Welcome to TiddlyWiki created by Jeremy Ruston, Copyright © 2007 UnaMesa Association
[[The Hunt Begins]]
[[Preparations of Things to Come]]
[[Team Reintegration]]
[[Summer Hiatus|Summer 2008]]
[[Days of Random Task]]
[[Island of Dr. ...]]
[[Mission Interuptus]]
[[Home for the Holidays]]
[[Assault on Helian Hulk]]
[[Return to the Present]]
[[Future Terra]]
[[Iron Kingdoms]]
[[Elwier Past]]
[[Elwier Present]]
[[Raising Atlantis]]
[[Saving the Grawoon]]
[[Toxic Moon]]
[[Akelian Catacombs]]
[[Porcia (Edge of the World Shipping)]]
!Fiction
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - Lost World
!Non - Fiction
!Movies
Stargate
Highlander
Alien
Aliens
!Television
Highlander: The Series
Stargate SG1
!Music
!Websites
[[WikiPedia|http://en.wikipedia.com]]
!Roleplaying Sourcebooks
You can also use LinkToFolders and the [[Documents]] tiddler to link to sourcebooks, text documents and spreadsheets.
Characters can be listed in the format below, or you can set up this tiddler as a submenu and list each character in their own tiddler (recommended for long-running campaigns where you'll want to capture a lot of information about a character). You can also use LinkToFolders and the [[Documents]] tiddler to link to electronic character sheets.
!Player Characters
''Character Name''
Player
Blockstats
Adventure Hooks
!Recurring Characters
''Character Name''
Location
Blockstats
Role in Campaign
!Generic Character Types
''City Guard''
Blockstats
''Commoner''
Blockstats
''Cannonfodder Soldier''
Blockstats
''Generic Orc''
Blockstats
!Character Creation
!Combat Rules
!Sourcebooks Allowed
!Sourcebooks Banned
!Other Rules
[[Luck Points]]
Having player information at your fingertips can be handy. In addition to contact information, you can jot down notes, preferences, questions to ask next session, and other info.
!Tom
*[[Gunnery Sergeant Randall "Fish" Fisher|Randall Fisher]]
*[[Gunnery Sergeant Jason Alexander|Jason Alexander]]
!Krissy
*[[Dr. Amelia Marshall|Amelia Marshall]]
!Mel
*[[Anya]]
*[[Ashlyn|Ash]]
!Eric
*[[Asar "Bo" Bomani|Asar Bomani]]
!Kevin
*Corporal [[Lance Hendricks]]
*Lieutenant [[Tiberius Pullio Valorous]]
!Overview
The overview should be what's called an "elevator speech". You're riding in an elevator and you've got 30 to 60 seconds to sell your fellow passengers on why this is the greatest idea since sliced bread before they reach their floor and run away. Should be no more than a couple of sentences to a paragraph, and should probably include the genre, game system, and relative starting character strength (12th-15th level, 100 point characters, whatever is apropos).
You can also use this tiddler as a submenu to link to other tiddlers detailing section of the setting. This is recommended for long-running and detailed campaigns. You can also use LinkToFolders and the [[Documents]], [[Images]] and [[Maps]] tiddlers to link to PDF sourcebooks, text documents and spreadsheets.
!World
!Background
!Character's Roles
!Culture and Customs
GC-8 was given a choice of missions to select from after their success with the [[Edge of the World Shipping]] company on [[Porcia]]. After examining the choices, GC-8 selected to head to a ruin with Akelian markings. They stepped through the Gate and found themselves in a room of a building. Exploration of the ruin revealed that the Gate was stored in the basement of a large warehouse like building. More interestingly, GC-8 found shipping crates that apparently contained [[Xenovores|Xenovore]]. GC-8 ended up in a fight with the Helians and managed to capture a Xenovore Queen still in her container and what appeared to be a remote control device.
German Noble running counter culture outside Frankfurt
[img[http://gatecrashers.daemonstorm.com/files/Amelia Marshall.jpg]]
Queen Anya Vanyar of Khador
An immortal that was first killed by GC-8 during their adventures in time on the world of the [[Iron Kingdoms]]. Bo returned to that world after going AWOL from GCC 50 years after meeting her. She joined GCC as a representative of her world to the Terran Alliance. She has been assigned a position with GC-8.
[img[http://gatecrashers.daemonstorm.com/files/Queen%20Anya%20of%20Khador.jpg]]
Private / PVT / E1
Private / ~PV2 / E2
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b1_1194.gif]]
Private First Class / PFC / E3
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b2_1194.gif]]
Specialist / SPC / E4
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b3_1194.gif]]
Corporal / CPL / E4
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b4_1194.gif]]
Sergeant / SGT / E5
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b5_1194.gif]]
Staff Sergeant / SSG / E6
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b6_1194.gif]]
Sergeant First Class / SFC / E7
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b7_1194.gif]]
Master Sergeant / MSG / E8
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b8_1194.gif]]
First Sergeant / 1SG / E8
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b9_1194.gif]]
Sergeant Major / SGM / E9
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b10_1194.gif]]
Command Sergeant Major / CSM / E9
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b11_1194.gif]]
Sergeant Major of the Army / SMA / E9
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b12_1194.gif]]
Second Lieutenant / 2LT / O1
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b1_1196.gif]]
First Lieutenant / 1LT / O2
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b2_1196.gif]]
Captain / CPT / O3
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b3_1196.gif]]
Major / MAJ / O4
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b4_1196.gif]]
Lieutenant Colonel / LTC / O5
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b5_1196.gif]]
Colonel / COL / O6
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b6_1196.gif]]
Brigadier General / BG / O7
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b7_1196.gif]]
Major General / MG / O8
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b8_1196.gif]]
Lieutenant General / LTG / O9
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b9_1196.gif]]
General / GEN / O10
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b10_1196.gif]]
General of the Army / GOA
[img[http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/moxiepix/b11_1196.gif]]
After the defeat of his people's false god Hapu at the hands of GC-1, this young Kemasi slave-turned-revolutionary-turned-prince joined the Gatecrasher program with all of the dumbstruck eagerness that a young American tee-baller might feel after getting drafted by the Yankees. Quickly assigned to the program's latest rising star, GC-8, Bo has distinguished himself as a competent scout, spy, and skirmisher.
Bo's defining trait by Terran standards (and one that he seems to share with most Kemasi) is one of being at home with a generous helping of inherent duality. Technically classified as a civilian "Specialist" by the GC ranking system, he often takes advantage of his nebulous rank to play the roles of "loyal soldier" and "loose cannon" with equal aplomb, depending largely on which suits him better at the time. Despite a near-constant demeanor of casual, almost lazy aloofness, a sharp eye might spot him lingering not far from an open window where inside, Major Bullock gives a lecture to would-be officers. While this attitude often gets him labeled as "shifty" or "untrustworthy" by many Terrans, the flexibility and adaptability it gives him often proves invaluable when "in country."
Whether it's this character trait, the often scheming nature of his
people and culture, or just difficulty in adjusting to newfound royalty and a life out from under Hapu's heel, Bo often struggles with his own role and identity. Though he does his best not to show it, he's been quite troubled of late, worried that his natural instinct toward compromise might've cost him more than he thought. He may be struggling to come to a decision at the moment, but when he does, the
results should be...interesting, to say the least.
[img[http://gatecrashers.daemonstorm.com/files/Bo.jpg]]
Member of GC-8. She joined the team as a representative from [[Eloi|GX-0425]] as the science member. She has recently begun to explore newfound gifts of magic. Currently she is able to cold-forge metals, transmute materials and work [[Mechanika]].
She recently had twins, Danielle Meganne and Mara Kathryn, with [[Tiberius|Tiberius Pullio Valorous]]
[img[http://gatecrashers.daemonstorm.com/files/Ash%20&%20Ti.jpg]]
GC-8 arranged for a ride with the space pirates they had met some months back. It took two weeks, but they were eventually able to track down the current location of the captured space hulk that the Helians were putting to use to bring a massive invasion of Xenovores to Earth.
The pirate vessel "snuck" up on the hulk and cut in to the hull to deposit GC-8 inside to set the thermo-nuclear device in the engineering section. They encountered three individuals moving crates around inside the hulk and took them down non-lethally. They found a keycard on the individual that appeared to be in charge of the group and used it to move through the hulk towards the aft engineering section.
Bo disabled the cameras that activated when doors were opened so that the team wasn't seen moving around in the ship. They came upon another small group of individuals and after taking them down were able to find out they were "volunteers" whose job it was to act as prey to get the Xenovores into the proper drop pod. They were offered a chance to accept help from GCC, but couldn't be trusted as they saw Terrans as even lower on the totem pole than they were.
The team left them bound up near the drop pod that all their people, the Nori, were staying in. The team proceeded to the engineering bay, but discovered that their presence wasn't a secret as they had been tripping off flags in the system and security was on the way.
A massive gun battle between GC-8 and several squads of Protectors and normal guards ensued in the main engineering bay. Amelia and Ash were briefly taken down by two Protectors wielding Pacifiers. Fish was severely damaged from the heavy weapons fire, but the team wa successful at planting the nuke and evac'ing from the ship. Unfortunately Jack did not survive the gun battle, but his efforts allowed the rest of the team to finish off the Protectors. The team used the Nori drop ship to get off the hulk and then detonated the nuke once clear of the possible detonation.
It took a week, but the team was able to be able to make it back to a known gate and return to Koram.
Atlantis is an ancient [[Jol'nar]] city on Terra. Discovered by GC-8 on a mission based on information provided by ... Atlantis was apparently at the bottom of the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey and had disappeared in the time when the flood of the tale of Gilgamesh or Noah occurred. A missing nuclear russian sub had sunk in such a way that it was trapped between two peaks and the hull was stuck in front of the entrance in to the city. GC-8 was able to use the gate inside the temple mount to reach [[Zorandar|PX-0001]] and used the mass teleport module to send the sub through.
One of the "Creatures" GC-8 encountered on [[Monsoon World|PX-6125]]. He was wearing bone armor and participated in the attack on GC-8 and GC-15 while they were camped in the ruins near the gate.
The Bandit Lords were the antagonists on Elwier (Present Day). They operated out of the swamp near the main city and raided transports for food, weapons and such and generally just caused problems for the current government. The leaders of the group took their names from what they were best at.
Lord Rape
Lady Slaughter
It was discovered by GC-8 after their journey to the past that the Bandit Lords had learned to build their "Demon Gate" from "Fahquad" who Bo had imprisoned in a jar at the base of a waterfall in an area that would turn into swampland over the next thousand years or so.
Cordelia is the younger twin sister to [[Amelia|Amelia Marshall]]. She is a model by trade and has magical gifts of her own like her sister. She is involved with Poste in a [[mission|Mission Interuptus]] that reveals the seedier side of Terra.
GC-8 is tasked with negotiating with the space pirates to obtain timely access to a working warship for use in tracking down the [[plague dragon]] unleashed by [[R'mon]]. Unfortunately Bullock and Amelia are forced to return to Terra to deal with her sister, [[Cordelia|Cordelia Marshall]].
Tiberius leads the negotiations and is able to broker a form of a deal, but it will take time to get things together to obtain the ship. In the meantime he works a few side deals for his own interests.
Bo returns to Kemmet on business of his own. He tries to find other immortals on his world to try and find the oldest among them that he can.
Ash works on altering the Gate mass transport module to take as much Ancient equipment from the [[Monsoon World|Island of Dr. ...]] before GCC destroys the entire island and all the life left on it.
Ti is awoken late in the night by a call from [[Charlie]] with an eyes-only message. Bullock has run into a problem in Germany and called for backup. Amelia has gone missing.
Ti gathers the team and they head off through the Gate back to Earth and then on to Frankfurt, Germany. They are able to track Amelia down to a goth club in a small town in the outskirts of the city. They quickly dispatch the guards in the back alley and then move into the club. The noise and lights cover the teams entry as they make their way to the basement. They encounter one guard who manages to return fire on Bullock and then mow through him. Three more are in the next room and open fire as Bo unlocks the door. Bo swings in and grabs one from behind while Bullock deals with the other two. Through another door are a set of four prepped in a two-by-two formation, so Bullock grabs a grenade off a guard and tosses it down the hall without pulling the pin. The guards dive aside and the team charge down the hall to take them down. Amelia is found tied to a chair with electricity flowing into her from a bucket of water on the floor. They take one of the guards that is still alive and leave the club.
They find an abandoned farm house outside of town and interrogate the last guard to find out why they took Amelia and what else he knows. Bo summons an illusionary demon to try and convince him to talk and when that fails he turns to Ti to get the information out of him. It becomes apparent to Bo that getting the information out of him will take more torture than he is willing to stomach and leaves him to Ti to continue "working over". Bo leaves the barn and just starts walking up along the highway towards town. Bullock struggles to keep Amelia in the van and away from what is happening, but eventually fails and she storms into the barn with her medical tools in hand and a glint in her eye that could turn one to stone. She finds Ti beating up the guard with both knees shot out and one wrist bleeding profusely. She storms across the barn and when Ti takes a step back to give her room. The guards injuries and pain fades under her touch and then she threatens him that they can just keep this up as long as they want. He babbles for a bit, and then Bullock, realizing that they aren't going to learn anything from him, shoots him in the head and drags Amelia out. Ti deals with the body and then returns to the van. Most of the team regroups in the van and they drive off, picking Bo up on the side of the highway, and then returned home to Zorandar in uncomfortable silence.
Archaeologist that assisted GC-8 in [[uncovering the remnants of Atlantis|Raising Atlantis]]. She is the occasional love interest for Tiberius.
Ding was absorbed into GC-8 after GC-5 was dissolved due to loss of effective personnel after the time-hopping adventures of GC-5 and -8. He was the sniper and scout for GC-5. Married to [[Tami|Tami Weiss]], the former medic of GC-5.
Member of GC-1. Currently stationed in Zorandar. Team doctor and married to [[Pete|Peter Chamberlain]].
Conglomerate shipping company on Porcia that is one of the few companies with ships and planes that cross from one continent to the island chain dividing the world.
Current point of contact for GCC with the rest of the world for trade with Zorandar.
Homeworld of the [[Grawoon]] and Elotians. Explored by GC-1 where the Elotians were found asleep in cryostasis while the Grawoon were living underground. [[Pete|Peter Chamberlain]] was able to repair the cryosystems to awaken the sleeping members.
The transition through the portal is, hands-down, the most traumatic and difficult that the GC members have ever experienced, and they stumble through a genuine Gate annulus to collapse in a cathedral. They are subsequently rendered unconscious in their weakened state by a spellcaster, and wake in a dungeon. While they are grouped in separate cells, they are easily able to communicate.
It is discovered that Sharon (the GC-5 tech) apparently died of injuries inflicted by Lord Rape, who likes to live up to his name. Both Constance and Tammy have also suffered his hospitality and are physically and mentally injured by the experience. Amelia is able to mend the physical wounds, but both women have scarred-over wounds that she cannot heal, along with their emotional trauma.
A man named Dobbins, one of the "seekers of knowledge" in the temple, comes to speak with the GateCrashers members. Through diplomatic measures, the two teams are able to go from "prisoner" status to "guest" status, and are escorted to a very sizeable suite, with a number of bedrooms. (While trying to sort out the sleeping arrangements, Amelia bluntly announces to the group that she and Bullock are involved. The total lack of dismay on the part of GC-8 indicates that not only aren't they surprised by the news, they're totally okay with it. Bullock and Amelia shack up in the same bedroom.)
Through various conversations and deductive leaps, it is determined that they are still on Elweir, but have moved backward in time by almost a thousand years; The Gate Network is offline. Furthermore, the Gate in the cathedral is the same Gate that is in use in the current time, but it is not in the same location. (This city does not exist in the current time, in fact.)
One of the Jol'Nar, Patino, a name Amelia is familiar with as Gillis talked about him rather frequently and in terms of friendship, was greatly devoted to knowledge and learning. He led an exodus to Elwier for a race of enslaved humans, freeing them from their overlords. He refused to set himself up as a god-figure, however, commanding them instead to seek out knowledge and reason as tools to further their advancement and protect themselves from more tyranny. It appears, however, that the culture is polarized into technological/magical camps, with the followers of Patino seeking more tech-based solutions to problems while the ruling class, all of whom are granted their status by having magical ability, remain in control through magical means. Those who lack such potential are not necessarily second-class citizens and can advance through their own merits, but there is a definite imbalance in the society.
As the highest-ranked member of the GateCrasher program, Colonel Schaeffer assumes control of the group. In light of the trauma he suffered while in captivity, this does not seem like the best decision, especially not in the professional opinion of Amelia (who has a degree in psychiatric medicine), but Captain Bullock is not willing to assume command. Schaeffer begins spending a great deal of time at the palace with the Witch-Queen, and begins emphasizing that the GC members are trapped here, unable to leave, and might as well adjust themselves to the idea of integrating with the society as permanent citizens.
Bo, Amelia, Tammy, and Ash turn out to have "the aptitude". Bo is permitted to study with Nicolai, the sole keeper of the "darker secrets" (black magic), while Ash discovers a gift for magically-aided metalworking. Amelia and Tammy begin to study with the Sisters of Mercy, a quasi-religious sect of healers who utilize magic in their medicine. The Sisters are able to remove the physical scars from Tammy and Constance as well as easing their mental trauma; Amelia learns both of these skills, along with the ability to create healing and revitalizing elixirs. Constance begins studying in the library of the temple, which proves valuable in determining their exact location and the location where the Gate was/will be found in Elweir Present, a coastline area across the ocean.
As a magically-gifted individual, Amelia is automatically elevated to the nobility. Her suspicions of the Witch-Queen and Schaeffer's behavior are confirmed when she is ceded a country property with a horse-breeding operation; Bullock is the one who takes her to the property and confides that he would be quite happy to live there with her permanently. A careful mental examination discloses that he has been emotionally manipulated, and she is able to help him shake off the effect. This incident does, however, reveal the Witch-Queen's duplicity and cements the GC members' determination to make an escape, one way or another.
This happened AFTER Schaffer disbanded the 2 GC teams. Telling them that they were indeed stuck there and they would never return home. It was not until this that Bullock took command back over the 2 teams – Excluding the Col & Major. All the time they suspected the Witch-Queen of manipulating Schaffer, but had no proof, until she tried her trick on Bullock.
With Nicolai's help, a diversion is planned to permit them to steal the Gate, load it aboard a hired ship, and escape to the distant coastline. Nicolai's idea of a diversion, however, involves lowering the city's magical defenses and releasing hundreds of demons from imprisonment in a distant mountain, resulting in many deaths and injuries before the GC members are able to stave off the attack while Bo works to once again imprison the demons. Bo's recently-acquired time-compression spell, which allows him to study for months with Nicolai in the course of a real-time single day, comes in handy here.
The City’s Magical defenses are inactive, and have been for some time. It was the Magical barrier sealing in the demons that he destroyed. Bo discovered the Defenses, and turned them back on.
In the aftermath of this event, security is tightened around the GC members as the Witch-Queen and her nobles, along with the head of the temple, become suspicious of the newcomers. This is, however, not sufficient to prevent them from once again planning an escape. Constance, however, has joined the Colonel in her opposition to such an escape, not through magical manipulation, however, but due to her weariness with fighting and the lingering trauma of her experiences at Lord Rape's hands.
Part of the escape plan involves locating a number of anti-magic medallions or amulets that may provide protection against the noble spellcasters, especially if any mental manipulation is involved. In the process of locating these items, the team explores a ruined city, finds a bunch of kobold-like creatures and a very large troll who throws rocks, and encounters a previously hibernating dragon-like entity. The dragon permits them to take the amulets from its city in return for being given access to the Gate once the team has finished with it.
The diversion that Nicolai executes this time is the summoning of a great comet, altering its path through the solar system to bring it dangerously close to the planet. Taking a page from Ozymandias in "The Watchmen", Nicolai does not tell the GC members what he's doing until it's too late to stop him. The combined power of the magic-users in the city will be able to stave off disaster, but the comet's path is permanently changed and it will again threaten the world on its next pass through the system; in time, as the world's magic levels wane, the Gifted will prove unable to continue diverting the comet. This will eventually lead to the Great Cataclysm, hundreds of years in the future, that will devastate the world and lead to the conditions of Elweir Present. (Oops.)
The escape plan is successful. A "going-away" party is staged aboard the hired ship, supposedly to mark the departure of most of the GC members on a grand ocean voyage; this is largely a front, as the GC members need to lay in supplies for their trip as well as provide an excuse to lure Constance on board and get her drunk. In the furor as the magic-users of the city gather together to develop a strategy to fend off the approaching comet, Tiberius, Bo, and Bullock are able to enter the palace, knock out Colonel Schaeffer, and retreat to the ship with him. Meanwhile, Amelia, Ash, and Fisher have successfully connected an antigrav unit to the Gate, concealed it with a framework of wood and canvas, and taken it aboard the ship. They set sail, after confining Schaeffer and Constance to prevent their interference with the plan. Amelia has her work cut out for her in untangling the knots the Witch-Queen has tied in Schaeffer's brain.
During the voyage, the ship is attacked by a sort of Flying Dutchman; A ghost ship manned by undead sailors. In the process, several critical injuries and fatalities are sustained, but Amelia and Tammy are able to save most of the wounded. (This marks the first time that Amelia proves able to reattach severed appendages, as illustrated when she is able to heal Bullock's nearly-destroyed hand.)
Upon reaching their destination, the GC members set up a camp in which to reside while Nicolai, who joins them via his own devices, sets up the Gate and prepares the extremely elaborate spell that will hopefully allow him to send GC-5 and GC-8 back to their proper time and place. He continues to be extremely weird and creepy, quietly freaking out quite a few of the GC members, but is true to his word and creates the portal. In the meantime, Bo captures his familiar, "Fuckwad", though it may actually be "Fahquad", and imprisons the imp in a jar, concealing it in the area. (It will be revealed later, by Jack, that Lady Slaughter discovered the jar and learned her demonic magic from Fuckwad. Thanks, Bo.)
As they depart through the Gate, the last three people out are Amelia, Bullock, and Fish. Fish's final farewell to Nicolai is a bullet through the head; Justice for those killed by the demons he unleashed as well as preemptive justice for the thousands or millions who will be killed or reduced to a miserable existence when the comet finally strikes down. (This action will, inevitably, cause a small shitstorm. This is what happens when you murder an unarmed man in cold blood in front of the damn doctor who has a strong Code vs Killing, Fish.)
GC-8 is dispatched to Elwier to search for the missing members of GC-5, who vanished while scouting out the Bandit Lords' activities. Major Young, the misandrist commander of the garrison stationed there, apparently takes some offense to this, seeing it as an indication that her ability to find the missing team is in doubt.
Subtle investigation reveals that Major Young is quite cozy with the local authorities, several of whom are suspected of being sympathizers or supporters of the Bandit Lords. This does not seem to be as blatant as outright collaboration, but there are reasons to suspect the major may be involving herself overmuch in local politics.
Bo unwisely confronts Major Young about her apparent coziness with the local authorities. In response to an apparent insult from him, Major Young shoots him dead in front of the team. Fish responds by opening fire on the Major, forcing the team to flee. He gets over it, of course, and takes word of Young's misconduct (to say the least) to the team. GC-8 returned to the city to confront the Major, but found that she had fled the city taking her best and the garrison’s 2 vehicles into the wilds. But not before sparking off an attempted coup d'etat by the City’s Chief Magistrate Capra, with whom it was later found out, had had an affaire with Major Young.
After stopping the coup attempt, not as easy as it sounds since Capra had been supplied with Modern Weapons, and he & his men had been trained by Young to use them, GC-8 gathered the rest of the Garrison troops (those not loyal to Young) and put them in charge. The Price declared martial law, and used what forces he could, including the garrison troops, to enforce it. They discovered that Young had booby trapped the Gate, with a magical device, that none of them could disarm. That’s when they headed after Young.
GC-8 goes into the swamps and discovers that [[Domingo "Ding" Chavez|Domingo Chavez]], the GC-5 sniper, has been hiding out there for several days. His team was ambushed and taken captive by the [[Bandit Lords]], specifically [[Lord Rape|Bandit Lords]] and [[Lady Slaughter|Bandit Lords]], and he was the only one who managed to stay out of enemy hands. He has been spying on Lady Slaughter's encampment, where there has been considerable activity in the past several days.
It is discovered that Major Young is in cahoots with Slaughter, and is most likely the one who betrayed GC-5 to the Bandit Lords. Slaughter is constructing a sort of magical version of the Gate; a stone or metal annulus inscribed with mystic symbols. Elwier is one of the worlds where magic does work, albeit very weakly at this time.
GC-8, accompanied by Ding, gets into position at Slaughter's camp after a little adventure involving some snake-man hybrid creatures in the swamp. The plan is to rescue GC-5 and escape. Secondary objectives involve the capture or elimination of Slaughter & Young and any of the other Bandit Lords that are encountered.
GC-5 is brought out, apparently for some ritual or sacrifice in front of Slaughter's makeshift Gate. It appears that only four members of GC-5 are currently alive in the hands of the enemy; Constance Shimmerman, Colonel Schaeffer, Gunny Pappas, and Tammy. Sharon, the team's technician, is nowhere to be seen. Behind them the Gate was active, but glowed a deep red instead of the normal blue of the event horizon of a connected gate. Amelia could sense a malevolent force/power emanating from it.
Some kind of rune device is stuck on Pappas's neck, apparently bending him to Slaughter's will, but GC-8 attacks before more indignities can be heaped upon GC-5. In the ensuing fight, many of Slaughter's followers are killed, including Major Young. Slaughter herself is seriously wounded as she attempted to flee through the gate, she was shot by Captain Bullock, and her body fell through the gate. <ambiguous death if I’ve ever seen one>. However, there are definitely reinforcements coming down on the camp, and there's no escape in sight.
When Ash tried the gate the 1st time with the Predator gauntlet it shut off. Thinking she was actually controlling the gate she dialed a few locations, but nothing worked, finally she dialed earth, and it opened up, but it was Red (Like it was for Slaughter) not blue like normal. With the rest of Young’s & Slaughter’s men on the way the team (under Bullock’s Orders) stepped through. (It is later established by Jack the Time Monk that Ash did not have the ability to perform the interface in the original timeline, but "future Ash" is able to do so, and is the one who actually opened the Gate to facilitate the team's escape from Slaughter's reinforcements.)
[[Pete|Peter Chamberlain]] (the ENGINEER) and [[Dr Chris Mallory]] (the RED QUEEN) appear to have started to rebuild Las Vegas as humanity is attempting to recover from an invasion by the Helians who launched clusters of Xenovores at the major cities of the world. The governments of Earth retaliated by nuking the cities to try and wipe out the infestation. The "solution" didn't work and governments collapsed.
GC-8 arrived through the Area 51 Stargate to find the base overrun with a hive of hibernating [[Xenovores|Xenovore]]. The Queen was shot by [[Ding|Domingo Chavez]] as the team was attempting to escape from one group of alert Xenovores. This woke up the rest of the hive and in the ensuing chase the members of GC-8 were able to refit two hummers to escape across the desert.
The hummers arrived in a small town just outside the fallout zone from the nuke that hit Area 51. The proceeded to refuel the vehicles and in their exploration found the town overrun with huge [[Spider-Scorpids|Spider-Scorpid]]. They destroyed the town by detonating the huge gas tower that was still standing near the center of town (at the gas station they got gas from).
The next stop was hours away (Las Vegas). Cresting the rise north of the city the team was surprised to find that while most of the city was dark, parts of the Strip were lit up. Closer inspection via binoculars discovered a huge, makeshift wall surrounding the part of the city. The team moved in and found a place to hole up for the night. Ding took the night shift to stand guard while [Bo] went to scout the lit Strip and found a few interesting facts that led to the party concluding that it is possible that some members of GC-1 are present in the city. Bo found that a section of the Strip inside the fenced area has a secondary fence separating the two parts from each other. He climbed one of the larger hotels to find a radio source. Failing that he took a bulb from the top of the Stratosphere and left our radio frequency to get someone from GC-1 to try and contact us. This tactic worked, but didn't result in what the team wanted. When a group of explorers were noticed leaving the Strip a sign was placed on their return route with names of GC members to try and get more information. The end result was no new information was gleaned, so the team decided to enter the city as new arrivals and see what is going on inside.
GC-8 found that their vehicles and gear were "traded" in for Trade Credit (the cities form of currency) and a chit for a free room. The different members found a way to make themselves valuable to the city and so got an upgraded living arrangements. [[Amelia|Amelia Marshall]] and [[Tami|Tami Weiss]] got jobs working as doctors with their medical training. [[Fish|Randall Fisher]] and [[Ash]] got jobs working in the motor pool fixing up vehicles. [[Tiberius|Tiberius Pullio Valorous]] and [[Bullock|Seth Bullock]] were given command of a company of troops as a reward for the valuables and obvious military training they displayed.
Bullock was invited to a meeting with [[The Founders]] and Tiberius went along as his second. They were separated before the meeting and Bullock found himself in a tight spot of trouble. The party found out later that [[Ryack]], the "man" that Bullock met with tried to invade his mind to force him to reveal everything about us. Between the amulet and the training that Amelia has instilled in him, Bullock was able to resist the attempt.
The team took advantage of their new found position to bring in their other gear and get vehicles refit and fueled for their own use. Over the next week Ti started to transform not only his own unit, but the others as well into a more military-like unit with regimens of exercise and discipline and teamwork. Ash found a way to get Pete's attention by attempting to break-in to the system that seems to be his which resulted in her and Ti going down to a restricted area to meet with Pete at his invite. This resulted in them learning more about how things came to be and who was really in charge of this area. One the way out they ran into two wolves in human-form dragging a drugged Bullock down to become Pete's latest victim. This resulted in a very short fight with the team beating a hasty retreat and the realization that they had to leave the city right now.
The current plan is to use the troops under his command to cover the groups escape. [[Jack]] joined the group under mysterious circumstances and while fleeing from Vegas used a LAW to kill off a huge group of werewolves. This shot nearly killed GC-8 as well as their opponents. Luck was all that saved GC-8 from dying along with their opponents. [[Bullock|Seth Bullock]] was forced to shave off the remains of his mustache. The group has voted to head northwest instead of southeast. The hope is to encounter a seaplane while traveling towards the northern California coastline. Enroute, GC-8 recrossed their path through the town they destroyed and encountered a huge pack of [[Xenovores|Xenovore]] on the move.
The team holed up in the remains of a repair garage in Rachel, NV while the [[Xenovores|Xenovore]] moved past. The next stop was Tonopah, but the team found it was already overrun with Xenovores and nothing could be done but to bypass the town and continue on.
See [[Their First Night]].
After another long day of rough travel over broken roads the team came within sight of Carson City. To avoid detection the APC took the lead and hung a red light out the back so that the Hummer had a means to follow it in the dark without any potential sentries spotting the vehicles coming along the road. They pulled off to the side of the road and made camp. Bo was sent in to explore the city and get a feel for the people. He was able to scout the wall that had been built up around a small portion of the city as well as the hangers of the nearby airport that lay outside. To the teams luck, he found several seaplanes still intact inside several locked hangers. Plans were made for how to approach the town to negotiate for the planes, but before any could be set into motion, a convoy of bandits (ala Road Warrior) came along the highway. The team watched it head towards the town and then some of the vehicles split off from the main group and headed towards a small collection of buildings on the outskirts of town near their farms. Bullock sent Ti, Bo and Ding in the Hummer to deal with the small group and the rest went in the APC to deal with the main body and help the town.
Bo was shot twice in the chest saving one of the townsfolk and went down. Ding was injured by gunfire from some of the other bandits, but between him and Ti they were able to finish off almost all of the bandits. Three got away on two motorcycles to rejoin the main group. As the first group was being engaged by, Bullock and the others in the APC came up behind the bandits outside the town wall. The bandit leader got up on a speaking platform built into the front of a chopped up Winnebago. He demanded tribute from the town. They had arrived at this town early due to Tonopah no longer being a place they could hit (stupid Xenovores). Bullock used [[Chavez's|Domingo Chavez]] sniper rifle to take out the leader and Fish ordered the rest to put down their guns and they would be allowed to leave. Their second in command came up on a motorcycle and tried to sway the bandits to not listen, but got flattened by a pickup truck that landed on him from above driven by Bo from the farm. The bandits took off and the town was grateful enough for our service that they allowed us access to the airfield and the non-functional aircraft that Bo had discovered.
The next day Ash worked on the aircraft with Ti standing guard. Amelia and Tami helped out in the town with restarting their medical system by teaching them how to make basic medicines like penicilin. The town held a celebration dance that night as part of their way of saying thanks for the service rendered. The initial estimate for fixing the planes and getting one of them flyable was 8 weeks. 2 weeks into the stay, Ash had a plane in working condition. It took another week to get the other needed parts of the airport up and running for the plane to take off.
Ash and Ti worked out the flight route (Yes, the non-Terrans worked out the route to fly the plane on Terra). The first stop was the eastern coast of Lake Superior. GC-8 met the locals of an isolated island and attempted to trade supplies for fuel to refill the bladder that had been brought into the plane to hold extra fuel. The locals attempted to betray the team and not trade in good faith. They paid for their betrayal, even though the team didn't kill any of them. Fuel was obtained from an untapped tank buried in the lake at the end of an old rickety dock. The team spent the night at the airport of Sue St. Marie which was about 20 miles south of where they got the fuel. The next day the flight ended at an island off the coast of Newfoundland. The government functioning there negotiated in good faith and provided the team with a full tank and filled the bladder of the aircraft. The team was staying at the Mayor's house as honored guests since Bullock misrepresented the group as being part of the reformed US and British governments (to explain [[Amelia's|Amelia] accent. The group split up, leaving Fish to guard the aircraft while the rest of the team went to a party in their honor. A group of people attacked the team as their boss, the Labor Union leader John Davies, didn't want the intrusion of the US Government in their lives. The team spent the rest of the time at the airport waiting for the storms of the North Atlantic to blow through.
The game ended with the team making it to the spainish coastline to land and refuel the aircraft from the bladder inside the cargo area. See [[Interlude]]. The team had an uneventful night anchored off the coast and then headed off towards the island in the Black Sea that contained the Atlantis gate. They made it to the island and after a night with a lobster bake, they climbed to the caldera of the volcano via a broken path that in the past had led down. It was rubbled and melted from the tactical nuke that had struck the island to try and seal the gate off in case it was also used as an invasion point. Ash nearly fell from the rope between her and Ding being cut, but was saved by Ti.
Upon topping the volcano they found the ruined temple mount from the nuke, but oddly, the entrance to the volcano was not collapsed. Investigation of the route down into Atlantis proper found that the gate was being used. The security of Atlantis was being disabled by unknown perpetrators. Analysis of the system logs found that regular visits were occurring once every eighteen months from the same gate address for the past several cycles with increasing times between visits prior to that. Nephilim, Fish's combat computer, was able to analyze the radiation of the island and found an errant Ion source that matched the signal of the ion drives used by the interstellar pirates the group had encountered previously. To the groups surprise, the visitors returned to Atlantis and were coming to the gate room. Four of the team, Ti, Bullock, Bo and Fish went down to the gate room and were confronted by decloaking Predators.
The group took some hits, but were able to nearly kill all four of the initial predators before three more cloaked individuals came in cloaked. One blasted Fish, nearly killing him (special abilities brought him back up).
The team killed one more before Amelia was able to figure out how to communicate with them and get them to stop attacking and back off. Amelia was able to get them to leave and agree to leave the Earth alone as it isn't their's to hunt at.
[[Return to the Present]]
Colonel Edmond ‘Coop’ Cooper– Team Leader
Cindy Chamberlain – 2nd in command
Gabriel ‘Ghost’ Storm – Infiltration
Gabriel ‘Weasel’ Jackson – Scout Sniper
Dr Chris Mallory – Team Medical Expert
[[Peter Chamberlain]] – Sec Systems/ Tech Expert
Colonel John Fields – US Army
Major Paul Wyman – US Army - Tech expert
Lt. Larry Durbin – USMC - Demolitions
Master Chief Carl Shoener – US Navy Corpsman
Dr Donna Farago - Archeologist
Sgt Brad Wheeler – US Army – Hvy Wpns
SSgt Scott Turner – US Army
(Reconstruction Team) – Stationed on Eloi
Dr. Ron Cunniff – Interim Terran Ambassador to Eloi, Team Leader
Dr. John Harshaw – Civil Engineer
Dr. Doug Eney – Computer Sciences Engineer
Dr. Paula Zaharski – Environmental specialist/Botanist, Geologist, Zoologist
Dr. Michael Depaulo – Sociologist, Interspecies relations
Dr. Tina Blair – Geneticist/Biologist
(Advisory Team) – Stationed in Nova Roma
Prof Jon Kempiak – Team Leader, Prof of Ancient Roman Studies
Dr. John Kludt – Medical Doctor
Brent Blanchette – Architectural Engineer
Janine Krenson – Civil Engineer
Dr. Diana Welburn – Archaeologist – Accompanied GC-8 to Atlantis
Forest ‘Woody’ Edwards – Grad student in Archeology – accompanied GC-8 to Atlantis
Connie Franklin - Grad student in Archeology – accompanied GC-8 to Atlantis
(Archaeological Team)
Prof. Tom Kingston - Archaeologist and Team leader
Dr. Bruce Hildebrandt - Sociologist
Dr. Janet Ward - Geneticist/Biologist
Dr. Josh Parsons – Archaeologist
Dale Miller – Meteorologist, Archaeological Student of Prof Kingston
Dr Linda Scovel - Archaeologist
Dr. Mac Begair – Technician - MIT Graduate, knew Pete in college //note: Mac is gay//.
Sgt Tyrone Jackson – US Army Security Detail
Lieutenant Colonel Ian Stockholm – US Army Spec Forces, Team Leader
Captain Terry Warren – USN SEAL
Lt. Kathryn Sullivan – Comm/Sec Sys – USAF Pilot
CPO Paula Nash – Corpsman – USN
Dr Emmanuel DeCosca – Sociologist
Sgt Malcolm Wells – Weapons expert – USA Delta Force
Sgt Derek Gray – Combat Engineer – USA Ranger
SSgt Reynolds – USMC – (Deceased)
Sgt Walker – USA Ranger (Deceased)
Major Henry Jacobsen – Team Leader
Captain Lawrence MacNair – Heavy weapons
CWO II Joseph Collins – helicopter pilot, Special Forces; Liberian
Lt Helena Williams – Medic
Cecelia Phillips – “Ceci”, archaeologist and fitness enthusiast
John Smith – Technical specialist
Lieutenant Colonel Amanda Nochs
Major Jennifer Wheaton
SSgt Leroy Davenport – Tech specialist
Sgt Lawrence McHenry
Ian Christensen, MD – Medic
Arkady Yuschenko – Infiltration/intelligence
Colonel Williams
Former Members
*Lieutenant Colonel [[Adam Schaeffer]] (Reassigned, Commander GC Garrison Kemit)
*Major [[Constance Schimmelmann]] – Demolitions expert (Medical leave)
*Gunnery Sgt [[Darryl Pappas]] (Samoan) – (Reassigned GCC Koram – Training Branch)
*Spec-5 [[Tami Weiss]] – Medic (Reassigned – GCC Koram, Medical Branch)
*[[Sharon Lincoln]] – Tech specialist (Reassigned – GCC Koram, Tech Branch)
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Gallagher – USAF Special Police
Captain Chuck Hollins – US Army Ranger
Lieutenant Rebecca McPherson – USN Submariner, Underwater Eng expert.
SSgt Marvin Devorack – US Army Ranger security specialist
Sgt Doug Vaughn – Heavy Weapons
Dr Wilma Derring – Combat Medic
Dr Karl Jaeger – Ancient Cultures, Sociology
Major Vann Williams – USMC Force Recon
Lieutenant Jennifer Fortel – US Army
Lieutenant Max Carson – US Army Rangers
SSgt Laurence Park USAF – Security Specialist
Sgt Alan Bozeman – USMC – Heavy Weapons
Dr. Gordon Mitchell – Engineer, Tech Expert
Dr. Don Tomlin – Combat Surgeon
Gate Crasher team 8 - Expeditionary group of interplanetary explorers working under the Gate Crasher Command.
Major [[Seth Bullock]]
Lieutenant [[Asar "Bo" Bomani|Asar Bomani]]
Gunnery Sergeant [[Randall "Fish" Fisher|Randall Fisher]]
Sergeant [[Domingo "Ding" Chavez|Domingo Chavez]] - Joined after the dissolution of GC-5 after the time-hopping adventures.
[[Corporal Lance Hendricks|Lance Hendricks]]
[[Dr. Amelia Marshall|Amelia Marshall]]
[[Ashlyn|Ash]]
[[Anya Vanyar]]
Former members:
Lieutenant [[Tiberius Pullio Valorous]] - Returned to duty with the Nova Roman military
Staff Sergeant [[Jason Alexander]] - Medically Discharged
Captain [[T'Kalla]] - Reassigned to Elwier GC Garrison
Lt Colonel Leo Garrison – USMC
Major Don Engle – USAF
Captain Jennifer Henderson – USMC
Sgt Dennis Baldwin – US Army
Sgt Jeff Campbell – US Army
Cpl Dwain Hicks – USMC
Planets Explored:
PX-0001
GX-0425
Designation: GX-0425
Name: Eloi – AKA Cave World
Atmosphere: Standard Breathable atmosphere
Climate: Temperate near the equator, decreasing temperature to the poles
Condition of Gate: Functional
Presence/Condition of DHD: The original Elotian gate was destroyed. A temporary DHD was used (from Gambria) until a new one could be fabricated.
Location: Eloi is located on the Spinward side of the Milky Way Galaxy
Dominate Species: Grawoon (a Dog-man Hybrid) 85%, Human (Elotian & Gambrian) 15% - There was also a Simi-intelligent race of Ant-men, but their fate is uncertain since the collapse of the subterranean complex.
Flora & Fauna: At first glance all seems to be very similar to earth standard, as Eloi was prior to their apocalypse. But once you take a closer look, it is apparent that many of the native plants have subtlety changed due to their exposure to radiation centuries before. There are also dozens of examples of animals/creatures that had their evolution altered by the radiation. Most of these were encountered in the vast subterranean cave complex the Grawoon lived in since the apocalypse. It is unknown at this time how those species fared since the complex was flooded after seismic activity drained an above ground lake into the caves.
World Information:
Eloi is roughly the same size as Earth, with a single moon. Approximately 500 years ago the 2 major nations of Eloi conducted a nuclear war with one another. There were NO winners. Their world was ravished by nuclear holocaust then the following nuclear winter finished the job. Humanity was extinguished; their only descendents were a race of Dog-men they had created a few years earlier. The Grawoon, as they came to call themselves, fled the horrors of the nuclear exchange, and found refuge underground. Centuries later they were the dominate species on the planet.
The Gate was originally located in one of the caves lost to man, but rediscovered by the Grawoon. It is unknown what civilization made use of the Gate, or how it came to be there. When GC-1 & 2 used the Gate they were unable to explore the area around it to any lengths, and it was moved before any real exploration could be undertook. With the collapse of the tunnel system it is unlikely that it will ever be known who had originally used the Gate.
Eventually humans were found to have survived the holocaust. Several caches of men & women in suspended animation were found. These humans were place their by their government, as a safeguard against loosing the war, there were over 100 of these caches. The original plan was for these people to be woken a decade after the war ended, but for these lucky few they remained in stasis for over 500 years. It was later discovered that of the 100 caches created (each containing 160 people) only 34 remained functioning. Most had simply stopped working, allowing their occupants to die, while others had been damaged in the war. A small number had worked as programmed, but those that emerged from stasis found the world inhospitable, and were unable to live for long, let alone forge a new civilization.
Currently both Human and Grawoon share Eloi, and have even opened up their world to another group of humans who destroyed their world. The remnants of Gambria now live on Eloi. The three cultures are forging a single new culture, one they hope will be able to live in peace, and live long enough to reap the benefits that such a diverse society can produce. With the technological knowledge of the Elotians and Gambrians, and the vast numbers and strong backs of the Grawoon they are making great progress. The Grawoon soldier, always a fierce warrior, are now being trained by the Terrans, and have already been deployed to hot spots across the galaxy, including a semi-permanent garrison on Elwier.
French Foreign Legion. Connected with [[Furst|Alfonz Furst]]
GateCrasher Command is broken up into 20 teams. Teams are broken up into Combat and Research specializations.
[[Zorandar|PX-0001]] Command Team
GC-1
Combat Teams
GC-2
GC-3
GC-4
GC-6
GC-7
GC-8
GC-9
GC-10
Research Teams
GC-11
GC-12
GC-13
GC-14
GC-15
GC-16
GC-17
GC-18
GC-19
GC-20
Dissolved
GC-5
The first [[Jol'nar]] encountered by GC-8. His gift is the ability to create ingenious devices for either Jol'nar use or natives of the world that he happens to be on. He was worshiped as the god Hapu on Kemmet, though the church was really being run by the High Priest while he was hidden in the background and working on his own devices. He escaped from Kemmet to Porcia where he ended up in the hands of the island pirates.
It is possible that Gillis isn't as naive, nor as forthcoming as originally thought, based on information gleaned from [[R'mon]] by Bo and revealed to Tiberius and Amelia.
[img[http://gatecrashers.daemonstorm.com/files/GladiusX.jpg]]
A race of Canid Humanoids created as a servant race for the Elotians. Without their masters awake they took over the underground parts of the world due to their fear of the surface.
Lt. Col. in the US Special Forces
GC-8 headed out for the Thanksgiving Week. [[Fish|Randall Fisher]] was invited home along with the rest of the team by his mother from Montana. Fish agreed to go as he was distracted by the pumpkin pie that she had sent him and agreed to bring his friends. The team arrived in Area 51 on Monday and then flew out via Vegas to get to his home town. The team picked up winter gear while in Vegas as only a few team members even have winter gear appropriate to the environment.
They arrived late that day and were driven out to the farm via a caravan of vehicles due to the size of the group coming into town. The next day Fish was informed that some people have been hassling his parent to try and get them to want to sell their land to a company, ReNu, that had recently been bought up by GloboCon. They had apparently offered money for the land and when they were turned down the realty company seemed to have switched tactics to using thugs to steal equipment, kill or take animals, and harass the people such as the youngest daughter.
Fish agreed to help his brothers deal with the thugs that had harrased his sister and recruited the other team members to help. The plan was to trick them into starting a fight in the bar that they like to hang out in and then whooping them to get them to stop. Unfortunately they were a lot tougher than the team had anticipated and several team members were injured in the fight. Turns out the thugs had some sort of magical talismans that provided them with boosted stats, but the price of using them was that your soul was corrupted.
Bullock was able to talk the cops out of arresting the team members thanks to our status in the U.S. military complex. Bo was able to follow a thug that he had allowed to escape from the bar fight back to his hotel room that he was staying in. He found the guy collapsed in the room with his eyes turning black (hmm, reference to a Wonder Twin from Heroes?). Bo was able to save him from the onset of the corrupting effects of the talismans that he had stripped from them during the fight. With his help the other four thugs were saved from the effects by Bo going to the hospital and dispelling it. The team made it back to Fish's house late that night and got a few hours of sleep.
They spent Thanksgiving doing the typical events of cooking, watching football, feasting and then sleeping the afternoon away. Friday, the team helped put up Christmas decorations. They were interrupted by the arrival of Geoffrey Schotky, the CEO of ReNu, who apologized for the actions of the realtors and offered compensation for the damage and then upped the anty by offering 5x the valued price of the land and the parents said they would thing about it. Fish, Bo and Amelia went out scouting around the property and were able to find a Nexus point on the land that was radiating Negative Energy just around it. Further research found that the CEO of GloboCon has been acting weird since around the time of the buyout of ReNu, doing things like firing the whole board and hiring replacements, throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars out of his limo into the streets of New York City, etc... Also information was found online about events that had transpired on or around the land that may have caused the creation of the Nexus as a Negative Energy point.
The team evacuated Fish's family from the farm and prepared for an assault at the nexus point after Amelia received some information from her mother (don't get on that woman's bad side) about how to shut down or cleanse the nexus. Ash and Ti were able to improvise a few useful weapons; a sword for Ti and a few homemade grenades for the team from fertilizer and diesel fuel. Bo and Amelia completed the ritual around the site as darkness fell and two black Blackhawk choppers arrived on scene. They went over a rise, landed for a second, and then took off again. They had apparently dropped off one squad to secure the nexus site and came prepared in body armor and NVGs. They didn't last long against the team members that could see them in the dark and were made short work of.
Via the captured radioes the team was able to make contact with the other assault team and challenged them. The hope is that they will come out to the site to try and do what the other squad failed. This time GC-8 is better prepared since they have taken the body armor and weapons off the squad and bound up the remaining members that were still alive at the end of the fight. Contact was made with the second squad that had been taken via chopper to the farm house and "negotiations" began which resulted in a few threats back and forth before it was settled that Bo would escort the prisoners to the farm house and they would all depart as they weren't prepared to deal with a prepared and now better armed GC squad. They had been misinformed as to what they could expect to encounter and what the purpose of their mission was and chose to return to base.
The rest of GC-8 remained at the site, afraid that the necromancer might still try and take the nexus site. They sat around for over an hour before Bo contacted the team to inform them that the trade had been made and they had indeed bugged out and he was now on his way back. A thick, ground hugging fog rose in the valley that contained the nexus point, killing visibility to just a few meters. Tiberius was the first to spot the "zombies" that came out of the fog and engaged them at close range with his sword as it didn't seem likely that a gun would be very effective. The rest of the team noticed a larger pack coming out of the fog at them and successfully engaged them. Bullock was able to take a few out and most of the rest just tried to swarm Fish.
The necromancer was able to attack Fish from out of sight, but Bullock was able to hit him thanks to Amelia using her Mage Sight to see through the fog. The fog in the area began to dissipate after the necro was stunned from a shot allowing the rest of the team to see him and focus on him. Ti came around a small hillock and saw him standing behind some sort of construct creature. The necromancer ...
<<ADVENTURE DETAILS LOST>>...
GC-8 was just finishing up a late dinner in the mess hall. Today had been a long day of debriefing after debriefing of the events that had occurred after GC-8 had departed for Elwier. Corporal Ding Chavez and Tami, the only survivors of the now defunct GC-5, were also at the table. Amelia and Bullock were the first to make their excuses and head out from the mess hall, with her arm wrapped in his. Tami and Ding took their leave a few minutes later. They had a longer day ahead of them again tomorrow with more debriefings concerning what had happened to the team and where the missing members were. Bo just seemed to vanish. There one minute, gone the next without anyone remembering when he left or if he’d said where he was going. Ash was just staring down at the remains of her dinner platter when Ti gently pulled her glass from her hand and took it and her tray to the cleanup area.
“You look like you’ve run a marathon today and need a little rest.” He said when he returned to the table. He got her to her feet by gently pulling her up at the elbows and steered her tired and stumbling body out of the mess.
They made it to the shared area of their quarters and Ti steered her into the room she and Amelia shared. The lights were out, but both could tell that Ami wasn’t there. Ti closed the door behind him with the two of them inside as Ash turned on the light. Ti reached out with his left hand and spun Ash around inside his embrace until she was up against him face to chest with his left arm wrapped around her. She felt his right hand gently touching her arm and then tracing its way up over her shoulder, then gently stroking her neck until his hand was cupped around to the back of her head. She tipped her head back and wrapped her arms around his chest. He leaned down and their lips met, gently at first and then slowly the kiss deepened. They stayed like that, arms wrapped around each other and lips locked for several minutes. Ash pushed back slightly and brought her arms back around in between them without breaking the kiss. She undid the buttons that held Ti’s shirt closed and ran her hands along the muscles of his chest that were exposed. His left hand let go of her arm and slid back until it was resting on her back. He let go of her briefly and pulled his shirt off and dropping it on the floor. Ti picked Ash up and carried her to the bed and lay her down with her legs dangling over the edge. He squeezed her breasts through her bra and shirt while kissing her in the nape of the neck that was exposed from her shirt collar. He then unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it wide open without pulling it off. She wrapped her legs around him and trapped him against her and gently bit at his earlobe while he continued to rub and kneed her breasts through her bra. He then slid his hands around behind her and fiddled with her bra. It took him a bit of time and effort, but he was able to finally undue the clasp and free her breasts.
Ash put her hands on Ti’s shoulder and pushed him down towards the edge of the bed and felt him shift from her neck to her erect nipples. He gently pulled her right nipple into his mouth and nibbled gently on it while sucking sending shivers of pleasure up Ash’s spine from the sensation. He then slid down further, placing kisses down her abdomen to the top of her pants before he straightened up. He reached behind himself and unhooked her feet and brought them down to the ground in front of him and started to undue the laces. Combat boots were definitely not made for easy removal and it took him a bit of doing to get them both undone, and then took his off. He slid his hands up her still covered legs and then undid her belt and pants and pulled both her pants and panties off. She heard them land across the room as Ti tossed them behind him in his haste. He quickly undid his own pants and left them on the floor as he stepped out of them and lay down next to Ash on her bed. He pulled her on top of him and pulled her head down to his to continue kissing her.
She spread her legs and positioned herself so she was straddling him at his waist and rubbed her hands down his muscled torso even as he reached up and played with her erect nipples. She could feel his erect shaft between her legs. She reached around behind her back and moved him into position as she slid down onto him. Ti rolled over without them separating and positioned himself above her.
The door to the bedroom came open and in walked another woman. “Ti, I heard you were free and I thought…” She stopped in mid-sentence and put a hand over her mouth. She started to back out the door, but Ti was quick enough to get to her and stop her from leaving. Ash pulled the blankets up to cover herself. He leaned in close and started talking to her in a low whisper. After a few moments the woman’s face flushed and she slapped Ti hard across the face. “I know we weren’t exclusive, but with her; One of your teammates?” She tried to pull away, but he kept a hold of her and pulled her to him and kissed her deeply. She beat him ineffectively with her free hand at first, but then seemed to sink into the kiss and his embrace. Ash lay there in embarrassment watching them kiss. To Ash’s surprise the other woman started to remove her clothes and guided Ti back towards the bed.
“Scoot over Ash.” She said as she reached the bed. Ti got an interesting grin on his face as he followed her into the bed to lie between Ash and the other woman. He started to kiss Ash while the other woman started kissing and biting his neck. “Me first” she whispered as Ti shifted to kiss Ash on her…
* * * * *
Tiberius awoke with a start to find himself alone and tangled up in the covers of his own bed in Zorandar. He rubbed his face with both hands, palms over the eyes and fingers on his temples as he tried to rub the sleep out. A faint knocking came from the direction of his door. He rolled over and tried to ignore it, but the knocking came again, louder and more insistent.
“One second” he grumbled as he disentangled his naked body from his bed sheets and put his feet down on the cool stone floor of the room. He pulled on a pair of boxer shorts from the floor and stumbled his way to the door. The knocking became louder as he reached for the handle. “Who’s there?” he growled towards the closed door.
“It’s Ash” a faint female voice replied from the other side. Ti twisted the handle and pulled open the door. What he saw on the other side was not the petite redhead of the team, but a creature out of a nightmare. The flickering light from the common room glistened off the black, smooth carapace of a leering xenovore soldier. The smooth eyeless face stared down at Ti. Thick saliva colored with blood dripped from its open, snarling mouth. Blood dribbled from the claws of its raised hand and a splatter of blood was on the door where it had been knocking. The common room was a disaster with the furniture smashed aside. Most of the other doors were closed, but the one on the far side of the common room, the one that led into the girls’ room, was wide open with blood pooling out on the floor, visible as a patch of growing darkness in the flickering light and bloody footprints coming across to meet up with the feet of the creature now in front of him. Ti backpedaled into his room and tried to slam the door shut. The xenovore charged into the closing door and slammed it wide open, nearly ripping it free of its hinges.
Ti’s combat honed reflexes sent him diving towards the head of his bed and the sword that he kept hanging from the corner bedpost, but the scabbard was empty. He tried to find a makeshift weapon to defend himself with, but didn’t have time. The xenovore soldier leaped at him from across the room and landed where Ti had been as he rolled under his bed and came up to his feet on the far side. He shoved the bed over at the creature, but it simply jumped up onto the wall to get clear of the crashing furniture. Ti bolted for the door and dove through as the xenovore jumped at him. He felt its claws rip along his back gouging three bloody furrows down near his kidneys before it landed against the wall on the other side of the door, still in his room. He rolled to his feet and scrambled across the common area towards the girls’ room, injuring his hands and feet from the shattered glass and wood littering the floor. The xenovore gave chase across the room, but Ti made it across and through the far door first. He flipped the light switch on the wall and shut the door.
He turned back to face the room and found himself in a new hall of horrors. Amelia, or what was left of her, was spread out on the beds or dripping down the walls. The sheets and spread around her were dark red from the blood that had soaked in. Ash was sprawled out facedown on the floor with her feet towards the door, near Ti’s feet. Her back had been ripped open and from that wound was the growing pool of blood forming. She was still breathing, rapid and shallow, as Ti kneeled down next to her. Her glassy eyes flicked open briefly at his touch; then she went still. He stood up and stepped towards the bed when a pain shot through his chest. He looked down to find a hole in his chest where his heart should be and the jaws of a xenovore protruding from the opening. He started to fall forwards off the creature…
* * * * *
His eyes snapped open and he found himself in a pitch black space with the faint sound of water slapping against metal just audible. His breathing was fast and his heart was racing. At first he was confused, but slowly remembered where he was. The slight rocking of the room was because he was on the floor of a small cargo aircraft floating on the water. He felt something stir against him and then remembered that Ash had fallen asleep against him after everyone had eaten dinner. He slowly and carefully repositioned Ash so she wouldn’t wake up, then, in just his pants, padded across the hold towards the front of the aircraft. Ding turned slowly towards him as he took up the pilot’s seat on the left side of the cockpit. “Heh, you’re up late, Lieutenant.” Ding said with his typical East L.A. accent.
Ti rubbed the sleep from his face. “I’ll take the rest of your watch. Why don’t you go keep Tami company.”
“You sure?” Ding asked.
“You want me to change my mind?” Ti turned a look on Ding that got him scrambling out of his chair.
“Hey, don’t need to tell me twice. Have a good one.” Ding headed back into the plane with a happy look on his face.
Ti switched over to the co-pilot’s chair and stared off at the horizon out the windows. The coast was just visible as a deeper blackness in the night stopping the stars. He was keeping watch, but not really seeing anything.
The transition through this portal is also not a lot of fun, but it's not quite as bad as the jump through Slaughter's Gate. It's still pretty gut-wrenching, and when the smoke clears, the GC members have been "hijacked" by a scratch-built annulus powered by technomagic. It is assumed that this far milder version of the "travel sickness" is due to the fact that rather than using a wholly magical portal to connect to a genuine Gate, they are using a magically-activated Gate to connect to what turns out to be a magically-reconstructed version of another genuine Gate. On top of that, the Gate Network is still offline; therefore, they are still in the past, before the reactivation of the Network through the "reboot" in the temple of Koram. (It will be deduced that they are approximately 60 years in the past.)
Much to their considerable dismay, they are missing three people. Schaeffer, Constance, and Pappas are nowhere to be found and presumed to be caught in the Gate's buffer system, held in stasis. Ash comes to theorize that the magical batteries or "actuators" may contain them somehow, and takes custody of same.
Laell is a land besieged and occupied by the forces of Khador, a quasi-Russian empire. Raish and his sister Varla, along with their employees (including Wilhelm, who will become important somewhat later and very briefly), have reconstructed the Gate from ancient documentation using their current technomagical resources. Originally, this was apparently a "weekend project" sort of thing, but now they hope to be able to apply the resource in the defense of their homeland. The city was turned over to the invaders on the order of the local duke, despite the protests of the local baroness, who's a thoroughgoing warrior woman.
While Bullock, Fish, and Tiberius start packing on exciting amounts of muscle through working in the forge, Ash and Amelia begin studying the information available on the real Gate, hoping to either refine the scratch-built version or locate the actual Gate to again try to travel home. Bo and Chavez begin scouting the town and gathering information on the Khadoran occupying forces. In the process, Bo discovers that the local duke is an Immortal. A small house is built in Raish's yard for the use of the GC members, who pass themselves off as refugees in town to secure work.
At one point during the several months that are summarized here, an incident occurs that has since been given the unofficial title of "Fish Threw A Rock And Seven People Died". Fish pegs a Khadoran patrol with a rock, sparking a small riot. Also during this time span, Amelia starts a rip-roaring fight with Bullock and Fish about Nicolai's death, wherein Amelia compares Bullock to Lt. William Calley (of the infamous My Lai Massacre). After this little wrinkle is smoothed over, Bullock apparently reverts to a teenager mentality and stops trying to be discreet about his relationship with Amelia.
Acting as saboteurs, the team is able to hijack a load of supplies from the Khadorans, then use the "gunpowder" to blast the fuck out of a trestle bridge, thus limiting the train routes. However, when they return to town in triumph, they discover total disaster.
Wilhelm has betrayed his colleagues, the Resistance, and the GC members, telling the Khadorans about the "aliens" and the magical Gate. When the team gets back to Raish's property, they find that Ash, Tammy, Ti, Raish, and his people have been taken prisoner, and the Khadorans are crawling all over the hidden workroom, disassembling the annulus under the supervision of the far-too-smug Wilhelm and the very reluctant Ash.
Except for Ash, the prisoners are taken off to an internment facility, where Ti will be beaten to within an inch of his life in an attempt to extract information. Ti, being the burly, hardcore son of a bitch he is, gives them information on how he'd like them to lick his balls, which goes over about as well as you'd expect. Bo scouts the warehouse with an eye toward securing the freedom of the prisoners.
Meanwhile, the annulus is packed up for transport. Amelia teleports in to grab Ash, then ports them both into the GC house. From the window, she cold-bloodedly shoots the treacherous Wilhelm through the head, killing him outright (thus making herself sound like a hypocrite in bitching Fisher out over Nicolai's death and leading, eventually, to another rousing fight with Fish over whether or not she's got a moral leg to stand on).
Amelia appeals to the baroness for aid. She provides a rather excellent diversion, allowing the rescue of the prisoners to go off without a hitch and sparking a rebellion in town. In the process, the duke shows up; though he and his bodyguards make a decent fight of it against Bo, Fish, and Bullock, Bo takes his head, and the fringes of the Quickening's electrical discharge sends Fish into "standby mode". The GC members and some of the resistance fighters then take refuge in the duke's residence.
The team helps the baroness make plans to expand the resistance (and Bo helps the baroness expand her sexual repertoire); they then set out to intercept the train, intent on preventing the disassembled annulus from reaching the Khadoran capital. While traveling through the incredibly cold-ass terrain, they come across a scouting party in the woods. In the process to killing literally everybody, Fish rips the huge auto-cannon off a warjack, Ti is shot a whole bunch of times, a warcaster is killed, and Bullock shoots the female apprentice warcaster through the throat (as he is wont to do).
As they are checking over the bodies to look for useful supplies and such, the team is startled by the female warcaster suddenly convulsing and gasping. Bo feels the Quickening as the young woman sits up, wild-eyed. Amelia rushes over to help her, assuming that the shot didn't kill her, and sees that there's no wound at all now. Moreover, she sees the young woman's face and recognizes her. In one sentence, she identifies the new Immortal to her teammates.
"Why, your Majesty," Amelia says smoothly to the Queen of Khador, "what a pleasant surprise."
(SUMMER BREAK. Damn Pat and his totally awesome "season finale cliffhanger".)
Bo explains to the queen what an Immortal is, by the simple expedient of getting her to shoot him dead. Bo's idea of a reasonable explanation needs work. It's pretty effective, though.
After reading through the warcaster's journal and correspondence (Ti steals the guy's armor), it becomes clear that political elements back in the capital have been manipulating the young queen to their own advantage. When this evidence is provided, the queen gets understandably pissed and throws in her lot with the GC members.
The interception of the train goes off almost ridiculously smoothly; with the queen in tow, Amelia and Bullock are able to talk to the captain in charge of the guard detachment and secure his loyalty. (Amelia discovers that her empathic ability has expanded into full telepathy, as she is able to mentally translate the Khadoran language for Bullock at key points in the conversation.) With the captain on their side, they are able to send out messages to elements that are loyal to the queen rather than to the people who are trying to make her a figurehead and a puppet.
The ancient fortress where the Gate should be is a place that's regularly visited by Khadoran youth, a sort of "Remember our glorious past" thing. It's also still a pretty solid fortress in addition to being a national landmark, so the queen chooses to set up housekeeping there. Sadly, the Gate is nowhere to be found, but they do have the scratch-built Gate, and set it up. Ash begins working on getting it up and functional. Meanwhile, Bo is macking on the teen queen, and they wind up getting horizontal. (Since Immortals can technically heal any physical damage, one wonders if that means the queen's going to automatically re-flower herself all the time. Odds are good she won't, since she probably tore that way back when she started exercising and practicing swordfighting and such. Otherwise, ouch.)
Meanwhile, the queen's political puppetmasters have begun raising hell, saying that the queen is actually an impostor. While loyal elements flock to her banner, the puppetmasters' forces begin gathering to attack. The primary general of the army is a raving psychopath called "The Butcher", who is so uncontrollable and ridiculously over-the-top that he ought to have been quietly executed long before he got up GC-8's ass.
Siege warfare occurs. People die, stuff blows up, Ding is having a great time blowing away the other side's snipers. The queen is able to rally another noble warcaster and some of the other side's soldiers to her cause. Ultimately, the Butcher doesn't get a chance to show off how bad-ass he is, because he gets fucking wasted by a combination of Amelia stunning the shit out of him and Fish blowing him away. This is really a suitable demise for a guy who was designed in such a way as to provide absolutely no logical route to get a cool one-on-one fight going. With his demise, the boring-as-hell siege warfare finally goes away. However, Ash is nearly assassinated by a Khadoran spy, leading to an absolute decision on everyone's part that she will NEVER be left by herself again. Period.
Ash finally finishes setting up and calibrating the Gate; using the Yautja gauntlet, she successfully activates it, and the team steps through. She's overshot a little, though, taking them to the year 2060 on an Earth that's been ravaged by the Healian xenovores and starting off another chain of adventures...
GC-8 headed off on their next mission, PX-6125, lovingly known as Monsoon World. This world is a moon orbiting a gas giant in the Perseus arm of the Milky Way galaxy. GC-8 is tasked with guarding GC-15 while they explore this world. Fish and Bo went exploring while the rest of the teams setup the base camp near some ruins of Ancient design near the Gate. Fish encountered a humanoid native of the world fishing in a river. Bo found a ziggurat to climb upon and noticed a mountain that seemed to remain cloud covered even though the monsoon storms had blown off back out to sea.
Satellite downloads obtained from an LEO satellite left behind by GC-6 when they evac'd from the world to escape the storm that rolled in while they were here. Most of the world seems to be a barren tundra or scrubland.
The team settled in for the local night with some automated defenses and Fish taking the first watch. A number of bat-like creatures swooped down out of the planet lit night attacked Fish and tried to carry him off, but his sheer mass kept him grounded. Bo came out and more of them swarmed him. Bullock stepped out of his tent and got swarmed without his armor on his torso. Bullock ends up shooting one and scares off quite a few of them from the surprise at the noise of the gun. Bo summons an area of bright flashes of light and smoke and scares off the rest of the swarm. Even as they cleared out from the area the perimeter alarms go off.
A swarm of raptor-like creatures came out of the dark into the camp. Two assaulted Fish with one getting him in its jaws and lifting him off the ground. Two more charged Sgt. Jackson on the far side of the camp, but he managed to dodge one and shot the other as it charged at him. It tripped from the hit and knocked Jackson down, then Bo came and flash-blinded them. Another raptor came at Tiberius and got him in the torso even as he shot it in the chest. Ding shot it in the head even as it passed by him with Ti in its jaws. Ti took a shot at another raptor and drew two more around the columns at him. Bullock shot them and caused them to trip a nd fall short of them.
Bo stabbed another raptor in the neck and Ding knocked out one of the raptors that Bullock had tripped. Bo danced back to the far side of a raptor and nearly decapitated it with a knife thrust to the neck. Ding capped one of the tripped creatures and Ti knocked the other one down. Fish opened up on the two raptors near him and finally dropped one. The other, now missing its arm lept to attack him, but died as Fish opened up with his M60 straight into its chest.
Bo and Jackson managed to dodge the raptors fighting them and then Ding and Bullock shot them from across the camp. GC-8 then mopped up the remaining raptors that were alive but badly injured. The Gate was used to clean out the bodies of the raptors by activating it to disintegrate them. After a day of rest, GC-15 and GC-8 got back to work exploring the world. Bo and Ding are assinged the task of scouting around the base camp to discover the whereabouts of the natives that Fish had seen the previous scouting.
Ding and Bo managed to track some natives down out in the jungle world. Bo made contact with them via summoning some jerky and letting them have some (reminiscent of Leia and Wicket on Endor). Apparently they spoke some broken form of Galactic like the Pirates that GC-8 had met months ago. They are some form of humanoid mixed with other species, like a catman or a scaledman. They have a language of their own.
Bullock orders the Gate opened to send a communique through due to the fact that someone has taught these beings Galactic. A possibility is [[R'mon]], a Jolnar biologist. Bullock setup a group to head back into the jungle to meet up with the natives. Bo set down a collection of gifts for the natives. Amelia talked with the natives and found that they were afraid of the idea of the ruins and the Gate because of something or someone from "On High" telling them not to go there. Ti and Bullock became aware during the talk that they were outnumbered and surrounded by the creatures in the trees and bushes with only about a half-dozen out and visible to the group. All of them seemed to have modern metal implements that were repurposed for tools or weapons the creatures could use. [[Taf]] got curious about Amelia and started to sniff her and poke her after she sat down to share the food that had been brought. Bo suddenly manifested the ability to speak their language and talked to them about our stuff and about "On High".
Taf hit it off with Ash when he realized she was similar to him, a fixer. They ended up trading a leatherman tool for a spear, and then, she was able to make Taf switch the spear for his broken Galactic Wrench which was his status symbol. Bo pointed out to Taf that our clothes were a form of armor and Taf tried to make a trade between one of his warriors, [[Baloo]], and Bo. The offer to trade spidersilk armor for the bone breastplate Baloo was wearing was rejected. Ash then showed them fire and they all scattered in fear of "The Burn" which is forbidden by "On High". Most of them disappeared and didn't return to the clearing.
The team returned to the base camp and began making preparations to explore other areas of the island. While most of GC-8 began setting up the sturdier prefab structures, GC-15 with a small escort went to explore the ziggurat first noticed by Bo. They found the entrance, and, thanks to Bo still having the small Naquida strips since Atlantis, was able to open the doors and explore around inside. The interior contained the remains of a gate control room, similar to Zorandar's, but smaller as it only needs to control a single gate. Bo discovered an open chamber on the far side of a flooded tunnel and with Fish's help was able to create a hole between it and the surface which the team hand to reinforce and cover as a storm was incoming.
At some point Fish was going over camera footage from the perimeter cameras and noticed that the "Creatures" were checking their traps in the river below the waterfall. One, Baloo, climbed up the falls and poked around at the camera and then disappeared (was not seen returning down the falls).
With the hole into the ground covered and night falling, GC-15 was instructed to move into the ziggurat as that would allow them to continue to explore while making it easier to protect them from the night life. GC-8 returned to the base camp and setup a rotation of guards. Bullock and Amelia were on watch when Bullock got stung by what he thought was a bug. Amelia got hit as well and discovered that it was a small dart from something like a blowgun. Bullock tackled Amelia and they went sliding down the hole into the ground and away from their attackers. Amelia called out for help over the TacNet and woke Bo and Fish up in the base camp. Fish grabbed his gun and stepped outside and saw two creatures about to jump into the hole. He succeeded in shooting one, but the other made it over the lip before Fish could hit him.
The sound of his Desert Eagle caught the other creatures by surprise and Fish was able to pick them out thanks to his IR vision and tactical targeting system. Ti was woken up by the sound of the gun and got on his basic armor before heading outside. Bo got his spidersilk on and then proceeded outside in time to see the creature slip down the hole after Bullock and Amelia. He took off across the compound and down the hole after it.
Down in the hole, Bullock and Amelia were tangled up in a net by the creature that had come down after them, but Amelia surprised it by reaching into its mind and causing it pain. Bo leapt across the way as he came shooting out of the hole and collided with the creature knocking it down. Amelia was able to cut the ropes with Bullock's knife and then he was able to rip the net off of them.
Back at the camp, Fish sensed something above him and turned to find Taf standing on the roof of the prefab building. He got his gun up and shot at Taf, but only managed to graze his face.
Baloo slid down the hole to Amelia and Bullock where Amelia healed him. Something not even "On High" can do. The other creatures faded back into the woods and GC-8 negotiated with Baloo and Taf for why they were there. GC-8 decided they needed to go see "On High" on their terms and arranged with GCC to obtain an EMP Missile Launcher to deal with "On High" should he become hostile.
Come morning GC-8 headed out for the mountain with Jackson on the ziggurat with the launcher. The team came across the creatures leaving food and other offerings in the clearing where Bo had first met them. The team each gave up some small token in exchange for items that they took. Bo was able to get Taf to agree to show us where he talked with "On High". On the way Fish picked up a transmission that was a camera watching the group in the woods. Ash jammed it and then Taf started getting a headache. Ash was able to kill the implant in Taf's head and then Bullock had Jackson fire the EMP Missile at the mountain. The team was led by Taf to along a trail to a chasm where the team found a rope bridge crossing the span. Out of the jungle stepped some Predators which began to destroy the bridge and attack the team.
Fish took a spear to the gut and Bo was nearly gutted by two creatures while he tried to charge across the bridge. Bo was briefly surrounded on the bridge, but when the leader jumped out onto the ancient rickety thing he broke through and sent himself and the others down. The rest of the team was able to finish off the predators that were cutting through the bridge cables.
GC-8 came across an area where the vegetation had been severely disrupted, maybe by a starship. The ground appeared to be churned up with trees broken or ripped up from the ground. Bo jumped on one of the fallen trees and attracted some large worm creatures from underground (think [[Graboids|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graboids]] from [[Tremors|http://imdb.com/title/tt0100814/]]). The team was able to dispatch the creatures as they attacked, but Fish got grabbed twice by two different creatures before they "expired". The team proceeded along the jungle up the mountain.
A few hours later the team found themselves climbing into the cloud bank that surrounded the mountain top. Visibility was cut to almost nothing as the team continued their upwards trek until they found themselves amongst a cluster of structures. Ding and Bo were sent out scouting while the rest of the team took a moment to rest. Bo encountered vine covered buildings and then found an electric fence with warning lights flashing a state of readiness, but not active. By climbing a tree he was able to spot a break in the fencing where a tree and fallen through the cables. The team met up with Bo and proceeded through the fence. [[Nephilim]] was ordered to scan the radio frequencies looking for tags similar to the one that was found in Taf's head. It was quickly realized that quite a few of them were active in the building just ahead of the break and down under the ground.
The team proceeded cautiously into the building leaving Ding outside as a rear guard and Tiberius and Ash raised the base camp to warn them that it might no longer be safe for them or GC-15 to remain as creatures might have been awakened by the use of the EMP weapon. GC-15 and the platoon withdrew through the gate back to Zorandar. Inside the building the team found a shipping crate that had been opened and weapons from inside had been removed. Even more importantly, [[Neph|Nephilim]] had been able to identify the various creatures based on past encounters and was able to hack the passphrase into certain ones belonging to the Predators. Amelia was able to make contact with "On High" and the team was invited downstairs to meet with him.
Leaving Ding outside, the rest of the team moved into the proffered lift and were taken down to a chamber under the building. As the doors opened the team found themselves facing a two-story tall room with Predators on catwalks above, along the walls to either side and in front of a dais at the far end of the room. Atop the dais was a poorly lit person who claimed to be "On High". He and Amelia struck up a conversation in Galactic about who the team was, where they were from, etc... Neph was able to bring the lights on the dais up slowly enough to reveal what was really standing before the team without it noticing the change and the team was greeted by the sight of a scorpid-bodied centaur-like creature. He "graciously" gave the team permission to leave as he had work to get back to that we had interrupted. That and its appearance were enough warning signs to trigger Bullock into action and the team, taking the enemy by surprise, were able to incapacitate his guards and kill "On High" in short order.
Bo, thinking that "On High" wasn't really "On High", convinced Bullock that the real "On High" is sneaking off towards the gate. While Amelia talked with U'bo, one of the "Creatures" near the dais, Bo, Ash and Ti headed top-side to try and establish the probable location of "On High". Ash used the satellite to control the MALP to dial GateCrasher Command. Ti requested reinforcements back through the gate to prevent someone from escaping through it and to also bring missiles as the team had apparently awoken a "[[plague dragon]]" created by R'mon. Fish arrived top-side with orders from Bullock to withdraw to the gate with the Hish and the "Creatures" while Bullock and Amelia went with U'bo into the complex to try and stop this "dragon".
Thanks to Neph, the team was able to find a route down from the mountain through the complex rather than on the surface which would allow them to avoid most of the creatures and make better time. Bullock and Amelia were guided to a tram inside the mountain and after U'bo got it moving he turned on Bullock and Amelia. Bullock was knocked out by a blast from an electric arc gun (Think the gun from The Matrix used on the hovership). Turns out that U'bo was really R'mon. Fish diverted from the course he was following to start after Bullock when they lost radio contact. Under orders from Ti he split from the group as he could outrun everyone there to get to Bullock and Ami faster. Neph was able to bring the train to an abrupt halt and then reverse its course which allowed Amelia to get a hold of a weapon and shoot R'mon. The train was out of control, but thankfully Fish was able to get in its path and pull a spiderman and bring it to a halt right back in the station it had started out from.
Bullock, having recovered from the blast, caught up on what had happened and ordered Fish to take Ti and Ash to the end of the line and find the "dragon". Ti ordered the Hish down the line before anyone could object and Fish carried Ti and Ash. They arrived to find the remnants of a chamber that was now exposed to the sky and reeking badly from the destroyed eggs. Contacting the platoon confirmed that something took off into the sky headed for space. They shot at it with a few missiles, but seemed to miss or have no effect.
Jack joined GC-8 while on their journey through time as they escaped from Las Vegas. He has been sent by a mysterious group to try and correct the flow of time to set events right that have gone mysteriously wrong.
Name of the race that created the gate network. Also known as the Ancients. Each seems to have his/her own special gift.
Captain of the [[Nebula Queen]] that GC-8 made contact with on the [[Toxic Moon]]
[img[http://gatecrashers.daemonstorm.com/files/Lance.jpg]]
/***
|''Name:''|LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin|
|''Description:''|Support for legacy (pre 2.1) strike through formatting|
|''Version:''|1.0.2|
|''Date:''|Jul 21, 2006|
|''Source:''|http://www.tiddlywiki.com/#LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin|
|''Author:''|MartinBudden (mjbudden (at) gmail (dot) com)|
|''License:''|[[BSD open source license]]|
|''CoreVersion:''|2.1.0|
***/
//{{{
// Ensure that the LegacyStrikeThrough Plugin is only installed once.
if(!version.extensions.LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin) {
version.extensions.LegacyStrikeThroughPlugin = {installed:true};
config.formatters.push(
{
name: "legacyStrikeByChar",
match: "==",
termRegExp: /(==)/mg,
element: "strike",
handler: config.formatterHelpers.createElementAndWikify
});
} //# end of "install only once"
//}}}
Every character or major NPC (villain or hero) may roll one die and count the body. For each body point rolled the character may draw one bead from the bag. For each level of Luck the character has he/she gets to add 1 additional die to the roll. Unluck can be used conversely. The mix of beads should have this ratio of 3 red/2 blue/1 purple with 2 black and 1 green always in the mix.
!Values of the Luck Beads
Red = 2pts
Blue = 4pts
Purple = 6pts
Black & Green each have a special function (see below)
points can be used by others as 2pts less effective.
!Luck roll over
Luck points can be rolled over (saved) for future adventures/sessions. A max of 6pts can be stored up this way.
1pt
*+1 to any skill/Char roll
*+1 Lightning Reflexes
*+1 CON to avoid being stunned
*+2 Recovery
*Re-roll up to 10% of an effect roll
2pts
*+1 to CV
*+3 Lightning Reflexes
*Recover 1 level faster when KO'd (No GM's option)
*Re-roll one die on a to-hit or skill roll
*Re-roll 25% of an effect roll
*+3 CON to avoid being stunned
*+4 Recovery
*Lucky use of Environment (see below)
4pts
*+2 CV
*Re-roll any roll (take whatever outcome)
*Abort next phase (even if you've already moved)
*Free Recovery or Recover from being Stunned
*+6 Lightning Reflexes
*Recover 2 levels faster when KO'd (No GM's option)
*2d6 Healing Body Only (only to avoid death)
*Abort becomes a 1/2 phase action
6pts
*Free Find Weakness for 1 phase (auto success)
*Re-roll any roll (Roll must be better)
*Abort without losing next phase
*Abort to an attack
*+9 Lightning Reflexes
*Auto Success/Failure for any one roll (must be declared before roll is made)
*Free Recovery including Recover from being Stunned
*Recover 3 levels faster when KO'd
*3d6 Healing Body Only (only to avoid death)
*Re-Do (Get to redo an action)
*Powerstunt (GM Control)
*Avoid a "one shot" (recover with 1 stun, 1 end)
Green
*Upgrade all beads on the team (1 per person) except owner of green
*Use any one of the USPD "Luck Powers" as a 0 phase action
*Can be traded for 2 purples
*Avoid a "one shot" (complete recovery)
*Auto hit with max stun damage, roll for body
*Alter plot (needs GM approval)