Dramatis Personae
+Red Flanagan as Classified
+Ronnie Whelan as Ronnina
+Moreven Brushwood as The Four Gobbos
Loot
NPC Interactions
Leoness, Trosin, Bort – The party somewhat redeemed themselves in the trio’s eyes, by going before the Hangman and impressing him.
Tulda – Met Ronnina. Was given an NGage.
The Hangman – Assisted the party in making a demonstration of The Internet’s power.
The Highlander – Now understands the party a little better. He knows, and fears, the Internet, but is determined to oppose their control in whatever small ways he can.
Durgan Timkis – Was forced to do his job for The Internet. Remains under the protection of The Highlander, however much protection that may be.
The Rulers Beneath the Black – A missile took out most of their most influential citizenry, and the center of their operations.
The Rulers Beneath the Black
This faction is completely broken. They were already weak from dealing with the rise of the cult of Akiovasha. Only a few months ago, they lost a significant amount of territory to the resurgent Lords of Light, only to immediately have the center of their power destroyed by a mysterious explosion. As of right now, only The Southern Pillar (also called the Black Cathedral) remains firmly under the Terapontif’s control. The rest of the territory is in Chaos, and only the coming months will tell what will eventually happen with it.
Haven Turn
The Space Ship is complete. The asteroid is destroyed.
Hazard Die: War. Technotopia has taken the fall of The Rulers Beneath the Black as a sign that it is time for the true faith to rise. They attempted a surprise attack against the weakened Dukes of the Dome. Unfortunately for Technotopia, the Dukes are not such easy foes, and the current conflict is at a standstill. Many lives have been lost on both sides, but no territory has changed hands.
The war will continue each month, until an alleviation is rolled.
Classified: ???
Ronnina: Researches spell word “Electricity,” Month 3 of 3. Word is learned!
Asheron: ???
Highlights Recap
As the bar slowly returned to normal after the appearance of The Christmas Beast, Jerry’s head started mumbling something only Cockvedawnya could hear. The Blue Mage realized he had been remiss in seeking out Jerry’s husband to reunite the couple, and excused himself from the party to go take care of that.
The party, meanwhile, set to work trying to uncover just why the photo of Dergan Timkis had caused their outsider companions to exchange such a meaningful look earlier.
The party tried to charm Leoness, Trosin, and Bort to the best of their ability, but the trio were wary of the party. On previous meetings, the party had often found a way of dragging these three into trouble, and they weren’t interested in repeating the experience by trusting the party too much. So the party settled in for a simple night of revelry. The gobbos acted cute, Classified acted tough, and Ronnina kept the booze flowing freely.
As the evening ended, having failed by all means subtle to get the information they were looking for, the party laid their cards on the table. The explained that Dergan Timkis was a key component of stopping the asteroid that was hurtling towards the dome–a thing that was by now, common knowledge, and that they needed him back in order to save lives.
In the smallest way, this honesty seemed to get through to the three giant Outsiders. They offered to pass that information along to their superiors, but said that was the best they could do. At least they weren’t outright denying they’d ever seen Dergan anymore.
Thinking they were fresh out of leads, the party waffled about what to do. Ronnina tried walking through the streets, showing off Dergan’s photo, and hoping to discover some kind of clue the party could follow. To everyone’s surprise (not the least of which her own), this brute force method actually worked. Ronnina met Tulda, a pimply faced, 14-year-old early bloomer. Tulda had seen Dergan Timkis 4 days ago, being escorted by a large contingent of big Outsider Enforcers. She’d taken note of him, because he wasn’t handcuffed, but he was terrified, and his guards spent more time watching the crowd than watching him. They’d been heading for The West Pillar.
Ronnina contacted The Hangman to ask just how dangerous Timkis would be if he turned informant on The Internet. She replied “8.5 out of 10.” Ronnina added that Timkis had probably leaked quite a bit of information about the Internet, and that the party may need to do the same in order to get the job done. He asked how far they were authorized to go to get Timkis back. The Hangman took a long time responding. Finally, she wrote “Getting the ship off the ground within the next month is the top priority.”
The party was discussing how best to make their approach to the center of Outsider Government, when Ronnina’s phone range. It was Leoness.
She said she was going against the advice of her companions by contacting the party, but stupid as it made her feel, she trusted the party more than she did Dergan Timkis. But she needed to know just how Timkis was the linchpin in saving the dome from the asteroid.
Newly free to speak honestly, Ronnina laid out the situation plainly: the party, and Timkis, all worked for a secret organization with access to advanced technology. Timkis had deserted the organization, and sabotaged a project on his way out. If they could get this project up and running, they could stop the Asteroid, but only Timkis could fix what he had done.
This resonated well enough with what Dergan Timkis had been saying, that Leoness was convinced. She told the party to come to The Western Pillar, and said that she would plead with The Highlander to get them a chance to present their claims.
When the party arrived, Leoness was there to meet them. She led them through the building, explaining as they walked all that Timkis had been telling them. Not only that The Internet existed, but that it was wounded. That someone had attacked them blown a big hole in their fortress, released all their guard monsters, and that he’d been able to escape the same way. Most pointed of all, he had been pressing for The Outsiders to attack the Internet. To raid their fortress for its technology, with which they could empower themselves.
Eventually they arrived in a small observation room, where they could look through a pane of one-way-glass. There, the Highlander sat in audience, while Timkis was asked to reiterate his claims.
The party was brought out to present their case to The Highlinder–who recognized them, and chided them not to waste his time today. Timkis, meanwhile, was frozen with fear. Only after a moment did he manage to shriek “They sent the 404 to kill me!,” and had to be restrained from running by a pair of Outsider Enforcers.
Ronnina stepped forward, and began by confirming much of what Timkis had said: Yes, there is a shadow organization operating in the Dome. They’re called The Internet, they have an impressive understanding of pre-apocalypse technology, and the party works for them. She also mentioned that during her previous meeting with The Highlander, she had been cagey because she had not been authorized to reveal anything about her employers. Now, she was under no such restrictions.
She went on to explain that, when he deserted his post, Timkis had sabotaged an Internet project that would have allowed The Internet to stop the asteroid now hurtling towards the dome. (Actually, Ronnina said “the light that keeps getting bigger in the sky.” The highlander was annoyed by her patronizing, and chided her for it.)
She also told Timkis that she they weren’t here to kill him, merely to get him to finish his work. If he did that, she offered her personal guarantee of protection from any reprisals. He didn’t believe her for an instant.
Timkis fired back that the project he had sabotaged was a weapon that would allow the Internet to easily conquer the rest of the Dome.
Ronnina explained that the nebulous ‘project,’ was, in fact, a space ship. Something that would operate outside the dome, which is what would allow it to fly out and get rid of the asteroid. But by the same token, it’s not like it could attack anything in the dome without attacking the dome itself, which obviously The Internet doesn’t want.
Timkis replied that there was no reason the Space Ship wouldn’t be able to fly around INSIDE the dome, as a floating weapons platform. Something that would give them the complete upper hand in any conflict.
Ronnina shrugged, and pointed out that The Internet didn’t need to gain the upper hand, they already had it. They were powerful enough to rule the dome if they wanted to, but that wasn’t a problem, because they didn’t actually want to.
As Timkis and Ronnina bantered about whether or not the Spaceship would be the deciding factor in The Internet’s ability to dominate the dome, Classified slipped out his smartphone, and texted the Hangman. He suggested to her that a demonstration of the Internet’s power would be really useful right now. Via text, they hashed out just how much of a demonstration was required, and The Hangman told Classified to face-time her. He did, and she turned on a number of visual filters to black out her face, disguise her voice, and create a creepy bar of static. Then, she had Classified hold the screen up to The Highlander.
In her distorted, male voice, she asked “Who are your enemies?”
The Highlander demurred for a moment, not sure how to answer, or even if he should answer. He looked at Classified, who shrugged, and indicated he should just answer the question. It took awhile before The Highlander resolved to say “The Rulers Beneath the Black.”
Without any acknowledgement that she’d heard, The Hangman cut off the transmission. Everyone in the room shared an awkward silence, as they waited for the results of…whatever that exchange had been. In less than 10 minutes, an aide rushed into the room and addressed the Highlander, telling him there was something going on, and he really ought to come see. The whole room emptied at once, as everyone moved to a nearby room with large windows.
A few streets down from where they were, smoke was billowing up out of the streets. Shortly thereafter, a missile flew up out of the street, arced away from Outsider territory, and came down near the base of the Southern pillar. The stronghold of the Rulers Beneath the Black. The explosion could be felt even here, 3 miles away.
The Outsider turned to Dergan Timkis. “If The Internet can do that, with weapons hidden a 5 minute walk from my own home, I think you’d better give them what they want, son.” Meekly, Timkis agreed.
Within a few hours, Live Mail delivered a terminal to the base of The Highlander’s Pillar, and it was set up for Timkis to do his work. Once set up, The Highlander said “Alright then, he will do his work. You may stay to observe if need be, but when he is done, this device stays here.” He seemed to think this would be a point of contention, but the party did not object.
During a quiet moment, Ronnina took Timkis aside and said “If I wanted to, I could kill you, and reanimate your corpse in such a way that you would be able to finish your work while enslaved to me. I didn’t, because I really do want to protect you. You have nothing to fear from me.”
For some reason, this did not make Dergan Timkis feel any better.
(Also, for precedents sake, I want to point out that this is not correct. Giving a reanimated corpse enough brain power to do such complicated work would necessitate giving it free will.)
As the session came to a close, Ronnina sent a text to The Hangman, asking her not to make any reprisals against. She replied with a winky-face emoji.
The party returned home to Trumpquatia, and shortly thereafter, the Space Ship was completed. Rumors abound about seeing something rise up from the dome, just before the Asteroid in the sky was blown to bits. People in the street are speculating that The Dome may have some kind of automated defenses against that sort of thing.
Thus ended 2518. After exactly 3 in-game years, and exactly 2 real-life years, the party has completed the space ship.
What next?