Rooster barges into the breakroom at Ransom & Salvage world headquarters with a priority two mission. Bizzle reckons priority two means either less urgent or more urgent than priority one, but either way there is no time to sort out the priority schedule because magic is popping and Orcs are hopping at the old Craig-the-Insidious ruin site and it’s up to team Nanstringbatstachbiz to discover the whyfors.
Only the financial experts at BDO could say whether every last penny of R&S revenue goes toward novelty vehicles, but Epi Glottis, the corkscrew-bearded R&S restoration chief, leads the team aboard the Big Uranium Redstone Powered Ship (B.U.R.P.S.), a restored hovering frigate with at least ten undocumented levers and a fearsome bow-mounted tesla coil. The adventurers are introduced to their salt-seasoned parity crewmates: Nanny to Purple, Batty to Green, Strings to Orange, Stache to Blue, Bizzle to Red. Epi Glottis encourages reckless discovery of the ship’s functions and expeditiously excuses himself a safe distance over the horizon.
Nanny, not one to pick up a piano bench, gives lever one a shove. Struts extend from the sides, top, and bottom of the BURPS and an arc of electricity rings the ship. The arc introduces himself as Jeff the Elemental and reveals he has a password which may or may not let him loose to kill everyone on board. Guessing begins immediately and a number of default passwords are quickly ruled out: “guest”, “password”, “linksys”, “”. Strings and Nanny deduce lever one must be constantly managed or, again, risk Jeff killing everyone on board. Even for a flying frigate named BURPS, Jeff seems like a strange feature.
Batty heads below deck and gives lever two a try, opening the port portholes. Less exciting than Jeff, but also far less dangerous. Strings finds the captain’s quarters and locates the operating manual, but the lever page has been inconsiderately torn away. Bizzle gapes at the coil, unable to discern its purpose, and sends Red to bug Nanny just for fun.
Stache finds his berth, A1, and naps amidst an arrangement of twenty green-corded bags. Batty follows him down and locates crates and barrels which might contain provisions and home furnishings. Strings, consulting the manual, commands the ship forward and the BURPS launches toward the ruins. An engraved plate on steering wheel seven proclaims the ship’s legacy identity, Quicksilver, reminding Strings of the Quicksilver painting liberated from Sune’s Muse on a previous mission. That painting featured an air ship, much like the BURPS, named Quicksilver, much like the BURPS, fending off attacking dragons, much like, uh oh. Expectations hang thickly from the synchronicity.
Time passes dragon-free until Strings perceives a fiery noise from aft and spies one large ship and maybe ten attending smaller ships manned by Orcs in pursuit. Bizzle heels to starboard to line up a broadside volley into the enemy fleet. Nanny scoops up a deck orb, in accordance with the operator’s manual, and scores a critical shot destroying a small ship named Bob. Stache uses another deck orb to knock away small ship George’s ballista-aiming Orc and Stache’s enslaved crewman, Blue, uses a deck orb to finish off George. Batty can see from the cannon deck below that the starboard orbs are lined up on the enemy fleet and activates lever four to destroy small ship Billy Bob.
Bizzle continues the starboard turn directly into the onrushing fleet and Red activates lever ten despite the numerous warning labels. The bow coil inhales energy and spits a tremendous wave at the big ship Big Ben. Enemy ballistas answer with flaming bolts and three fires ignite on the BURPS deck. Strings finds a magic bucket and a 0.5 mil emergency glass he breaks to activate the bucket. By aiming the bucket and commanding “water” to toggle its operation, he extinguishes the flames. He passes the bucket around and the fires are kept at bay. Nanny incinerates Duke and Stache critically hits Weasel, an empty ship careening kamikaze fashion at the BURPS.
When the coil fails to reload immediately, Bizzle swings back to port and the readied starboard orb cannons send another volley. Small ship Sicko crashes to pieces, Nanny destroys retreating Jeffry, and crewman Green wipes out Jean with another volley. Sidney, Bobby, and Big Ben escape.
The last remaining fires are extinguished and the BURPS resumes its mission to the ruins. Batty has a look at the crates and barrels and determines they magically produce whatever sustenance the user requests. An innocent-looking cat materializes, as innocent-looking cats tend to do at supper time, and Nanny determines its name is Tabby.
BURPS lands at the ruins and the union crewmen stay aboard while the team deploys with Tabby. Tabby bites Batty and infects her with Feline Lycanthropy giving her werecat powers and, when transformed, seal point appearance. Confusion abounds when Tabby joins a shield line of Orcs forming in front of the ruins. Did Tabby mean to hurt Catty Batty, or make her more awesome than ever?
Bizzle knows a four quarter Orc when he slices into one and that happens next when both scimitars strike Three into the dust. Strings sings an inspiring ditty to Nanny and lights his lute on fire in the finest tradition of his vocation. Nanny dashes cunningly to the adjacent Orc and manages to skewer him while Batty’s flurry of cat claws drops him, catatonic.
More Orcs and Orogs fill in the shield wall and attack anything that approaches including Batty who happens to be standing where the wall forms. Bizzle reckons Tabby must be in charge and starts wailing on him. Strings strategically hypnotizes a half dozen of the walling Orcs. Nanny, with Batty’s distraction, sneak attacks Pink who never knew what hit him. Stache sprays poison on Blue and Batty kills One with a triple hit before stepping to poisoned Blue. Blue can see the score through poison-drenched eyes and disengages along with Tabby, retreating to hide in the ruins. Nanny runs after Blue and spies a crack of light beneath a pillar. Forced to leave behind the hypnotized Orcs to awaken and fight another day, the team enters the underground complex beneath the pillar.
Two Orogs, Purple and Yellow, guard the two doors from this hidden foyer. A taunting voice, sounding a little like Craig were he not already for sure, without a doubt, positively dead, welcomes the party’s return and a couple of flame gouts spring up just to accentuate the ambience. The Orogs withdraw seemingly in fear of their own public address system and Bizzle pursues them to the door. Bizzle can’t perceive anything beyond the doorway until Nanny opens the door as uncondescendingly as possible.
Beyond the door a goopy, acidy, green pool waits uninvitingly. A door creaks open and a girly scream follows a green flash. Ominous laughter follows that, and then General Kitté emerges with two major Orcs. Strings, mindful of the mission, asks Kitté for an inventory of magic on site for his report. Kitté gesticulates at the surroundings and declares this the Lair of the Dynasty of Death. “Dynasty of Death!” chant the Orcs. For a better explanation the adventurers must meet with the master right through those doors. Now. He’s waiting.
Faced with the obvious choice of proceeding or leaving, the adventurers use their soft skills to guide them. Strings’s insight informs him these guys are either lying or telling the truth. Nanny keenly perceives the localized magic emanates from a person or a thing, not the lair itself. Stache sizes up General Kitté and figures the group could definitely take him in a fair fight. Batty’s insight informs her that Kitté believes he speaks the truth, that the master really is waiting impatiently.
General Kitté escorts the willing party in but only to a point, refusing to go further. That sounds pretty fishy but narrative momentum carries the party to the top of a staircase and they find themselves teleported to the top of a mountain, standing some distance from Lich Craig the Insidiously Undead. Craig pulls back his hood and sleeves revealing some of his ill skeletal lich appendages for which he blames the R&S team.
While Strings viciously mocks Craig about not being himself when he’s hungry and Stache calls a storm to the mountain with a glorious lightning bolt striking Craig, Bizzle and Nanny dash at him with some difficulty across the terrain and Batty ninja shadow steps to him. Craig sends a fireball to burn Stache and Strings but misses Batty with his fancy flaming sword of green.
With Nanny, Bizzle, and Batty surrounding his person, Craig uses his legendary disruption of life. All three remain standing but universally agree the legendary action is indeed impressively disruptive to life.
Nanny sneaks an attack, Stache encores his lightning storm, and Batty critically places the point of her rapier right in the Lich’s constitution and strength chakras. Craig extends his bony hand and grabs Nanny’s neck to paralyze her with his touch, but bardic inspiration and her uncanny dodging allow her to narrowly avoid paralysis.
Craig jumps across to another boulder and appears to disappear. Strings replenishes Nanny’s bardic inspiration and his own health with an R&S brand healing potion, now with antioxidant cinnamon. Nanny enjoys a refreshing R&S healing potion as well. Bizzle jumps to Craig’s last observed location and makes a perfect cut which nothing visible or invisible could have possibly evaded. Stache drops his finest bolt of lightning in the same location but it’s Strings who glimpses the shadow from that bolt and points out to Batty where Craig lurks invisibly. She drops him.
Bizzle collects Craig’s head believing for some reason that a lich can’t return without a head, but he doesn’t find the green sword to loot for the mission scribe. Bizzle hears, “This is not the last you’ll see of me!”
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Big Uranium Redstone Powered Ship (B.U.R.P.S.) Revisions and Addendums
1 Extend arc masts and summon Jeff the Elemental. Note: maintain lever to prevent inadvertant release and mayhem
2 Toggle port portholes on cannon deck
3 Toggle starboard orbic cannon volley
4 Starboard orbic cannon volley
5 Port orbic cannon volley
6 Summon handheld orbic cannons
7 Steering
8 Energy deflector shields
9 [untested]
10 Tesla coil attack