome, the party switched into their robes. They took a short detour to scout the area around their assigned safehouse before heading to bustling downtown Technotopia, where ASCII was being held in the Hall of Morality. Before entering, the party took some time to drop by a local shop and purchase some cost-inflated bits of broken tech to make offerings with.
The party approached the unassuming building’s front door, where they were greeted by a pair of guards. When asked what they were doing there, the party said they’d come to offer sacrifice. When asked why they’d come to the Hall of Morality instead of the Great Cathedral, Don Harper indicated that he was the uncle of the various children in the group. That these children were interested in becoming Protectors of Morality when they grew up, and he wanted to encourage their fervor. The guards demurred briefly, but acquiesced after reflecting on the relative youth of the group.
The party were taken on a brief tour of the building by one of the two guards, who told Ronnina and Umquat what it would be like if they chose to pursue a career as a Protector of Public Morality. They were shown the barracks, the meeting rooms, the broom closet, and were eventually led back towards the chapel. Ronnina feigned needing the restroom, hoping for an opportunity to present itself, but none did–though it did give Don Harper of Mars the chance to peek into one of the sensitive areas, where he saw a few guards and a robot with a laser repeater.
The tour ended with the whole group offering their sacrifices in the chapel, while the guard prayed reverently with them. Lacking any better plan, the party jumped the guard. They very nearly failed to kill him, but Albert the Reliable delivered a killing blow just before the poor man escaped.
Of course this whole thing was done in a room with glass walls, so the party was lucky that no one had seen, and even luckier that they were able to hide the body in the chapel’s vestibule before being caught.
Hoping to create a distraction, Ronnina sneaked down to the room Don Harper had scouted, and cast “Fire Portal” and “Magic Missile” on the robot, destroying it, but not without taking a nat 20 hit from its 1d8 laser repeater.
Ronnina then tried to flee, but was cornered and arrested by the two Protectors of Morality who were with the robot. She was put in a pair of metal handcuffs, and led back into the room with the destroyed robot, and then further into a long hallway where she was locked in a cell. Don Harper, meanwhile, successfully used stealth to follow the group and see where Ronnina was placed. He then called the rest of the party forward into the room with the destroyed robot, and set up the Laser Repeater aimed towards the outer door.
As the party prepared to duke it out, the session ended In Media Res