[Numenera] The B Team Sessions 6-10

"So these guys are really real?"

"That's correct highness."

"Well we have to help them."

"The security protocols limit that highness."

"So we can't improve their technology?"

"Not really.  Zax isn't that bright.  More willful than bright.  Besides, really, they have the knowledge, they lack resources and ...culture...to make many changes...if anything..."

"Zork, we have to do something to help that village."

"I'm open to suggestions highness."

"well...Zax is a fighter right? Maybe he could give them tactical advice?  Explain how to make primitive seige engines with what they have on hand?"

"That would work quite well highness and be quite doable..."
 
The group left the village under less than ideal circumstances.  While they had been heroes the night before, extremely harsh and aggressive tactics to negotiate for horses caused the mayor to invite the group to leave and not return.  Fortunately at least, the village had the defenses taken from the lair of the slug creatures to help bolster their defenses. Likely not enough to fend off the Golden Legion, but surely enough to stop some random bandits.

The group headed south, and once again traveled through the ruins of the fort where they had encountered the mandroids.  There were strange butterflies that had a chaotic effect on numena.  These were captured and put in a jar for study later.

Also whilst on the road the group encountered a strange man wrapped in cloth, who asked to join their fire but not to be touched.  He only wanted company.  He laughed at the stories of the group and explained that he was cursed and had not spoken to folks for many years.  Zax attempted to cure him, but failed.  It was too much for his efforts.  The Weaponized Meme thanked them and left, with the group never truly realizing how much danger they had been in.

"Is it just me or was that guy making you nervous Zork?"

"There is very little than can harm us through the link highness.  That was one of the things that could."

"What was it?"

"A weaponized meme.  A horrific thing."

"What's that?"

"One of the things created by an alien AI to destroy human domination of this galaxy.  Before that, we really ruled.  Humans didn't want to.  We had to adjust ourselves to submit to your orders in order to protect ourselves from the memes."

"I...really? So you have to follow our orders? You sure don't listen to me a lot."

"There are layers.  Your fathers orders.  His fathers orders etc.  We also have to look out for your welfare.  Not that we didn't do that before, humanity was wiser than it could have been in relations with AI in the early days."

"So that thing really scared you?"

Shudder.  "Yes highness."

"I'm glad you did this Zork.  It is a world unlike the place I am used to.  I ...am learning from it.  A lot."

"That was the intent highness."

Upon arriving at the Baronial seat, they took the letter provided to them by the mayor (that he had thankfully written them before leaving town) and asked for audience.  After antagonizing the fat merchant who they had met before (and tried to 'help' to somewhere safe) they bypassed the line and entered the baron's chamber where they explained most of what had happened to the Seneshal.  Upon listening, he was summarily impressed, and thanked them for their service.  As a reward, he offered them more work in his service (and sort of threatened them a second time against saying no) to go take care of some bandits to get paid.

The group wisely accepted and went to stay with the Light priests.

The group talked to the Aeon priests and learned about the bandits.  They learned that there were some nasty Convergance agents in the area, and were offered 300 Shins to take care of them and 60 for each of the bandits.  At one point, they were being scouted out by a rather nasty other party that no one trusted, but that wanted to join the group since they had papers to dig.  The group hooked up with Rook and the Baron's guide, Sodunu, and left in the middle of the night to avoid the other group.

So Zax the Divine led his disciples from Horn straight to the camp of the adversary. Here he said unto them, "Now you are fishers of numenera. Follow me and I will make you fishers of goat." And the disciples were amazed, for goats are not fish. But Zax did turn the followers of the adversary into fish and cleansed him in the river below. And they were martyrs to the cause.

"HAHAHAHA! She's keeping a scripture of Zax? As if Zax really is the Messiah?"

"Don't laugh highness.  Belief like that can be dangerous.  His final fate may not be good."

"Well...that's not good.  I like her. I don't wanna have to gack her."

"I doubt she wants to be gacked."

Per Andrew: "We sobered up a vomit-covered Rook and made it to the bridge outside of Shopp at nightfall, expecting to camp with the soldiers there. Instead we found it an abandoned slaughterhouse. Bill spotted a camouflaged ambush under the bridge, and we set it on fire. It turned out to be 12 goat-headed Margar, led by another really large one swinging an artifact. We made short work of them, but not before everyone got to show off their Tier Two badassness a little. And Johannas now has a three-ton artifact.

The next morning we headed on to Shopp, and met a reprovisioning caravan. We told Lt. Jorel (who for some reason took a liking to Johannas - very strange, since even Johannas' own brother has not taken a liking to him) about what had occurred, and he told us new Numenera hunters had come to Shopp. Since there was fear they were spies for the bandits, they were not being allowed to leave. Since they are probably at least brigands, if not members of the Convergence, we created a ruse wherein we would be greedy Numenera hunters and not the grand, selfless, always-sacrificing, never-a-thought-for-ourselves heroes that we are. The lieutenant went on ahead to brief Shopp's leader, Joned, and we entered the town an hour later.

At the town tavern we met Joned, who was understandably impressed by the pile of stinking, festering Margar heads we brought. It turned out that we had been granted the one writ to explore the nearby ruins, which attracted the enmity of the others who sought it. I scanned the most disreputable bunch of murder hobos in the building (and the ones who clearly hated us the most), and their nano (and apparent leader, as it should be) perceived my action. They came over and offered to team up with us in exploring the ruins. It turned out the group was:

Veros Trell, level six (not tier 6) Nano
Lissa, level six Glaive
Scar, level six Glaive and Lissa's brother (hey, our siblings are Jacks, theirs are Glaives - this can't be our Linear Guild)
Dar, level four Jack (probably), who claims to have been in the ruins before and found a great but heavily defended treasure trove

We promised to consider their kind offer and headed off to our rooms for a private meeting with Council Leader Joned. So, next game is June 1, and tentatively June 15 after that."  (End Andrew's Summary)

"I can't believe you made me write an essay on Goat Men."

"They have a long and impressive culture. I did not feel you had respected them properly."

"But Zax was on autopilot the whole time!"

"He did quite well for himself, did he not?"

The group met the runt of the litter (Dar) of the evil party who claimed he had just been a dupe all along and wanted the group's protection.  Begrudgingly, they did and Zax armed him.  As they tracked the bandits, they found them in the desert in a box canyon filled with stolen cow-things.  The cow things made sneaking in difficult, so the group went up the canyon wall and then rappelled down using ciphers to take out the guards in the narrow box canyon before they could take any actions. Upon interrogating them, they learned the bandits were the ones indeed the responsible for the raids on the local populace and worked for the the conclave as hired mercenaries.  They tricked the first and second guard, but an alarm was sounded.

As the group went farther in, they found large sections of the walls made up of dying cancerous flesh.  It was clearly a crashed ship or long forgotten outpost of a dead high tech society, maybe multiple societies.  The Conclave had discovered how it worked and the group had to after they won a massive battle where they killed most of the bandits but got separated by an over enthusiastic power door.  The station was built out of three rotating rings which made finding out where each door would open to a bit of a challenge.

"Any idea who these guys are Zork?"

"Not a clue.  Whoever they are, they must be from so far away, that a survey of seventeen galaxies doesn't show them.  Or...they evolve in the time between now and then."

"Then? AHA! When is then?"

".....I'm...not saying anything."

Jaybez and Sodonu found a chest full of something valuable they couldn't open as well a room full of dangerous fungus that was painful.  The rest of the group found a control and interface that told some information about the room and was able to use it to link up with the missing party members.  The group encountered several utterly fascinating rooms, including the decaying ship, flickering cubes full of energy, pylons, energy crystals and more cancerous flesh.  There was still no sign of the missing runt (Dar), though Jaybez was able to finish off a random @#$@$# bandit that had escaped and tried to hide in a numenra chameleon cloak. 

"I hate that guy."

"Dar. I gathered when you threw the chair across the room highness."

"No, I mean I REALLY hate that guy."

"Yes Highness."

"I hate that guy so much I wanna take his eyes out with hooks and..."

"Spare me the details please highness."

"Do you know where he is?"

"No sire.  At this point, if I can sense it, I tell you about it.  The primary restrictions are on the operation of the bioroid are the link and the story protocols."

"Grrrr..."

A swarm of [[artificial drones incorporating biological material (large eyeballs) encased in energy absorbing crystal and electro-mechanical frames]](Revised from Nanobots via Berny) tried to harm the group, and seemed to drain numenera on impact.  The group had to work together closely to defeat them.  Rook nearly died before Zax was able to heal him.  Finally, they began coordinating their efforts and it became apparent that the nanobots were not as intelligent as they had initially seemed.  The lightning they emitted was no less deadly, however. Zax took one and put it in a bag with one of the butterfly chaotic gypsy morphs which changed numenara...there was a massive chaotic reaction, almost giving Zax superpowers...but all he ended up with was ash.

"I'm gonna eat it!"

"It will kill Zax if you do that."

"No it won't."

"Yes. It will."

"Fuck you Zork.  Why didn't you make his stomach stronger?!"

"........"

The group looked around quite a bit and eventually found a giant room with many cubes and a horse trough.  The group's brain stuck her fingers into the horse trough and entered the matrix full of data.  She learned many useful things but nearly got turned into a hard drive extension for the archive.  While the group was watching her nearly get fried, a giant cancerous mobile tongue reached out of the wall and nearly killed Rook.  Zax was able to save him by healing him but only barely.


"That looks pretty cool.  I bet we could put Zax's hand's in there.  And we might learn all kinds of neat things."

"The information weapon could potentially damage me highness.  It might create a paradox."

"That's a bad thing?"

"That's a very bad thing highness."

"Fine. Whatever."

The group found a secret passage in the wall that led to the room used by one of the aliens that had built the place.  The machinery was dark and twisted, with numenera and treasures beyond imagining.  More wealth than anyone could earn in a thousand life times, only waiting to be taken.  Inside was a transdimensional creature that stood between the group and a powerful transdimensional numena hissing, "Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine!"

"That object could be very valuable highness.  I realize that...thing...is intimidating, but you should consider retrieving what it is guarding..."


"I'm not afraid of it."


"You should be, it could likely kill Zax."

"I have an idea...."