Campaign: Facets

[tshiggins]

(...continued)

The Groeningen starting the festivities with some ranging shots that didn’t do much damage to the Scythe Trees, but startled some of the scavengers swirling around them. Capt. van Hoek waited for the large predators to get within 500 yard before firing again, and some initial hits drove the scavengers into a frenzy.

Some the those at the outer edge of the cloud began to arrow toward the three airships, and Claudia saw the upper deck of the Groeningen suddenly get engulfed in a cloud of bright red smoke. Not sure what that meant, she called Steven’s attention to it.

The former Marine told her someone on the slender airship clearly knew his business. Steven said the vessel’s crew had popped some chemical smoke grenades that would likely dissuade the scavengers from getting close.

Right about then, the first wave arrived and began to swoop around and seek prey. A flock of about 40 headed for the Paradise, and things got hectic.

The notion of shrouding the decks with wooden lattices proved well-considered. The defenders managed to get shots off as the flock approached, and then get another as the survivors of the first volley landed on the lattice-work and began to squirm through.

The blasts did some damage to the sturdy trellis-work, but since the group had mostly loaded birdshot, it wasn’t all that much. What came fluttering through from outside were birds about the size of crows, with blood-red feathers, barbed beaks and clawed “fingers” at the anterior wing-joints.

Frank and Doc Bascher, armed as they were with pump-action 12-guage shotguns loaded with bird-shot, managed to clear their side of the gondola before as the last of the birds wriggled through.

However, Beatrice and Henrietta had a tougher time of it. The two ladies got off blasts with Brown Bess muskets, but the remainder of the swarms landed on the trellis before they could change weapons.

That forced them to resort to pistols and, when the birds leapt on them, hand-to-hand combat. Still, they managed to get rid of the first wave just in time for the larger second wave to come at them.

Realizing they were in some trouble, Beatrice shouted for A.J. to let Grunt out on deck with them, to help crush the fragile (but sharp and pointy) creatures. A.J., who had originally let the dog downstairs to help Aurelia and Jimmy, called Grunt back up and managed to get him outside and get the door slammed shut as the next mass of birds winged in.

That wave included more than 50 avians, and not even Doc Bascher and Frank could keep them all out. Up in the front, Beatrice, Grunt and Henrietta got swamped.

Once the birds made it through the lattice, they immediately fluttered up to land on the targets and try to spear them with barbed beaks. The attacking scavengers were small and agile enough they had no trouble attacking areas not covered by the ballistic vests.

Henrietta got swarmed badly, and wound up with multiple puncture wounds, through which the birds began to drain out her blood (yeah, Stirges). At one point, Henrietta was so badly wounded she felt ready to faint, so she triggered a healing spell.

That triggered a memory. She had prepped an “Armor” spell, which would almost certainly make her skin impervious to spikey beaks, and decided to trigger it.

(This lapse was entirely due to the long hiatus between sessions. The last time we played was just before Thanksgiving, and after that everybody got consumed by the holidays. By the time we managed to play again, memories of the prep-work had gone stale, and Henrietta’s player, Debbie, had forgotten she had that spell and what it did.)

The spell went off without a hitch, and the archaeologist turned into a killing machine. With her staff in one hand and her pistol in the other, Henrietta used all-out attacks to help Beatrice (who wasn’t as badly injured) off Grunt.

Down the lower deck, Aurelia and Jimmy had little difficulty keeping the birds from coming through the narrow firing-crosses cut in the bottom of the gondola, so the loss of Grunt had caused them no difficulties.

Up in the crows’ nest, the air-holes in the plexiglass were only big enough for the barrel of a pistol (or, as Aurelia had discovered, the point of a smallsword), so Steven didn’t feel terribly threatened. That is, until he missed badly with a couple of pistol-shots during the first and second waves, each of which starred the plexiglass (fortunately, in different spots), and sent Claudia into fits.

Part of that was because Claudia had managed to get a glimpse through the swarming bodies of the scavengers trying to peck their way into the tight quarters of the crows nest. Out in the distance, the huge feathered ray creatures had apparently heard the commotion behind them had wheeled around to investigate.

Claudia shouted the information through the speaking tube to A.J. and, after a bit of difficulty, he finally made out what she was saying. The former NASA engineer looked left and confirmed the sighting, as Claudia began to signal the other two airships as fast as she could.

By then, the recoilless rifles of the Groeningen had started to murder the scythe trees, none of which got closer than about 100 yards from the dagger-shaped airship.

Claudia shouted news of the victory down the speaking tube, and A.J. cranked up the starboard engines and shoved the helm into what would be a sharp left turn on anything other than a dirigible. As it was, the Paradise slowly accelerated as it began to turn toward the oncoming beasts.

The increase in speed wasn’t enough to outpace the third wave of scavengers, which consisted of about a dozen large insects that resembled six-foot flying locusts with sizeable mandibles.

One landed on the plexiglass of the crows’ nest and promptly ate a stirge. Not liking the looks of things, Steven swapped weapons and grabbed his 7.62 mm sniper rifle as the giant bug sprayed the outside of the bubble with saliva so caustic it began to eat away the feathers and gore.

Steven did not want to risk shooting a hole in the plexiglass (since that would have really upset Claudia…) so he took careful aim through one of the airholes and blew the bug in half.

Down at the gondola, A.J.’s maneuvers had caused the bugs to hit the stern of the gondola, and Beatrice and Henrietta rushed back to help (leaving the slightly injured Grunt in the cabin with A.J.). Doc Bascher had managed to keep the stirges off of her, but Frank had one on his back and his chest, and was thrashing around as they started to drain his blood.

Doc Bascher’s birdshot had difficulty penetrating the carapace of the bugs, but shredded the wings and damaged the legs nicely, plus the impacts managed to knock the crippled bugs off the lattice for the Long Fall. Beatrice’s pistol had no trouble penetrating the carapace at all, though, and killed bugs dead quite nicely.

For her part, Henrietta went into hero-mode, and managed to knock the last stirge off Frank with the staff in her right hand while she put two bullets into a bug with the pistol in her left, despite the penalties. That left her feeling pretty stoked.

Doc Bascher learned about the acid spit when a blob of it hit her square in the chest – fortunately covered by the ballistic vest – and a spatter took her in the right arm. The sleeves of her thick jacket kept the acid away from her skin, though.

Down in the lower decks, Aurelia realized Jimmy had a handle on the bugs, so she rushed up to the main deck to help. By the time the crew managed to kill the last of the bugs, A.J. had the bow of the Paradise pointed at the oncoming leviathans (still more than a half-mile away) and was accelerating toward them steadily.

While the rest of the group found this a bit unnerving, Claudia and Steven noted that the Florin (which had its own problems with swarming scavengers) and the Groeningen had followed suit.

That meant the three airships, chased by a circling cloud of scavengers, found themselves flying straight at the oncoming gigantic avians.

As the trio of airships got to within about 200 yards, A.J. shoved the yoke forward and the Paradise slowly nosed down into a dive. The Florin followed suit, as did the Groeningen, which slid past the more traditional airships.

The mortars on the deck of the Groeningen began to slam out shells, which arced toward the approaching beasts. Just short of them, the mortar shells exploded into bright clouds of chemical smoke that startled them enough to lose track of the airships.

By the time they got through the smoke (and dispersed it with the drafts from their huge wings), the cloud of scavengers had reached them. The rays opened their mouths and began to inhale, sucking down large clumps of the swirling scavengers as the three airships made their escape.

About 18 hours later, the three vessels still clotted with clumps of bloody red feathers, stirge-bits and splashes of acid-spittle, docked once again at Boomgard and session came to an end.

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Funny Quotes

Beatrice: I need a flamethrower. Seriously! I know how to make one!

Claudia: I may or may not be screaming.

Tisa(OOC): I’m not allowed to kill other people’s characters when they’re not here!

Jeff(OOC): The player in me knows to get out of here, but the character has Overconfidence!

(Steve picks up his sniper rifle.)
Steve: I’m sorry about this Claudia. It’s about to get messy!

Henrietta: Kicking butt with two hands!
A.J.: Henrietta got real cool, just now.

(Claudia sees giant bugs. Claudia starts to cry.)

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