Thursday, December 28, 2006

Table Settings

We start in the midst of battle - the good guys versus the turrets.

Grarwarr continues his downward spiral towards the bunker at the bottom of the cavern on the AoD. He is joined shortly by Joruss. He makes it just in time to absorb a nasty shot from the lower turret.

Meanwhile-1, Mater Dee and Boppa make their various ways to the pillars with turrets. Both heroes have lightsabers, and mean to use the Universal Cutting Tool (UCT) setting.

Meanwhile-2, Bar Bar looks up to see a suited figure with a large staff-like weapon coming down the wall at him - it unwisely tries to use fear to cause Bar Bar to lose confidence in his abilities. With a snear (or the Gungan equivalent - more like a squint) Bar Bar embraces the darkside and shrugs off the attempt. Beaker, seeing the foolish force user, starts plugging away with his sniper rifle.

Realizing that fear is not going to cut it, the new force using opponent opts for the time honored tradition of physical violence, and promptly whacks Bar Bar with a large stick. Bar Bar responds with his own time honored attack of pulling the foes helmets off, but in this case the foe resists. Beaker, not believing in some "all powerful force controlling his destiny", promptly shoots a large hole in both the foes suit and person.

At the bottom of the cavern, Grarwarr flies onto a rage at his inability too breakdown a simple door, and is promptly stunned by the lone inhabitant of the bunker who unwisely opens the door. By this time, Joruss has landed, and a short fight ensues. The gunman gets in a grenade blast before Joruss ends his pointless existence (another multi-page backstory gone to waste).

Boppa and Mater Dee have now made slag of their respective turrets, and Boppa pushes off for the bottom of the cavern to help Grarwarr, while Mater Dee collects up parts from the destroyed speeder and turret (git-r-done Mater).

Bar Bar gives up on the helmet removal, and pushes off towards the bottom of the cavern and starts throwing boomers. Beaker keeps plugging away as the foe moves back and up towards one of the pillars to try and hide and repair a leaky suit. Neither task goes especially well, as Beaker and Bar Bar both keep shooting and throwing boomers.

Meanwhile-3, the group at the bottom of the cavern revive Grarwarr, who takes over computer operations from Joruss. And a good thing to as Joruss was about to use the UCT setting on his lightsaber on the computer after it teased him for his lack of appropriate skill ranks.

Up at the top of the cavern, the remaining foe decides that leaving is the best possible idea, and disappears up a previously unknown tunnel. Beaker, Joruss, Bar Bar, and Boppa take exception to a foe leaving the battle still breathing and go off in pursuit. Not seeing anything in the escape tunnel, Joruss moves to the end, and cuts a large hole in the hatch. Bar Bar moves through the hole and is promptly smacked by the stick wielding foe. Force illusions are exchanged between Boppa, and the foe, but both have little or no effect (except for Beaker who could have sworn he saw a black Star Destroyer - if only for about six seconds). Regardless, Beaker and Joruss make their way out of the tunnel, engage the foe in battle, and are soon victorious.

While the group at the top of the cavern take out their aggresive tendencies on the remaining foe, Grarwarr has found some interesting details in the computer system of the bunker.

In no particular order:

*************

The crystal was removed about 20 years ago. This corresponds with the rise of Blakhole as leader of the imperial secret service, and comes a little before the bombardment of the planet Camaas.

The Singularity - Blackholes personal star Destroyer - is scheduled to arrive in 6 hours.

A shuttle for the Singularity is stashed in the asteroid belt, and can be remotely operated from this bunker.

Authentication codes to get the shuttle onto the singularity are stored in the computer in the bunker.

**********

The group decides to collect everyone and meet back at their ship in the docking bay to discuss their options. Should they take the shuttle and infiltrate the Singularity? Should they try and blow it up either remotely or as part of a suicide attack? Should they run? What should they do about the impending bombardment of the planet? What should they have for lunch? Does this black armor make me look fat?

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Inside Outside Upside Down

The party takes stock of the situation and their original goal of capturing/destroying the force crystal that they had when they first arrived on the AoD

Just then, they recieve a message from R2 that a couple of badguys are sneaking up on them from the outside of the AoD. Beaker, Joruss, and Grarwarr go out to investigate.

BarBar orders R2 to "take them out" and R2 fires a laser turret on the Y-wing and hits them, dislodging them from the AoD.

As the group outside the ship move to attack, an explosion yakes out the inner door to the landing bay

Bar Bar and Boppa man turrets while Mater Dee - feeling a bit peckish - makes a sandwich

One free floating badguy throws the other at Joruss and hits. Unfortunately, the thrower is pasted, and drifts off leaking air.

Boppa and Bar Bar make rubble out of door while Mater Dee makes toast.

After two failed attempts, and a couple minor beatings - Joruss removes the badguys helmet, while Grarwarr and Beaker snipe holes in him.

Just up the wall from the landing bay door, a hole appears and through it steps an incredibly menacing meticulously prepared (including 18 page backstory) Dark Jedi. She is immediately reduced to a small greasy stain on the wall behind her, except for her lightsaber which slowly floats to the floor of the landing bay.

About this time two more black suited figures appear sneaking into the landing bay. Mater Deetakes his sandwich and moves to the shuttle bay.

The two new attackers are immediately sniped/assaulted by various party members, and ship weapons.

One survives the initial onslaught and gets into the Y-wing landing bay. BarBar observes him placing thermal detonators on the door.

Mater Dee and BarBar coordinate on opening the door, and force moving the Thermal detonators out of the landing bay. Unfortunately, in a fate worse than death, Mater Dee's sandwich escapes into space, and eventually burns to a cinder as it spirals into the sun. Unknown to our heroes, the mayo on the sandwich had developed some peculiar organic properties after being left out on the counter by a careless Ugnaut. If left alone, on a nice warm dry planet or moon, they had the possibility to develop into a race of such dignity, poise and charisma, that they could have ushered in a new and lasting era of peace and prosperity for all sentient beings in the universe. Alas, they were cruelly and carelessly incinerated by a the heat of a star. Or they would probably just have been eaten.

This leaves the lone badguy in a less than defensible spot, a mistake that he pays for with his life.

One last badguy peaks in the hole in the landing bay carved by the now infamous jedi grease spot - becoming a grease spot himself thanks to Boppa's excellent ability with a laser turret.

With the current threat contained, and a nice collection of black armor, the party settled in for some healing.

After considering their options, another expedition to the center of the AoD commenced. The site of the last slugg battle passes uneventfully, and as they progresse deeper into the AoD, the feeling of darkness and dread groes in the hearts of those sensitive to the force. After a few minutes of weaving through tunnels, Joruss (with a little help from the force) spots the dark circular entrance to a large cavern that he guesses is near the center of the AoD.

The two swoop bikes are idled while Beaker, Boppa, and Joruss move cautiously toward the entrance. This approach lasts approximately 6 seconds. Bar Bar uses the force to rush directly into the room and is promptly captured by a net that was waiting to trap the first being through the entrance. Abandoning all hope of stealth everyone moves to the entrance of the tunnel.

They are confronted with a large egg shaped cavern with four stone pillars extruding from the top and a matching set protruding from the bottom. At first glance, it looks like they should meet in the center of the cavern, but something or someone removed their center sections. Placed on one of the top and one of the bottom stone pillars are matching laser turrets. Lastly on the "bottom" of the chamber is a man-made structure that looks like a small square bunker. It is on the "floor" of the chamber between the four pillars.

Grarwarr, with Mater Dee as a passenger, speeds into the chamber on his swoop bike, and promptly has it shot from under him by one of the turrets. Beaker begins sniping at one of the turrets, while Boppa uses the force to whip stray parts of the swoop bike around another.

Bar Bar uses his shiny new red lightsaber to cut his way free of the net. And Mater Dee decides to try and use gravity as his friend to send Grarwarr towards the "bottom" of the cavern to see what mayhem he can cause.

We will rejoin our heroes as they work their way out of this predicament...next week.