Session/Game: Savage Worlds Orion 6
Date: 1/8/2006
Episode 6: I’m Gut-Shot, You Damned, Clumsy Ape!
Campaign Date: Royal Orion Year 313, Day 1-15
Characters:
Sir Hollis Dupont, human, seasoned (Andrew Smith)
Fred Johnson, human heavy trooper (NPC)
Sir Bloodblade, Kong, seasoned (Marlon Kirton)
Squad of 3 apemen with shotguns (NPC)
GM: Dave Nelson
Log:
DAY 1: The Royal Clambake, Orion
Sir Hollis and Sir Bloodblade were at the Royal New Year’s Clambake along the coast of the North Orion Sea. Sir Hollis had just sat down with a big plate of clams, when Sir Harvey Leroy walked up, snatched away the plate and said “these are ancient magic clams and I claim them in the name of the Order of Shadrack.” This caused Sir Hollis to babble incessantly about the honorable nature and actual existence of this order, and it caused most of the rest of the nearby guests to howl with laughter. Soon, when Sir Hollis sat down with a ham sandwich, Sir Harvey’s brother, Sir Sylvester Leroy, snatched away the sandwich “in the name of the Order of Shadrack.” Sir Bloodblade tried not to notice anything.
As the party began to wind down, the mysterious Brown Monk, a close confidant of His Royal Highness Henry II, appeared and proclaimed a quest. It seems that three planets: Beamis III, Scara II and Yellbane VI, had all failed to pay their royal tribute, and so knights would be needed to see to the collection. Sir Hollis and Sir Bloodblade both volunteered.
DAY 2: A quick trip to Beamis
Having gathered 3 apemen and the reliable Fred Johnson, the two knights activated a Marvel Crystal and opened a portal to Beamis III. Once they arrived on planet, they realized that they had not bothered to find out from whom they should collect the tribute, what the tribute was, and where to get it. They opened another portal and returned to Orion.
DAY 3 Another quick trip to Beamis
Having discovered that they should be collecting a chest of Florian Crystals from the Archimandrite, who ruled over the mysterious Cult of Slag-Bah on the planet, they returned to Beamis. However, they then realized that they had no map or sensors or anything along that line. Since Beamis is a desert hellhole, sparsely populated, wretchedly backward with no real technology, this proved a problem. Despite having once tracked a missing archeological party into the Forbidden Zone of this very world, they found themselves still ill-prepared for an overland trek. Therefore, they opened a Marvel Portal once again and returned to Orion.
DAY 4: This time, definitely. Back to Beamis.
Having secured a reference computer, map, shovel, food, water, and a tent, they returned to Beamis. The portal set them down about 200 Royal Kilometers (100 miles) from the Temple of Slag-Bah. They walked to a village nearby and met with a trader who lived there. It was a wretched, nasty dump, a collection of huts, little more than desert dirt piles. Ebo drove a hard bargain, but agreed to trade food and shelter for the night and a ride to the temple on one of his large Trade-Centipedes, for a new shovel and a knife.
DAY 5: To the Temple then off to Scara
They rode Ebo’s centipede to the great Triangular Temple of Slag-Bah. They climbed the triangular staircase with its manifold triangular steps, to a long entry tunnel, flanked by thrice three times 3 temple maidens in their triangular great robes. One of these maidens slapped Sir Hollis as he passed, causing him to wonder just how many times had he been to Beamis and whether he had been married here too.
The central, triangular chamber of the Slag-Bah temple was equipped with 3 chanting choruses which repeated all they heard three times each. The Archimandrite soon appeared and when questioned, claimed that the tribute had been paid nearly a month earlier. Bloodblade questioned a few of the temple guards who all saw an armored knight of Orion claim the chest of crystals then.
After they left the temple, Sir Hollis and Sir Bloodblade decided to open a portal directly to Scara II, which their computer told them was a high-tech planet with well-developed communications and transportation facilities, even including a Lodge of the Knights of Orion. They arrived on the island of Bobu on Scara II and made contact with James Butler, the butler of the knight’s lodge. James picked them up in a rocket sled and took them to the lodge, located in the capital, the Flying City of Scarasia. All spent a pleasant night in the lodge.
DAY 6: Slap, Push, Shoot, Boom. Just another day on Scara.
At breakfast, Sir Hollis was slapped in the face by the waitress. That’s right, he had had a vacation and some sort of marriage here, years ago, when he was in the marines. Sir Hollis and Sir Bloodblade then drove the rocket sled to the presidential palace for a meeting with Lucian Vurgoski, the President of the High Council. The President was friendly, claiming that the tribute was paid, but at one point uttered the phrase “Six Poodles over the Spring” and then repeated it. From then onwards he turned every request into a referral to one government agency or another. Sir Bloodblade, his giant apish heart outraged, pushed the president to the ground and whipped out a shotgun to threaten him. A dozen guards leveled laser rifles at him, but the standoff was defused, and the knights left for the lodge, demanding that full security tapes of whoever collected the tribute be sent at once to them.
Sir Hollis decided to do some sleuthing on his own and traveled around the seedier side of the flying city. He had a long conversation with a dealer in illegal dogs (good eating!), but it was generally fruitless. He then returned to the lodge and had James get him a fashionable suit for the local disco-scene. It turns out that a suede Indian outfit with feather headdress is what all the cool kids are wearing, so off went Big Chief Dupont. On his way to the disco he was attacked by 2 assassins riding a flyer-cycle. One of them wounded him with a submachine gun, but he shot the driver and it crashed horribly, killing both assassins. Wounded, Sir Hollis staggered back to the lodge before the cops arrived. Sir Hollis was convinced that the Indian Chief outfit was a piece of treachery devised by James the Butler to allow him to be picked out and killed. But James’ cover story (or perhaps the truth) was too tight for Hollis to act.
Soon afterwards, a stranger arrived with a briefcase, explaining that it was the security information they had wanted. When they placed the data crystal in the reader, and verified their identities through retinal scan, the crystals exploded violently. Neither knight was seriously injured, but they now were convinced that there was a seriously dangerous conspiracy at work.
DAY 7: Checking In on Orion
At first light they opened a portal to Orion and returned home. They immediately went to see Sir Eustace Plumbottom, a Knight Protector, to report on events. Sir Eustace was furious, calling the planet Scaras a nest of traitors and assassins. His aide-de-camp, Sir Sylvester Leroy suggested that the tribute must have been spirited away by “The Order of Shadrack” which caused Sir Bloodblade to slam him against the wall. Sir Eustace hurried Hollis and Bloodblade directly to the Brown Monk, hollering that Scara should be blasted to bits for its treason. The Brown Monk, however, said it would be better if the third holdout, Yellbane, were investigated first.
DAYS 8-11: Catch Your Breath
The knights rest to recover from their injuries.
DAY 12: Your puny bullets are no match for "Superduke"!
On Yellbane VI a party of miners directed them to the tram leading to the domed capital city. Once there a large party of guard led Sir Hollis and Sir Bloodblade and their 4 retainers to the hall of the Grand Duke. There was a force of 15 or so guards and 3 counselors in front of the throne. When Sir Hollis put questions to the Yellbaners, the counselors gave all the answers. When one let slip that the tribute had indeed been paid to “the True King” he was quickly silenced by the others. Sensing that the truth could only be pried loose by force, the knights sprung forward. Sir Hollis leaped past the guards and quickly killed two of the counselors, the third, a sorcerer, began to put up a stronger fight, while Bloodblade and the retainers smashed the guard force. The most dangerous enemy, however, was the apparently skeletally old Grand Duke himself, who flew up from his throne and attacked them with laser beams shooting from his eyes (having gained superpowers years ago from a bite of a radioactive cave lizard). It took a lot of gunfire to bring down the Duke, with Sir Bloodblade failing to add any shots. He attempted to pick up a rifle, but it broke in his hands. When one of the apes knocked the Duke out of the sky with shotgun blast, Bloodblade helped finish him off with his axe.
When the Duke and his men were all slain, the knights found themselves trapped. They had insufficient power points to activate a Marvel Crystal and were cut off in the midst of hostile city, right on top of the security garrison. They seized papers and data crystals form the Duke’s private quarters and plunged down some nearby tunnels. At one point they were stopped by a force of guards backed up by two heavy machineguns. Sir Bloodblade made things worse by fumbling a grenade and having it explode , injuring himself, Sir Hollis and grievously wounding one of the apemen. Eventually Sir Hollis charged the guns, clearing one, he was then gut shot and critically wounded by the other. After Bloodblade finished the guards off, the party lifted Sir Hollis, and they all staggered back towards the way they had come.
They then found the Ducal shuttle hanger. They welded the access port closed behind them, but then realized the only pilot they had was Sir Hollis, who was deep in shock from his wound. Fred Johnson volunteered to try to fly the shuttle. He pulled it from the hangar, and it slid violently to the left at first. Then wondrously he managed to get the shuttle to climb, and it climbed right off the surface and away. After three hours of steady flight, Sir Bloodblade was refreshed enough to open a portal with his Marvel Crystal and they all escaped back to Orion.
They were all met by Sir Eustace, who handed the data taken from the Grand Duke’s apartment to Sir Sylvester. Sir Hollis, Sir Bloodblade and the wounded apeman were rushed to the hospital where they all were healed.
DAY 15: A Gift
Sir Bloodblade was visited in the hospital by the Brown Monk, who thanked him for his fine service and then used his strange powers to finely attune the Kong’s Marvel Crystal, allowing Bloodblade to spend only 7 power to activate it rather than 10. Still, the mystery remains. Who is this “true King”, behind the conspiracy? What will it portend?