Actually, it's a new one. It started last week and it's one-session long yet. It's looking for a name. But that's our responsibility, so...

...we shall call it...

The Smokescreen

Fine. That suits it. There were me and four friends of mine role-playing it last week and I hope there are a couple more seasoned adventurers joining us this week. They know who. Since we are playing online, a short written round-up after each session is in order. And so I thought why not share it then? Tell you a tale that happened only in a conversation somewhere within The Great Onlines.

Thus, here be our summary...

Part I

This happened in the future. People were traveling and colonizing all over that mostly empty Galaxy. The Antigrav, Subspace-jumping ships were quite fashionable.

The Yggdrasil space liner lost during landing

Upon entering real-space in Redemption's orbit, the Gargantuan was hailed with a distress signal from another previously landing space liner called the Yggdrasil. The message claimed the Yggdrasil couldn't establish any connection with Bob Marley (the capital city) spaceport and was instead caught in a communication beam that commanded it to land elsewhere. They were expecting a crash and they called for help.

The Gargantuan had no such problems. It dropped a team to investigate and proceeded to the spaceport.

The team consisted of three NPCs (non-player characters) securing a base camp, and of our four adventurers.

Volunteers go looking for the lost ship on the ground

They were Krij Darastrix, the tech guy; Bren Larsen, an engineer; Erica Delmaro, xeno-explorer; and D-r Maulierro Argentierri, field medic.

From now on, we shall call our heroes...Our Heroes. From now on, we shall talk about what is happening as if right now.

Our Heroes ride northeast on an all-terrain armored equipment truck and three antigrav bikes. They follow a trail that the backup engines of the Yggdrassil have scorched through a forest while trying to fight the pull of the beam.

They encounter Shepherd Brown, shepherd being the appropriate honorific, who has a problem. Rock-resembling giant local beasts have surrounded his herd of bovine animals. Learning about radio frequencies that would make the beasts uneasy. A critical failure leads to partial success. The beasts are dealt with as expected. manipulated away. But a few of the bovine animals of Shepherd Brown are blown to bits by the same radio waves.

Brown confirms hearing a mighty roar on the previous night.

The trail leads to the feet of the mountain where a tin-and-smoke-covered town has appeared

Obviously, without the knowledge of the capital's governors. Our heroes are instructed to maintain surveillance but remain unobserved themselves. They hide their vehicles in the forest and make a hike to the base of the mountain. From that vantage point, they have a visual of the crash site of the Yggdrassil. Nothing of the ship, the crew, and passengers can be seen there but new trails of heavy objects dragged across the land towards the town are plain to see.

Heat signatures suggest thousands of denizens behind the tin walls. And many furnaces burning.

Night falls

A hunting party of a dog and five humanoids in rags and gas masks head out of the town. Their path leads them close to Our Heroes. Krij Darastrix decides to make contact and goes out of his cover to confront the approaching party. They speak a strange language. His software needs a few more sentences to make an analysis and provide some translation. Krij rambles on, buying time. Eventually, he learns that the rag-covered people require him to surrender his weapon. A trigger-happy explorer called Erica Delmaro sends a tranquilizer dart flying.

Roll for initiative!

To be continued...

As usually, I am using images of my own making. These are the dice for a standard D&D role-playing game.

Peace!

Manol