Campaign Journal: A Dirty Quarter Dozen

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riftsnewbie
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Campaign Journal: A Dirty Quarter Dozen

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In an earlier thread, I asked for some character design help for my first Rifts campaign. Psiandco asked if I could journal our adventures. I'm going to try it in this thread. The campaign doesn't have an official name, but I'm calling it "The Dirty Quarter Dozen"

A little background. Our group (The DM: Stan, and the three players: myself, Doug and Myra,) just finished out a three year D&D campaign. Stan had an idea for A Rifts campaign he'd wanted to run for a while.

I was a little reticent, I'd never played anything but D&D, whereas Stan, Doug and Myra all have experience with Rifts. I've been pleasantly surprised. The Rifts system feels very reminiscent of D&D, if a whole lot quirkier.

Stan gave us the following character design directives (summarized):

-Baseline humans only.
-No supernatural or cybernetic abilities of any sort.
-Characters will start with no equipment.
-Otherwise, anything Palladium published is fair game.

After soliciting some help from the forums here for my build, and re-tooling the characters between session 0 and session 1, we ended up with the following party (thanks to Myra and Doug for sharing the crunch references)

-Luis Riviera, an Operative Agent (from Ninjas and Superspies) trained in Zanji Shajiken Ryu (Doug's character).

-Susan Jenkins, a Natural Genius (from Powers Unlimited 2) (Myra's character)

-Chen Lixin, a Weapons/Analytical Genius Hardware specialist (from Heroes Unlimited 2nd Edition) with the Military Specialist education level (my character)

I'll include character backstories in the main journal entries.

Writing's not my thing, and I've never done a campaign journal before, but I'm going to try doing it in-game voice, so that's probably the last crunchy info I'll include, but if you have specific rules questions, I'll do my best to answer.
riftsnewbie
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Re: Campaign Journal: A Dirty Quarter Dozen

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Session 0: A Fearful New World

[Begin Recovered Archival Materials. Translated from the original Catonese)

Day 131-I suppose a journal should start on day one, but I've got some catching up to do. I've never journaled before. Not sure where to start. I guess the begining is as good a place as any.

I'm from Earth. But not this Earth. Don't get me wrong. We've got cyborgs, demons and aliens too. But mostly we read about them in click bait headlines while we're scanning through the news. Do they even have news here? Couldn't say for sure. I'm still learning the score.

At home, most of us just try to keep our heads down while the wizards, robots and caped mutants duke it out for the tabloids.

I'm from San Francisco, originally. If you find this, and you're reading it, you'd probably say I was born three hundred something years ago. Again, I can't say for sure. Still learning how things work here.

My parents immigrated from Hong Kong. They were sent there on assignment from their association. I guess you'd call it a family business. We specialize in import and export of emerging technol- You know what? I don't know why I'm fronting. It's not like you could use it as evidence against us.

I run with the Triads. My clan calls itself the "Luck Finders." We traffic in black market ultra tech. With all the evil-genius-hideouts exploding, and extraterrestrial spacecraft crashing, there was plenty of salvage for enterprising businessmen like us to pick up.

When I was twelve, my parents returned to Hong Kong. They wanted me to "get acquainted with my heritage." It was tough. Back home I was too Chinese to be American. In Hong Kong I was too American to be Chinese. My cousins never really accepted me as one of them.

But even if they wouldn't embrace me, I had something that forced them to respect me. I'm a wiz with the guns and tech; the Mozart of pistols and pistons: the two skills the Luck Finders valued above all others.

Most Lucky Finders are siloed. Fingers raid valuable assets. Scribes reverse engineer the tech Fingers steal. My talents let me work both sides of the equation. Before long I was working my way up the ranks. It also helped that my Cantonese was improving.

Then came the Big Score. A contact I'd groomed in the CCP passed along a-once-in-a-lifetime tip. The mainland government had recovered an alien escape pod with a working stardrive. Through the years we'd picked up all kinds of gizmos from the spaceboys. But their engines were always set to self-destruct if they crashed on Earth. Apparently there was some kind of galactic law against letting us monkey boys get our hands on warp travel.

The Communists were planning to ship it to Beijing by rail, where they’d do a complete scan, save the plans, and then make a big public show of melting it down. They weren’t looking for to repeat that fiasco in Century Station.

I had one one window: a remote and lightly guarded section of track that ran adjacent to a tributary of the Yang Xi. The job went as smooth as butter. For me anyway. The two guards who got in the way should make a full recovery. Eventually.

I was on my way back to Hong Kong with the stardrive before anyone knew what had happened. I smuggled it into my workshop, and got to work figuring how it ran. I nearly had it too. But something went wrong when I tried to fire it up.

It looked like the world falling in on itself. I guess I should've run. But I just couldn't look away. And then it had me. I couldn’t describe the experience. I'd say it was like being pulled apart and put back together again. But that's never actually happened to me, so I'm just guessing.

Whatever it was, I passed out part way through it. When I came to, I was in some kind of post-apocalyptic shanty town. Whoever you are, if you're from this Earth, I guess I don't have to tell you about the CS and the Chi-Town 'burbs. We'll just say it was rough. But I was used rough. And I smelled opportunity.

The tech here is unlike anything on my Earth. They might not have star drives like the aliens, or even communications satellites like any b-rate wireless carrier, but there are some things they do better than anyone else. Over the last year I've held sidearms that pack more punch than a tank and worn personal body armor that can stuff a hit from an artillery shell. With just a suitcase full of that stuff to work from, my clan could seal a place as the dominant arms dealer on the planet. Not even the capes and unitard boys could stop us.

All I needed was a way to get back. And I had an idea about that too. I'd seen things, some truly bizarre black market bio-tech. People whispered it came from an alien empire in the middle of the Atlantic. They said the overlords there had colonies among the stars too.

I was pretty sure I'd figured out what had happened with the star drive, and how to reverse the process. All I needed was the gear.

I started asking around, seeing if anyone had a bead on parts for a space drive. I guess I said too much to the wrong person.

One morning the CS Police busted through the door of the shack where I was holed up. I'm good in a fight, but a six to one against an ultra-tech swat team is sucker's odds. They took me into custody, charged me as a "dangerous dimensional interloper," and shipped me off to some prison in the middle of nowhere.

They call it the St. Lawrence Detention Center. It's a holding camp for any human they find from another world. As near as I can tell, they decided we’re too alien to be left alone, but too human to exterminate. So we get life sentences here. Nice people.

I did six months, spending every free minute trying to figure out how to escape. Along the way, I got to know some of the other inmates over whatever was passing for meals in the mess hall. Most of them were ordinary folk who found their way here by accident. It’s hard to imagine them being a threat to anyone. I met soccer moms, homeless vets and old men with alzeihmers.

But two of them were different. To hear him tell it, Luis is the guy James Bond wants to be when he grows up: a former Marine Corps medic and pilot who got picked up by the CIA for deep cover operations. He claims if it’s got a driver’s seat he can fly it, drive it or sail it. He also says he’s a master of japanese swordsmanship. Not sure if I believe him or not, but I wouldn’t want to find out. One thing’s for sure, he’s sharp. Seems like he notices everything.

He says that, back on his Earth, there wasn’t any magic or aliens. At least, not as far as he knew before his last mission. He was sent to scope out a suspected Russian asset embedded in the White House. Somebody high ranking, he wouldn’t say more than that. The target got the drop on him. Turns out he was a wizard, or something. Said some magic words, and sent Luis here. Poor guy fell right in the middle of a CS Police station. Didn’t have a chance. He’s been here the longest, and honestly, I’m surprised how quickly he’s gotten up to speed with all the weirdness. He’s trying to figure a way to get back and warn his higher ups that they have no idea what they’re dealing with. I guess I can respect that.

Susan’s something else entirely. She might be the smartest person I’ve met, which is saying a lot, but way off the deep end. Kind of person who sees conspiracy theories everywhere. I asked her where she left her tinfoil hat, and she said “Don’t be stupid. Everyone knows you need copper foil. Better conductivity.” I don’t think she was joking. After comparing notes, we’re pretty sure we come from the same Earth. History matches up. She got convinced we were in the middle of a secret alien invasion. I guess that’s too far-fetched all things considered. So she tried to go completely off grid. She’s a hard core, wilderness survival, prepper type. She became the small town she was holed up in had been over-run with aliens. Turns out, she was right this time.

They caught her when she was poking around looking for hard evidence, and after determining her intelligence was “outside human baselines” they packed her onto a transport to her homeworld for further study. From the way she describes it, the transport sounds like it was made by the same people as the escape pod I was studying. I should remember to mention that to the Lucky Finders. An alien invasion is the kind of thing they’d want to get ahead of. Anyway, she managed to jury-rig the transport teleporter to send her home. I thinking she and I should compare notes on the star-drive issues. But it didn’t quite work the way she planned. She found herself in this world’s Chi-Town. Of course, an ultra-tech facist empire offered fertile soil for all her conspiracy theory imaginations. She asked one too many questions and found herself here. The thing is, she loves it here. Not in prison, I mean. She loves this Earth. All her paranoid fantasies have come true, and she couldn’t be happier. She’s planning to stay and explore. Once she manages to escape.

It became clear pretty quickly that we were three sharpest knives in this particular drawer. We had started toying with the idea of teaming up for a jail break.

But fate got ahead of us. One night we all got snatched out of our bunks and drugged. When we came to, we were all sitting in Warden’s Phillips office with raging headaches. Dude gives me the heebie jeebies. There’s just something off about him. Anyway, he tells us we’ve each been implanted with a bomb at the base of our skulls. I reach for the back of my head, feel fresh stitches and something the size of a watch battery under the skin. He’s got the detonator in his hand. His thumb never leaves the button.

He says he needs us for a job. There’s an enclave of wizards about to the north. They’ve got something he needs: a jet-black, palm-sized hard-drive, etched with the numbers “4371.” Of course, he won’t say what’s on it. The wizards have it in their archive. He’s sure they haven’t been able to access it, and probably, they don’t even know what it is.

Our mission is to break in, steal the hard-drive, blow up the compound, and bring the goods back to a specific drop site. If we finish the job within sixty days, he’ll deactivate and remove the bombs, provide us with new civilian identities and set us free. If not, he’ll blow the bombs.

He shows us a topographical map with no names or coordinates, just a compass marker and scale. He points. “This is where we are, the prison. That’s the wizard’s compound. This is the drop site.” He looks hard at Susan. “Got it?” She nods. At the mess hall, she’d mentioned once that she had a photographic memory. I’m guessing he had the place bugged.

He told us he was going to let us out through a secret exit. It was a little before midnight, he said. The only other person who knew we were here was the prison’s doctor, who’d drugged us and implanted the bombs. “Unfortunately,” the warden said, as he pulled a used syringe from his desk drawer and set it in front of us. “The good doctor seems to have died from a heroin overdose. Tragic, the stress of this job.” First call for prisoners is at 6am. Once the guards notice we’re gone, they’ll spend an hour searching the grounds. Then, the warden says, he’ll call for manhunt to bring us back in.

He’s planted forged papers in our bunks, suggesting we’re members of a radical dissident group dedicated to the CS’s destruction. Some outfit called “The True Believers.” The papers say we’re planning to escape, but if we’re caught, we’ll sacrifice ourselves for the cause. If the manhunt finds us, he’ll blow the bombs. Everyone will assume it was a suicide bombing. So we’ve got seven hours, give or take, to get ourselves out of sight.

He gave us each a set of non-descript civilian clothes, but that’s all the material assistance he’d offer. Once the manhunt is called, he’ll phone in an APB to the CS, labeling us wanted, armed and dangerous. “I suggest you stay away from CS settlements,” he says with a wink.

He points to a spot on the map. Might be ten or fifteen miles from the prison by my eye, but I’m sure Susan already has it figured out. “This is Santa Prisca. Sweet town. Nice people. But they’ll shoot CS uniforms on site. Might be a good place for you to pick up supplies, but that’s your business. Any questions?”

“What’s on the hard drive?” Sometimes I just can’t keep my dumb mouth shut.

“That’s need-to-know, and you don’t. Any other questions?” He half depresses the button, and I hear the whine of a capacitor at the back of my skull as the bomb arms.

“No,” I hear myself say.

“Good,” he smiles like the Cheshire Cat. “Anyone else?”

They shake their heads.

“Let me show you out then.”

He checks the security cameras on a monitor on his desk, and when he sees the way is clear, he types in a code, then leads us down a side hall, to a maintenance corridor. “Pick up your feet, the loop on the security feed only lasts ten minutes.” At the end of the corridor he pushes aside a metal storage cabinet, and opens a hatch in the floor. “Get in.” One by we descend into a cramped crawl space. “This leads out to the north side of the prison walls. Don’t dawdle.” He starts to close the hatch, but pauses. “Oh yeah, and watch out for the vampires.” The hatch closes, and everything is dark.
riftsnewbie
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Re: Campaign Journal: A Dirty Quarter Dozen

Unread post by riftsnewbie »

Session 1: Dusk ‘till Dawn

With no options but to carry out the mission, we begin to crawl our way out of the prison. Susan in front, me in the back, Luis in the middle. He whispers as we go. “The warden said something about vampires, do you have those where you come from?” I’m pretty sure one of our capes and spandex types has a dracula schtick, but I can’t remember his name. And I’m not sure that counts anyway. We both say no. “Me neither,” he says. “But I’ve been listening to people talk.” He’s spent his time at the prison learning everything he can about this world. Must be the intelligence agent in him.

He tells us what he knows about vampires here. A lot of it is stuff you could learn from the movies, or any one of the teen vampire romance shows. Vampires are tough, fast, strong and viscous. They’ve got weird mind-control powers, too. Not much hurts them, but sunlight and any kind of moving water can take them out. If we get in a fight our best bet is silver.

“Too bad,” I say “I left my mother's silver flatware in my other pants.”

“Wood works too,” he says.

“We don’t have any of that, either,” I answer.

Susan clears her throat. “I recognized the topography on that map he showed us. We’re in the southeast corner of New Mexico. Near Gila National Forest.” This is news to all of us. We were brought here in blacked out transports, and the prison has no windows.

Susan continues. “If we get outside I can probably find us some wood.” Five minutes later, she says she sees some light ahead. The crawl space comes to a small opening, about five feet off the ground. We drop down one by one. It’s a moonless night, but halogens on the prison walls light up the surroundings. Looks like Susan could be right. It’s a desert out here. There’s a sparse and rocky forest in the distance, but everything for a quarter mile out from the walls.

We hear footsteps above us. We hear guards talking as they patrol the upper wall. We cling to the shadows. Luis times how long it takes before the next patrol passes. He shakes his head. “We’ll never make that without being seen,” Luis whispers. Just then we hear a commotion from around the other side of the walls. “Vamps!” someone shouts. “Vamps! West side! West side!” We hear feet run the opposite way from us, along the top of the walls, and then the sound of gunfire.

“Best chance we’ll get,” I say.

“If they see us, and start shooting, run in a zig-zag,” Luis offers.

Then we sprint for it.

We make it to the tree line just as the fire fight begins to die down, and turn in time to see a pale-skinned, half-naked mob charging the walls, heedless of their companions torn apart by the guards’ high-powered rail guns. A few break free of the rest and begin scaling the walls. They make it most of the way up before the guards get in a few lucky headshots, then spray the pile of bodies below them with heavy fire for good measure. Then everything is quiet.

“I wonder if they used silver ammo,” Susan says.

“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t think I’d spray bullets that wild if I was using such expensive rounds.”

Luis shakes his head. “You might if you were scared enough.”

There’s a long silence, then Susan gets to work breaking branches off the nearest tree, and fashioning them into primitive spears and knives. She even manages to split one along its edge to make a crude sword for Luis. “Not pretty,” she says. “But it’s better than nothing.”

“Which way?” I ask.

She points.

“Lead the way,” Luis says, and we disappear into the night.

Susan does her best to lead us along a path that we’ll keep us clear from the prison’s line of sight, while still sticking to the high ground so we can see any vamps coming. That’s not a sentence I ever expected to write. We’re all a little jittery. Every couple of minutes one of us calls a halt when we hear some cricket chirping or owl hooting. We can’t afford these stops. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover before sunrise. I don’t want to meet the warden’s guards anymore than I’m looking to bump into a blood sucker.

After a while, boredom sets in, and we share whispered speculation about our current situation.

“You guys know Phillips is a wizard, right?” Susan asks.

Luis chuckles. I roll my eyes.

“No, think about it. He obviously doesn’t want his higher ups to know about this mission. He doesn’t give us any equipment that could be traced back to him. He’s going to blow our brains out if anyone catches us. And he puts out an APB, so we’ll stay away from CS towns. So, why does he need us? I’m guessing that the hard drive is his. He was probably part of the coven-”

“Enclave,” Luis corrects her.

“Right, whatever. Anyway, he had to duck out for some reason. And he figured the best place to hide from wizards was in the middle of a nation that persecutes and hates magic. But he left in such a hurry, he forgot the hard drive. Maybe it’s his spell book. Or maybe it’s got some info that can out him to the wizards. Or to the CS. So, he needs someone expendable to retrieve it. Some one whose involvement can’t point back to him. We’re his suicide squad.”

“Suicide Squad?” Luis asks.

“It’s a movie. Federal agent uses a bunch of convicts to carry out a mission the government needs deniability on,” she says.

“Oh,” Luis answers. “Like The Dirty Dozen.”

“Man, I wish there were twelve of us,” I say, “We’re the Dirty Quarter Dozen.”

Luis laughs, then strokes his chin. “You know, if you’re right Susy-”

“-Susan,” she corrects him.

“Sure. Susan. But if you’re right, and I’m not saying you are, but if you’re right, that might give us another way out of this besides playing the Warden’s game.”

“You mean we could try and double cross him with the wizards?” I smirk.

“It was a wizard who sent me here,” Luis says. “Maybe they could get us back.”

“I’m not sure I want to go back,” Susan says. “At least here no one here thinks I’m just paranoid.”

“Oh,” I smile. “I think you’re paranoid. But you might be right too.”

She chuckles. “One thing’s for sure, if I was in Phillip’s place, I’d want to keep an eye on us. We should assume there could be spies anywhere.”

“There’s a spy right here,” Luis says and taps his chest with a wink.

“Whatever,” Susan says. “I’m just saying, we should be careful who we talk to.”

“That’s always good advice,” he agrees. “How far away was the wizard’s compound on the map?”

She scrunches her face. “About eight hundred miles. It’s in Wyoming.”

“That was the middle of nowhere even in our time,” I say. “I can’t imagine what it’s like post-apocalypse.”

Luis frowns. “Eight hundred miles. We can’t count on making a deal with the wizards. So we have to plan to be back to the drop site by the end of sixty days. How far is the drop from the wizard’s compound?”

“Another seven hundred miles,” Susan says.

“Fifteen hundred miles?” I say. “In sixty days? That’s twenty five miles a day. And no margin for error. We need to steal a ride.”

“We can figure out transportation once we get to Santa Prisca. But first things first, we got to get there in one piece.”

“We should pick up the pace,” Susan says. “I don’t want to get caught by any blood suckers out here.”

That ‘s when the first vamp attacks. They fly in from the shadows so fast, I barely see them coming. Thankfully there are only three. Even odds, I guess. Except for the fact that they’re, you know, vampires. Fortunately, they seem to underestimate us. I can’t blame them. Under the circumstances, we look like easy marks. I’ve fought stronger opponents before. I keep my guard up and go for a quick kill.

It doesn't go as easy as I’d hoped. He get me by the throat, and licks his lips. From somewhere behind him I hear Susan chanting in some language I’ve never heard. Inanely, I remember her talking about this at the mess hall. It’s her “Tibetan Battle Trance.” I rolled my eyes when she said it. She sounded like a soccer mom who’s convinced she’s Bruce Lee now because she took three lessons of Tae Bo. Here’s hoping she’s not just full of it. I’ve got my own problems to deal with.

My vamp bares his fangs and goes for the jugular. I manage to get my “knives” free, and make a double slash across his gut. Seems to do the trick. He falls over clutching his abdomen. I know better than to sit back and watch. I jump on him and keep stabbing until he stops moving, then look up to see if Luis and Susan need help. They don’t.

Luis decapitates his vamp with smooth, un-showy slices of the “sword” Susan made him. I guess he wasn’t joking about Japanese swordsmanship. Susan ducks and weaves, and then nails her vamp with a quick triple jab to the heart. Guess she wasn’t full of it either.

Nice to know everyone in the team can fight. Still, can’t take anything for granted. We got lucky, and we all know it. Then, our luck runs out.

A fourth vamp steps out of the shadows. “Stop.” He says, and his voice seems to vibrate through my whole body. My arms go limp at my sides. I hear the two wooden knives fall to the ground. I can’t move. Susan and Luis stand stock still, looking just as helpless, their weapons in the dirt beside them.

The vamp smiles. He doesn’t look anything like the feral man-beasts we just killed. “You will stand still and watch, as I drain you each dry.” And with a stomach churning queasiness, I know I will do exactly as he asks.

He steps toward Luis grins and bears his fangs. Suddenly Susan lunges, snatching Luis’ sword off the ground and drawing it cleaning across the vamp's throat. His eyes bulge wide in surprise. We all grab weapons pin him, stabbing frantically in our fear.

A moment later, it’s over.

“How did you do that?” I ask Susan between pants of catching my breath.

“Mind hardening,” she taps the side of her head. “It’s a trick I learned from the Scientologist. Don’t worry, I got out before they could E-meter me.”

There’s some kind of commotion coming up the ridge toward us: the sound of dozens of feet running fast. Inhumanly fast.

“Crud,” Luis says. “What I wouldn’t give for some water or sunlight right now.”

“Water,” Susan says suddenly. She looks around, closes her eyes, then points down the other side of the ridge. There should be a stream down there. It leads to Santa Prisca.”

We take off running, careening and sliding down the ridge, with the sound of dozens of vampires hooting and howling behind us. I turn back once to see. They look like a wave, cresting down the hillside behind us. There must be a hundred of them. And they’re gaining on us. We make it down to the stream just as they’re about to overtake us. One grabs the collar of my shirt. I hear the fabric tear as I dive for the water. It’s only about twenty feet across, and not more than three feet deep, but true to Luis’ intelligence, they stop dead in their tracks at the banks, snarling and gnashing their teeth.

I wonder if the water blocks that mind control trick the one vamp tried, if it doesn't, what's to stop them from just telling us to walk ourselves out to be eaten? I never find out. None of them try it. But a minute or two later, another group of vamps runs up on the far bank, pinning us in on both sides.

“Nowhere to go but forward-” Susan points, and we stumble along the creek bed. They vamps follow us all through the night, taunting us every step of the way. Now and again they pick up rocks and take pot shots at us. Mostly their aim is terrible, but they get in a few lucky shots. After a couple hours we all got bruises and cuts to show for it. I’m a little worried about how much blood we might be losing.

A couple times, the creek narrows, and the vamps press in close. We go single file, and turn sideways to keep out of their reach. Once, one of them swipes at me. His claws pass so close I feel the wind of them rush across my cheek. I wonder if we’ll make it.

And then, suddenly, a murmur passes through the mob, and all at once, they take off running.

Susan points towards the slight lightening at the edges of the sky. “Sunrise is coming. And we’re almost there.”

Another hour later and the first rays of sunlight hit us. Thirty minutes after that, we drag ourselves out the stream, in front of a small town with corrugated steel walls, and, if you believe it, a moat. A man in a robot suit walks out to meet us. The first greeting we get from Santa Prisca comes staring down the barrel of his laser rifle. Cute town.

Next entry: Session 2-Sweet Town. Nice People
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Re: Campaign Journal: A Dirty Quarter Dozen

Unread post by riftsnewbie »

Session 2-Sweet Town. Nice People

After making a midnight escape from prison and high-tailing it from vampires until sunrise, we arrive beaten, bloodied and sopping wet at the front gate of Santa Prisca, only to find ourselves staring down the barrel of a robot-armored guard’s laser rifle. Introduces himself as Sheriff Santos. Of course he wants to know who we are and what we’re doing here. He asks in Spanish. I’ve been brushing up on mine since I got here.

He asks in For a minute, I think about lying. But then I remember how Warden Philllips said these guys shoot CS uniforms on sight. I punt for the truth. Most of it anyway.

“We escaped from St. Lawrence last night. We’ve been running from the vampires since midnight.”

He smiles, and for a minute, I think we’re in the clear. Then I hear a click and whine as he powers up the capacitor on his rifle, “What were you in for?”

I look to Luis and Susan for some cue. Susan just nods.

“We just showed up from out of town. That’s all. The CS didn’t like that.”

He yanks the shoulder up to his shoulder and stares at me down the sights. “You D-Bees?”

I wish I knew what that meant.

Luis answers for me. I didn’t know he spoke Spanish too, but I’m not surprised. “Not D-Bees. We’re human. Just from off-world.” Guess I should’ve paid more attention in the mess hall.

“And they locked you up for it?”

We all nod.

“Show me see your digits then.”

They tatt-ed us with serial numbers when we arrived at the prison. Make sense those facist #&*^$ would be taking their cues from Hitler and friends. I was pissed though. It ruined the sleeve of my Triad ink. Still, now’s not the time to argue tattoo styling. We push out our cuffs and show him.

He shoulders his rifle, disengages a magnetic link on his gauntlet, and pulls it free. A line of tattooed numbers runs down his wrist. “Grant still the warden there?”

I shake my head. “Some guy named Phillips.”

He nods. “Just checking. Phillips was the warden when I was there too. That guy’s a #$%*.” He frowns and narrows his eyes at us. “Alright. Get up and dust yourselves off. You’re coming inside.”

He waves toward the gate. I guess someone’s watching, because it opens. He marches in. But I notice he keeps us ahead of him, with the rifle pointed at our backs. The gates close behind us and we get our first good look at Santa Prisca. It’s small, but not tiny. I’d guess there’s about a thousand people here. It’s a mix of solid concrete construction, steel lean-tos and a few old spanish colonial buildings peppered in. Susan points out the roof gardens, rain collection systems and solar panels approvingly. “Self-sufficiency,” she says. “That’s the way to do it.”

Santos nods. “It’s the only way to keep the CS out of our business.”

“You speak English?” I ask.

“Never said I didn’t,” he answers. “Keep walking.”

He brings us a run-down looking trailer. A heavy-set woman in a faded pin-stripe suit steps out.

“This is Ms. Franklin,” Santos says. “She’s in charge here.”
“Who’s this hot mess?” She asks.

“They escaped from St. Lawrence last night. Just barely made it away from the vamps,” Santos answers.

“You trust them?”

Santos looks us over. “Maybe.”

“Could be trouble, taking in CS convicts.”

“You’ve done it before,” he winks.

“Yeah,” she says. “But you had something to offer.”

“Maybe we have something to offer too-” Luis says. “We’re not looking to stay. We’re on our way north. We just need to supplies. Maybe we can make a trade.”

She looks us up and down. “What kind of supplies.”

“Food, water.” Susan says. “Transportation with fuel.”

“Maybe some weapons and ammo,” I say, before looking over Santo’s robot suit and adding, “and armor too, if you’ve got it.”

“That’s quite a grocery list,” she says. “What you got that’s worth that much?”

“What do you need?” Luis asks.

She laughs. “Unless one of you is a mechanical genius, nothing you can offer.”

I raise my hand. She lifts an eyebrow at me. Turns out there’s a problem with the moat around the town. It’s fed from the river, but a system of pumps and turbines keeps it flowing in a circle. That’s essential because it only stops the vamps if the water’s running. Something happened to the system a couple hours ago and it shut down. I offer to take a look. Ms. Franklin shrugs, “nothing to lose, I guess.” She nods to Santos. “Show them.”

The pump system is shot. “This wasn’t an accident,” I say after giving it a once over. “Damage is too extensive, too specific. This was sabotage. Why wasn’t anyone working on this already?” I ask.

“We had an operator, Raul, who takes care of this stuff,” Santo’s face grows dark. “But he got some kind of sickness last night. We’ve got him quarantined.”

“Quite an unfortunate coincidence.” Luis says. “Can I see him? I’m a doctor.”

Santos agrees.

“You got this?” Luis asks me.

“Maybe. I’ll need tools, and parts.”

“I can get you Raul’s tools,” Santos says. “But we don’t have much in the way of spare parts.”

“You got any scrap? Junked machinery? I pretty good at improvising.”

He nods, and assigns a deputy to get me what I need.

“Work fast,” Luis says, as he and Susan head out to check on Raul. Just what I need. More pressure. It’s a long day of work, with a lot of fabricating and jury-rigging. It doesn’t help that I haven’t slept. But just as the sun gets high, I fire up the system for a test run and hear the waters of the moat happily sloshing in the course. The end result isn’t pretty, but it should hold for a good while. Santo shows up and slaps me appreciatively on the shoulder, then leads me back to Raul's house where Susan and Luis are at.

Luis diagnosed pretty quickly that Raul wasn’t sick, he’d been poisoned. From the symptoms, he was able to narrow it down to three possible toxins. With that diagnosis, Susan was able to search out a few herbal remedies from the local plant life surrounding Santa Prisca, which Luis distilled into an antidote. Raul seems on his way to make recovery, but it will be a few days before he’s on his feet.

Now that he’s out of the woods, Luis asks Santos if we can help track down this saboteur/assassin.

“I’ve got some experience with intelligence work.”

“You guys are just full of help today, aren’t you?” Santos narrows his eyes at us.

“I know it seems awfully lucky,” Susan smiles. “And honestly, I’m usually the last person to say this, but sometimes coincidences are just coincidences. We just want to help.”

“Alright,” he says, cautiously.

Raul's just coming to. Luis takes the lead talking with him about what happened.

Turns out, when he was finishing maintenance on the pumps last night, a delivery girl from the cantina came along with his dinner. Wasn’t any of the usual staff he recognized. She said she was new. Santa Prisca is cautious with outsiders, but they do bring in new folk from time to time, so he didn’t think much of it. Twenty minutes later, he collapsed on his way home.

He can't remember what the delivery girl looked like, but he says the food definitely was from the cantina. He knows the taste of it.

We head over there to ask around. It smells amazing inside, so we don't argue when Santos offers to buy us lunch. Aftee we order, he goes to bring the owner to our table.

"Is it really a good idea to eat at the same place that poisoned Raul?" Susan asks.

Luis shakes his head. "That was a targeted poisoning. And he said the girl was new. She's probably gone already."

Susan looks skeptical, but when our waiter brings out the soup it smells so good she forgets her suspicions. The owner sits down a moment later.

He says they did hire a new delivery girl yesterday, but she disappeared halfway through her shift. She didn't even come back to get paid. He says she looked like she was from the east side of Santa Prisca: it's a shanty town where new comers stay until they can find something more permanent. Says he doesn't remember much else about her. Susan asks for a piece of paper and something to write with. She talks the owner through what the girl looked like and makes a sketch. I'm impressed. She's a good artist. Santos offers to let us make copies at the office.

We head over to the east side and start asking around. Its slow going. The girl must be very new to Santa Prisca, seems like nobody's seen her before. Doesn't help that no one seems to trust us. Still, Luis puts his charm to work, and we keep pounding the pavement. Eventually someone points us to a makeshift tent in the corner of the shanty town. Apparently the girl showed up just a week ago and mostly keeps to herself. And she's a real night owl. Susan raises an eyebrow at this detail.

Sure enough, when Santos check the tent, the girl inside bares her fangs and lunges. She's no tougher than the vamps we faced last night, and this time it's four to one, and we've got daylight on our side. The fight doesn't last long.

I dust off my hands. 'Well, that's taken care of."

"Don't be so sure," Santos answers. He leads us back to Ms. Franklin's office.

'I agree with Santos," she says. "The vamps can seem savage, but they're cunning. Organized. They were plotting to sabotage for a reason. They'll be attacking in force tonight."

"So?" I say. "The moat will keep them out, right?"

"They're too smart to put all their eggs in one basket. They'll have a backup plan," she turns to Santos. "Get all the deputies suited up. Volunteers too. Anybody who can hold a weapon. Curfew for everyone else. Indoors and locked up by nightfall." He nods and leaves.

Then she looks at us. "You've helped us today. A lot. But it's not over. Tonight's going to be an all-hands on deck situation. And it sounds like you know how to handle yourselves. So I tell you what. Help us with this fight. And if we survive until morning, I'll get you a week's worth of food water, a vehicle and some weapons and armor. I'll even throw in a some credits for traveling money."

We look to one another for confirmation and nod in agreement.

She checks her watch. "It's almost three. We've got about four hours until dusk. You might want to take a nap."

"Actually," Luis says. "Can I take a look at the area outside the town? I've got experience with military tactics. I might be able to offer some advice."

She shrugs. "Suit yourself."

Luis sizes up the battle field pretty quickly. "I'm thinking this is where they'll come at us." He points. "The terrain is flat on both sides of the moat. The could bring a vehicle in this way. Something big. And the moat is at its narrowest there."

Susan snaps her fingers. "A siege engine. They’re going to come at us with some kind of portable bridge."

"That's what I'm thinking," Luis nods.

I have a sudden flash of inspiration. “Come, on. We need to talk to Ms. Franklin again. I’ll explain on the way.”

I ask Ms. Franklin what they have in the way of explosives. Unfortunately, they’re short on heavy artillery and the like. But they do have a cache of dynamite they picked up from an abandoned mine nearby. It’s old, and likely unstable, but it should work for what I’ve got planned. I ask Santos if there are any junked robot suits like his. Turns out there are a couple. I only need one. I learned when I got here that a lot of the robots are powered by micro-fusion reactors. You can jury-rig them into a crude bomb, if you know how. Like the pump, it’s ugly, but it gets the job done.

Ms. Franklin assigns us a crew to get the work done for my plan. One thing I’ll say about Santa Priscans, they’re not afraid of putting in the elbow grease. Susan and Luis direct the crew while I handle the technical bits. We finish up right around six. We’re exhausted, but there’s not time to rest. Santos send us to get outfitted.

There are a few other folks with robot suits (“power armor” they correct me.) But most of us are down to some kind of high-grade ceramic breastplates. Front the nicks and chips, it looks like they’ve seen plenty of action.

Their weapons are mostly wooden knives and conventional firearms with silver tipped ammo.

“How do you afford this?” I ask Santos.

“We’ll pull silver from the mine we found. But supply is still short. We recover the rounds from any vamp we take out, and melt them down again.”

“Who gets stuck with that job?” I ask.

Santos smiles, wickedly. “Not job. A privilege.”

I remind myself not to get on his bad side.

We’re all in place by seven. Then the waiting begins. I start to think they won’t show up. Finally, about an hour after sunset, we hear a low rumble growing in the distance, the pounding of feet at a sprint. Then we see them, not dozens, but hundreds of vamps. And, at the rear of them, something that looks like a slow-rumbling cross between a tank and a construction crane: Susan’s portable bridge.

Luis had the idea of leaving the moat off for the time being, luring them into a false sense of triumph. Sure enough, as they approach, they slow for a moment, to check, before charging the waters. Thankfully the pumps start up fast. We catch a few dozen of them in the current. It’s freaky watching them scream as they boil away into nothing. We take potshots at the rest as they back off from the moat waiting for the siege engine to arrive.

This is the crucial part. As it rumbles into place, they clamber on board, like rats swarming, eager to cross the moat and feast on us. We wait, The Santa Prisca deputies drive them back from the front of the tank with suppression fire. Just as the mechanized bridge crosses over to our side, Luis jumps aboard running out to meet the horde, drops the satchel charge micro-nuke I threw together in the middle of the bridge and takes off running to our side. I blow the detonator as soon as he’s across.

It’s not pretty. A few Santa Priscans get caught in the heat and shrapnel of the blast. I only hope the body armor offers them some protection. Luis gets tossed clear from the force of the explosion. It throws him against the walls of Santa Prisca. But I see him stumble to his feet a moment later. He may have to treat himself for a concussion in the morning.

The bridge collapses into the waters of the moat, taking a mob of vamps with it. The rest find themselves stranded on the other side.

Now comes phase two. I hit the detonator on the dynamite we buried, now behind the vampire’s force. They're mostly clear of the blast area, but blowing them up wasn’t the plan anyway. The explosions carve a channel from the river to the moat. The water surges in. The moats overflows, but that’s not a problem for us. The main force of vamps are now trapped on an artificial island with moving water all around. Some panic, frenzied, and charge into the waters. They bubble into nothing like alka-seltzer in a glass. You probably don’t have Alka-Seltzer here. I’ll explain it later.

A couple dozen vamps make it across the bridge. The deputies and the three of us charge into the fray. Susan does her tibetan-battle-chant thing again. Luis cuts through them, swinging two, silver plated swords Santos dug up for him. I spin through the mob, guns akimbo spraying the silver bullets Santa Prisca hooked me up with. Two deputies fall. Susan’s arm gets torn off. She takes it with a creepy stoicism, ties off the wound with a tourniquet made from her sleeve, and keeps fighting. Somehow, we manage to take them all down.

While we bandage our wounded, and collect our dead, Santos directs the surviving deputies and volunteers to surround the little island we’ve made. The few vamps who found themselves on the other side of the channel take off running. We keep the rest of the vamps penned in on their little patch of dirt through the night. The first rays of morning’s light burn them all to dust.

We get Susan to the clinic for proper medical attention. Once he’s confirmed, to his satisfaction, that the local body-fixer is reasonably competent, not just some butcher with a fake degree, he and I just collapse asleep in the waiting room.

When we come to, we’re shocked to see Susan alive and well, with two whole arms. She explains its a cybernetic prosthetic. Very life-like, but when I take a second look, I can see the skin color doesn’t match. She doesn’t seem to mind. She’s actually looks a little giddy about it.

Ms. Franklin shows up with take out from the cantina. I didn’t think I could possibly eat this much. Ms. Franklin sends a deputy back to the cantina to bring us seconds. She thanks us. The vamps will be back, she says. “They always come back.” But this was a big blow to them. Santa Prisca will get a long respite. “And boy did we all need a rest. You kept your side of the bargain. We’ll keep ours.”

She leads us to the edge of town, where Santos has prepared our send off. He’s got some kind of armored truck for us. It’s seen plenty of action, but everything seems to work. Most importantly, the nuclear micro-plant still has a good six months of fuel left. The back is packed with sterilized water and field rations. It’s mostly some kind of dried grain and protein bars they’ve made from their rooftop gardens. They don’t taste awful, but I expect we might need to find some laxatives at some point. There’s a set of decent body armor for each of us, and a small assortment of blaster guns and vibro-blades. Ms. Franklin doesn’t let us keep any of the silver. It’s too important for Santa Prisca’s defense. She says we shouldn’t have too much trouble with the vamps if we’re heading north anyway. But she does hand us each pair of wooden knives, “Just in case,” she says.

Santos gives us each a bear hug. I’d swear he’s even stronger without that robot-suit on. The deputies line up and offer a salute. Ms. Franklin shakes our hands, and presses a credit chip into Luis’ hand. “Four hundred’s all we could spare. Don’t spend it all in one place.” We load up. Luis drives. Susan takes shotgun.

“Which way?” he asks.

Susan points. “Northward ho.”

Luis hits the gas. As we pull away from Santa Prisca, I catch sight of a man, standing apart from the others. He seems out of place. I watch him put two fingers to his ear and say something. When I crane my neck for a better look, he’s gone.

[This post brings us up to date. We’ve got another play session tonight. I’ll try and post the journal some time in the next week.]
EliBenedict
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Re: Campaign Journal: A Dirty Quarter Dozen

Unread post by EliBenedict »

This is fun to read. Keep it coming.

It sounds like you've got a good GM . Smal note, in Palladium games we call them GM's (for Game Master) rather than DMs.
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Rifter11
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Re: Campaign Journal: A Dirty Quarter Dozen

Unread post by Rifter11 »

Looking forward to the next installment!
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