Episode 18: True King, Truly Dead

Campaign Date: Royal Orion Year 314, Day 150

Characters:
Sir Hollis Dupont, human, heroic (Andrew Smith)
    Intern: Stick (NPC)
    5 marine troopers (NPC)
Sir Bloodblade, Kong, heroic (Marlon Kirton)
    4 apemen shotgunners, 1 Kong heavy weapons specialist (NPC)
Sir Connor O’Reardon, human, veteran (James Gallagher)
    Angus, dwarf engineer (NPC)
Sir Buford Culpepper, human, heroic (Dave N)
    4 human shotgun men (NPC)

GM: Joint Freewheeler: Dave Nelson, James Gallagher, Andrew Smith

Prologue:

Hollis, Bloodblade, Connor and Buford were hastily summoned to Sir Eustace’s office and surprisingly Eustace immediately marveled them to the Tower of Eternity, secret fortress of the Knights of Orion. There they were taken to the summit of the tower where King Henry himself explained that they were going to be sent through the top secret “Marvel Tunnel”, which was unlike normal marvel crystal transportation due to the pinpoint accuracy it could achieve when targeted upon a psychic crystal shard. There was only one such tunnel in existence and it was only used in the direst of emergencies, so that it’s power could not be guessed by the kingdom’s enemies.

Now was such an emergency and such an opportunity. Spies had discovered that one of the news-hound Gerardo clones was accompanying a gang of ratman pirates to an audience with the rebellious pretender Mason II (the so-called “True King”). That clone had a psychic crystal shard secretly implanted in him by a team of royal spies, led by Sir Sleestak. This gives the knights a chance to decapitate the rebellion at a stroke. Thus our 4 knights and their retainers are sent through the tunnel into battle one more time.

Day 150—The Secret Lair of the True King, the Throne Room

The knights appear in the throne room, catching the rebels off guard. Gerardo #47 is in the back with the ratmen pirates, the throne room is flanked by Krylons and “Royal Army” troops (led by Captain Skip Skylark), the renegade Sybokain Prince Oswald and 4 of his death guards were at that moment walking between them heading for the throne itself. Mason sat upon his throne, surrounded by his counselors, Sir Sylvester LeRoy, Dr. Eli VanBlinken, a Mentusa Mind-witch, the mutated form of Greg Darbusto and some of his alien hook horrors.

The knight’s retainers make quick work of the ratmen pirates, who are all slain before getting off a shot. Bloodblade’s kong specialist uses a flamethrower on the Krylons, throwing some of them into confusion. Sir Buford leaps forward, uses psychic burst to kill 80% of the Royal Army guards at a stroke, and then manages almost immediately to use his laser pistol to kill Mason II stone dead right on his throne. Sir Hollis teleports to the throne platform and begins deadly combat with the Mentusa and Sir Sylvester coining his new catchphrase “See you now, kill you later!”. Eli VanBlinken, decides to flee and activates his teleport belt, leaving the fight.

Despite this early momentum, the enemy rallies and the fighting slows down. Sir Connor engages in a long plasma gun duel with Greg Darbusto and his horrors. Captain Skylark and the last 2 royal army troopers repeated pound Sir Buford’s helmet with shotgun and laser blasts, while his counter attacks all fail. Meanwhile, Gerardo clone keeps issuing “shocking reports” that reduce most of the knight’s retainers to slack-jawed gawking. Prince Oswald fights through and starts killing many of the retainers, and his death guards keep Bloodblade tied up for a while. The Mentusa Mind-witch sends Sir Hollis’ man “Stick” running like a girl along with a few of Sir Buford’s men. Luckily, they happen upon a pastry cart in the “green room” and begin to gorge themselves on delicious space-tarts to soothe their psionically induced fears.

The tide turns once again. One of Bloodblade’s retainers uses a plasma bazooka to kill Sir Sylvester and Greg Darbusto. Frustrated by the inability for the curtains of gunfire to cut down the twisted, genetically engineered newsman, Sir Buford uses an RPG to finally kill the Gerardo clone. Bloodblade himself cuts his way through to finish off Skip Skylark. Sir Connor blasts the Mentusa, and Sir Hollis turns the famous Sword of Drogo against the Krylons, helping Connor and Bloodblade finish them off. Finally, the last two Royal Army troopers surrender and the rebellion is finished.

But, little do our heroes know, but when the “king” was slain, and his nephew Sir Sylvester realized the cause was lost, he broke the mirror of Sir Vinnie, releasing the machines from all control so that they could turn their inhuman savagery against the whole of civilized space. The knights marvel back to Orion to receive a hero’s welcome.

Day 158

The knights find themselves in a deserted section of the robot death planetoid. They attempt to break into the computer controls to discover their master plan, but instead they manage to summon a cadre of eight killbots bent on their destruction. Fortunately, the knights are up to the task and manage to slay the killbots easily.

The knights move on to the control room section of the planetoid that they discovered through the computer system. They encounter two other knights on their way, Sir John and Sir Falco. These two knights tell the heroes that the scientist Heubert Yam on Dendricon has computer virus that will stop the machines cold, but Yam is unable to escape from the machine menace that has trapped him inside his bunker. The heroes marvel off to Dendricon in search of the missing scientist.

Day 159

The four knights arrive at the scientist’s bunker just in the nick of time. Zombified space-elves of Dendricon were swarming around the bunker’s portal and two squads of Krylon warriors had just shown up to destroy all remaining life. Sir Hollis teleports to the entrance to fight off the zombies. Connor and Bloodblade engage the Krylon squads with plasma gun fire and melee weapons while Sir Buford wades into the action with his two laser pistols. The Krylons and Zombies are finished off just as a Skulltron killing machine arrives. Unfortunately, Bloodblade was too far out of position, and Sir Hollis was too brainburned to reach the menace before it would destroy the scientist with its disintegrating plasma cannon. Luckily, Sir Connor was able to manipulate the decision making cortex of the machine by planting a suggestion into its robotic mind with his psionic powers to shut itself off.

Just as the knights are about to set off to end the machine menace, the Dendricon scientist reveals that there are in fact two deadly machine planetoids in the galaxy spreading the zombie plague. In order to end the madness, the knights will have to implant a copy of the virus into a certain well-defended command center of both planetoids. After a brief discussion, the knights break into two teams, Bloodblade and Hollis, and Connor and Buford.

Both teams manage to fight through to control center and insert the virus. Buford and Connor’s fight went very fast and smooth thanks to their close coordinated attack of psionics and withering heavy weapons fire. Also, Sir Hollis was shaken for quite a while from krylon fire which meant that Bloodblade basically cleared the entire control center all by himself. Once Sir Hollis recovered from his addled state and inserted the virus-laden software into the second machine planetoid, all the machines simultaneously ground to a halt and the kingdom was saved.

Epilogue

Sir Buford Culpepper: Sir Buford maintains his position as Stalwart Shield of the Realm, lording it over anyone whom he can. He maintains his residence at his private apartment near the palace. Eventually, he succeeds Sir Eustace and his own drawl becomes more and more unintelligible as time goes by.

Sir Hollis DuPont: Sir Hollis resigns his post once he finds that his former fiancée Olga Trenwyth left him as the sole benefactor of the “Meaty Man” industry. Hollis uses his fame as savior of the Kingdom to leverage the “Meaty Man” fortune into a galaxy-wide chain of restaurants and nightclubs – all with his name on them. The flagship nightclub, “Sir Hollis: Nights of Orion” serves as home base for the former knight’s playboy lifestyle until Royal Orion Year 351 when Hollis has a transformative dream about the third coming of Jeebus, takes a vow of chastity and sobriety, and becomes a priest in the Church of Orion. The “Sir Hollis” restaurant and nightclub empire is then divided forty-two ways between all of Hollis DuPont’s many children and grandchildren.

Sir Connor O'Riordan: After helping to save the kingdom, Sir Connor and his trusty companion Angus returned to New Dublin where he continued to build the small colony, serving as Prefect. In Royal Year 322, Connor and Angus founded the Dublin's Best distillery, purveyors of the finest triple malt whiskey in the kingdom. He continued his general dislike of organized religion, and never did actually attend church. In Royal Year 366, Connor quietly passed away. Ironically, he was canonized in Royal Year 369, and his crypt on New Dublin has become a pilgrim's stop within the Church of Orion.